TERRITORIAL WATERS

(Legal) (1) The waters under the sovereign jurisdiction of a nation or state including both marginal sea and inland waters. (2) In international law, waters subject to the jurisdiction of a sovereign nation, as distinguished from High Seas, and consisting of waters within the nation, waters that are boundaries between nations, and coastal waters. Such jurisdiction extends also to the air space above and to the bed beneath those waters. Jurisdiction over boundary waters, such as lakes or rivers, is fixed by treaties; the limit of the jurisdiction of each nation is usually an imaginary line drawn through the center of such waters. In the United States each state exercises jurisdiction over waters wholly within the state, but streams forming part of the system of interstate waterways are subject to federal government control. Also see Interstate Compact.