Thalassocracy

A thalassocracy (from Greek language θάλασσα (thalassa), meaning "sea", and κρατεῖν (kratein), meaning "to rule", giving θαλασσοκρατία (thalassokratia), "rule of the sea") is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea (such as the Phoenician network of merchant cities) or a seaborne empire. Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories: Phoenician Tyre, Sidon and Carthage or Srivijaya and Majapahit in Southeast Asia. One can distinguish this traditional sense of thalassocracy from an "empire", where the state's territories, though possibly linked principally or solely by the sea lanes, generally extend into mainland interiors: the Bruneian Empire (1368–1888) in Asia. Compare to tellurocracy  ( ) - land-based hegemony.

The term thalassocracy can also simply refer to naval supremacy, in either military or commercial senses of the word supremacy. The Ancient Greeks first used the word thalassocracy to describe the government of the Minoan civilization, whose power depended on its navy.Herodotus distinguishes sea-power from land-power and spoke of the need to counter the Phoenician thalassocracy by developing a Greek "empire of the sea".

There are many ancient examples besides those mentioned above, such as the Delian League. Aside from this example, which was an empire based primarily on naval power and control of waterways and not on any land possessions, the Middle Ages saw its fair share of thalassocracies, often land-based empires which controlled the sea. Among the most famous is the Republic of Venice, conventionally divided in the fifteenth century into the Dogado of Venice and the Lagoon, the Stato di Terraferma of Venetian holdings in northern Italy, and the Stato da Màr of the Venetian outlands bound by the sea:

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