Lake Superior is apparently not water
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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They should not have used the term "water access" when they meant "ocean access."
Ocean ships sail to Duluth MN all the time so any state with shoreline on the great lakes has a direct route to the ocean.
It feels wrong, but landlocked typically refers to coastline on the ocean.
If you use navigability to the ocean, then the states on the Mississippi River also aren't landlocked.
There isn't a word for "c'mon, the great lakes have proper freighters and a coast guard presence. Michigan is obviously not landlocked".
Not just the Mississippi. The US happens to have the most miles of navigable rivers and coastlines, as well as the most natural deep bays, of any country in the world.
If any water counts, then almost everywhere that people live at all has "water access". Lakes, however big, aren't the ocean.
Landlocked usually refers to navigation not access to water. For that purpose the Great Lakes count.
You can take a boat from Nebraska to the ocean via river so it's not land locked either.
Then so do the North Saskatchewan, South Saskatchewan, and Saskatchewan rivers. There’s cities on those rivers today because back in the day it was easy access between them.
You’ll find no argument from me. If you can get from there to the ocean with a sufficiently large vessel, I’d say it’s not landlocked.
The state/province borders are pretty arbitrary themselves, there’s a lot of nuance lost in this simplified infographic.
Going by that then the states on the great lakes aren't landlocked either since you can get to the ocean from them
Yeah, a good deal of early US/Canadian history revolved around who had access to which waterways that could get to the ocean, who built canals from where to where, etc.
Like, lakes and rivers are still generally fresh water, not salt water... but they have always been used as basically logistics highways, by basically all peoples, everywhere, forever, before the advent of planes trains and automobiles... and a pretty huge amount of freight still does get moved around on thr Great Lakes... though of course recent tariffs are probably greatly complicating and lessening that.
https://greatlakes-seaway.com/en/navigating-the-seaway/seaway-map/
This a cool pic of the profile of the Great Lakes System of locks and the elevation changes. It's an amazing set of engineering over the last couple hundred years that's still being upgraded and expanded.
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It's crazy how much money we spend on zero-point energy generation just to teleport container ships from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
Oh so you'd prefer we just send the ships over Niagara Falls instead? Silly NZPTIMBY folks (No Zero-Point Teleportation In My Back Yard) 😛
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Seriously, fucking gigantic joke calling michigan land locked!
I live in northern Ohio and I don’t feel very landlocked when I look out at Lake Erie haha. I imagine Michiganders feel that but I’m three sides of the state
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south of most of the great lakes doesn't seem to count.... oh I see now. The great beaches of Hudson Bay count as ocean access, no matter how little ships or beachgoers there are.
ITT: A bunch of people who have no idea what landlocked means.
Yes. Also folks who have never seen a container ship the size of a hotel pull up to the shipping pier in one of these "landlocked" states.
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"What about the pond in my backyard? cHeCKmAtE"
Ah, Chicago, famously landlocked. I guess it's not the ocean. But you can get there from the lakes.
Well that's true of nearly anywhere next to a lake or river, right? I think we'd count Manaus in Brazil ~~or Kazan in Russia~~ as being landlocked despite being next to large navigable rivers that go to the ocean
Different definitions of the word "landlocked" have different meanings. There's one sense that's more relating to logistics, where a country/state/whatever is landlocked if it doesn't have something that functions like a port, not just a dock, or could if desired.
In that sense, Chicago is not landlocked because they have a port that can receive freight. Other places on the great lakes could although they might not due to whatever reason.
The other definition has more to do with controlling access to oceanic waters. Chicagos access to the ocean is at the mercy of Canada and all the states that control the st Lawrence seaway.
So if you're discussing economics you care that Bolivia can get freight shipping. If you're discussing geopolitics you care that Bolivia needs to form agreements with other countries to ensure that access remains uninterrupted.
Michigan, surrounded by water on 3 sides gets landlocked status. Salty ocean must be the signifier
I guess, but the great lakes are connected to the ocean via the st Lawrence seaway
They are connected via a seaway that is controlled by other political entities.
Holy fuck this is the dumbest comment section in the history of Lemmy. "Nebraska isn't landlocked because it has a river."
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This isn't taking altitude into account at all. When the ocean starts coming to you, you don't want to be in Nebraska.
The mean elevation of the state is 2600 feet above sea level. The point of lowest elevation in the state is still 840 feet above sea level. According to National Geographic and the USGS, if all of the ice in the world melted, the rise in sea level would be approximately 215-230 feet. While, obviously, the second and third order effects are a different kettle of fish, from a submergence standpoint, Nebraska will be just fine.
Everybody talks about ice melting. Nobody talks about the water in the ocean expanding from heating up. Prepare for water world, pal.
This map is the entire burden of proof I need to declare we should kick Pennsylvania out of the east coast and relegate it to a flyover
You know what state used to be the bottom of the ocean? Nebraska. I think the state hates the ocean too xD
What about if you don't want to live in North America?
Interesting idea, but the map clearly ends at the N. American borders. I'm not sure there's anything else out there.
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Nebraska: Thlassaphobia capital of the world!
Wisconsin is definitely not double landlocked, direct access to the oceans via the Mississippi River and through the Great Lakes.
Can confirm: From South Dakota, have thalassophobia
“Surfin’ in Nebraska” is apparently a euphemism for cluelessness.
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