How to Use territorial waters in a Sentence

territorial waters

plural noun
  • Nor does the right to life change depending on whether killings took place in territorial waters or on the high seas.
    — Mary Ellen O'Connell, The Conversation, 4 Sep. 2025
  • The strait is in the territorial waters of both Oman and Iran.
    — ABC News, 8 Apr. 2026
  • The balloon is now out of Hawaii’s airspace and territorial waters.
    — Mike Brest, Washington Examiner, 1 May 2023
  • The sub grounds on rocks within sight of the Sweden’s coast, deep in its territorial waters, and near to its biggest naval base.
    — John Hopewell, Variety, 27 Jan. 2026
  • But the officer was plotting the position of the boats on the wrong territorial waters map.
    — Megan Rose, ProPublica, 24 June 2019
  • Securing a government’s sign-off to enter its territorial waters can take a month or more.
    — Ramin Skibba, Scientific American, 27 May 2026
  • The bill would provide benefits to veterans who served on ships in territorial waters off the coast of Vietnam.
    — Denise Coffey, Courant Community, 19 June 2018
  • China’s live-fire drills in the strait would mark a direct challenge to what Taiwan defines as its coastline and territorial waters.
    — New York Times, 3 Aug. 2022
  • The yacht, said the YCG, was not flying a flag and was sailing in Yemeni territorial waters.
    — Michael Verdon, Robb Report, 2 May 2023
  • The missile was apparently fired on high angle to avoid reaching the territorial waters of Japan.
    — Kim Tong-Hyung and Mari Yamaguchi, USA TODAY, 24 Mar. 2022
  • Any ship that intends to even be in the territorial waters must first stop in the Falkland Islands for a Sami sniff-down.
    — Discover Magazine, 14 Oct. 2024
  • The majority of fins in the trade come from sharks in territorial waters, and dozens of countries have enacted full or partial bans on shark finning, shark fishing, or shark fin soup.
    — National Geographic, 25 Nov. 2020
  • Some First Nations in Canada have protested the presence of net pens in their territorial waters.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 8 July 2018
  • Both Turkey and Greece claim territorial waters in the Aegean reaching six nautical miles from their coasts.
    — Paul Tugwell, Bloomberg.com, 11 Sep. 2020
  • While Iran and Oman have their territorial waters in the strait, it’s viewed as an international waterway all ships can ply.
    — Jon Gambrell, Chicago Tribune, 14 Mar. 2026
  • While Iran and Oman have their territorial waters in the strait, it’s viewed as an international waterway all ships can ply.
    — Jon Gambrell, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2026
  • The flight details suggested that the missile was fired on a higher-than-usual angle to avoid reaching the territorial waters of Japan.
    — Time, 24 Mar. 2022
  • One of the routes goes through Danish territorial waters and would require permission from the country’s foreign ministry.
    — Frank Jordans, The Seattle Times, 25 Mar. 2019
  • This indicated the missile was fired on a higher-than-usual angle to avoid reaching the territorial waters of Japan.
    — Kim Tong-Hyung and Mari Yamaguchi, Anchorage Daily News, 24 Mar. 2022
  • The vessel and the crew are still held, Houthi officials said, pending a legal case for breaching Yemen’s territorial waters.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2022
  • For decades, China’s government has been declaring that tiny spits of land in the sea are in fact islands, entitled to territorial waters that extend out for miles.
    — Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2022
  • China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, says the strategic waterway is part of its territorial waters.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 13 Sep. 2025
  • Since the Ukraine invasion, Latvia has increased surveillance of its airspace, land and territorial waters, the ministry said.
    — Paulina Villegas, Washington Post, 24 Sep. 2023
  • However, no warplanes or warships had entered Taiwan’s territorial waters or airspace so far, Hsieh said.
    — Simone McCarthy, CNN Money, 29 Dec. 2025
  • Both sides traded strikes amid efforts last week to open Oman’s territorial waters in the strait to both inbound and outbound ship traffic from the Persian Gulf.
    — Jon Gambrell, Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2026
  • The research also found that many of the open-ocean species in the fin trade, such as blue sharks, thresher sharks, and oceanic white tip sharks, were likely caught within territorial waters, not in the open oceans, as expected.
    — David Shiffman, National Geographic, 27 Oct. 2020
  • The incident took place in Russian territorial waters north of the Arctic Circle.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 3 July 2019
  • The Chinese ships were still outside the Australian territorial waters that extend 12 nautical miles from its shores.
    — Matt Robison, Newsweek, 25 Feb. 2025
  • The three leaks were discovered in Swedish and Danish territorial waters, with one located near the island of Bornholm.
    — Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 27 Sep. 2022
  • The British Navy, meanwhile, reported a large explosion at a tanker anchored in Iraqi territorial waters.
    — Spencer Kimball, CNBC, 6 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'territorial waters.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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