Only Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan are doubly landlocked countries.

A landlocked country has no coastline on the open ocean. A doubly landlocked country has the additional constraint that every country touching it is itself landlocked. Only two sovereign states fit that definition: Liechtenstein in Europe and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. The category describes the arrangement of international borders, not simply distance from the nearest beach.

Liechtenstein borders Switzerland and Austria. Neither has an ocean coast, so a land journey from Liechtenstein to such a coast must cross at least two international borders. The country lies in the Alpine Rhine valley and has close economic links with Switzerland. Its small size does not create the classification; the coastal status of its two immediate neighbors does.

Uzbekistan borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. All five are landlocked under the open-ocean definition. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have Caspian coastlines, but the Caspian is an enclosed inland water body rather than an ocean basin. Counting that shoreline as an ocean outlet would erase the distinction the term is intended to capture.

The two countries reached this position through very different histories. Liechtenstein became doubly landlocked when the political map around Austria changed after the First World War and Austria no longer possessed its former empire’s Adriatic access. The mountains and rivers had not suddenly moved: a change in state boundaries and sovereignty altered the geographical category.

Uzbekistan became a sovereign state in 1991 as the Soviet Union dissolved. Before that, it was a constituent republic within a much larger country that had extensive ocean coastlines. Independence transformed internal Soviet administrative boundaries into international borders. The resulting transport geography made the coastal status of neighboring republics important in a new way for customs, diplomacy, and commercial access.

Double landlocking does not mean all goods must physically change vehicles twice, nor that air travel is impossible. Trains, trucks, pipelines, and aircraft can link inland states to international markets. What matters is dependence on transit arrangements beyond a single neighboring jurisdiction. Customs procedures, infrastructure compatibility, political relations, and route security can be as consequential as the straight-line distance to a port.

A river connection should not be confused with an ocean coastline. Switzerland and Austria have navigable waterways linked to wider European transport networks, while Central Asian states use rail corridors and other routes to reach ports. Such connections can reduce practical isolation without changing the formal classification. Equally, two countries sharing the same label need not face the same costs: Liechtenstein’s access within a dense European transport system differs sharply from Uzbekistan’s much larger regional setting.

Double landlocking concerns a chain of borders between a sovereign state and an ocean coast. It is not simply a description of being far inland. Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan have different sizes, neighbors and transport networks, yet fit the same political-geographical category. The shared feature is that their immediately surrounding countries are themselves landlocked.