BOUNDARIES OF THE UNITED STATES, Exterior and Interior, and Dis putes Regarding. As laid down by the United States Supreme Court in the insular decisions of 1901 (see INsuuis CASES), the term United States has three applications, (1) to the combined area of the States of the Union ; (2) to the combined area of the States and the Territories which Congress has incor porated into the Union; and (3) to the com bined area of the States, Territories and de pendencies. Hence, under the last interpreta tion, the United States includes not only the continental States in the middle of North America, but also Alaska, the Canal Zone and the islands in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Sea Boundaries.— International law gen erally concedes that a country's jurisdiction extends out to sea three nautical miles from low water mark and this applies also to that country's dependencies. (See INTERNATIONAL LAW; HIGH SEAS; MARE CLAUSU ) . There
may be some exceptions to this rule, however, as in the case of a bay more than six miles wide. Thus the waters of Delaware and Chesa peake bays, as first clearly stated in 1793 and never since disputed, are included in the juris diction of this country, thou their mouths are more than six miles wi e. Long Island Sound is nowhere more than three miles wide between islands and therefore United States jurisdiction over it has not been disputed.
ntil 1893 the United States claimed that the eastern part of Bering Sea was a closed sea under the boundary limits described in the Russian treaty of 1867, and therefore that foreign vessels might be seized either within or without the three-mile limit. But the arbi tration tribunal in its decision of 15 Aug. 1893 ruled against the United States. See BERING