In the sense that countries as we know of now have existed in the last few hundred years.
Let s discount origins as Romans, Vikings, Bretons.
Let us restrict ourselves to countries that went to the high seas as nation states for their kings or country as in the sea farers from the British empire, Portuguese, french and Dutch tradesmen.
Include wars too.
So which country has most of its citizens perishing in the seas?
Probably India-Pakistan-Bangladesh countries.
Given the periodic monsoons & floods here that wash millions into the sea to drown, I think they would be near the top.
I’d hazard a good guess that it’s the English/British based on sheer man-miles sailed if nothing else.
Never heard of people being washed into the seas due to monsoons. In large numbers.
In any case drowning in rivers does not count.
What does this mean? You only want to count people who died in international waters while serving their country? If so, that would be whoever lost the most sailors in war. Japan or Germany, probably. I’m guessing Japan just based on WWII numbers.
Today? Many cruise ships use a lot of Phillipino help. I would bet they are up there if not #1.
But those cruise ships almost never sink.
Monsoons don’t kill people in large numbers, but I believe some cyclones (hurricanes) in Bangladesh have. But yes, probably drowned in rivers, or perhaps the sea, but no one did an autopsy afterward to say which.
Cruise ships do not have large numbers of sailors die, as a general rule.
For the OP, I agree that it’s probably a contest between Britain and Japan.
Little thing called the 1970 Cyclone? 1970 Bhola cyclone - Wikipedia
Inspired the Concert for Bangladesh? George Harrison?
Anyway, probably the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster ever. The wiki mentions 500,000 dead; I’ve read up to 1 million.
Japanese naval war dead have to be up there.
Edit: how’re the Mongol casualties from the Divine Wind classified? Primarily Chinese? Mongolian? Further cheerful thoughts: what’s the estimated death toll from the Vietnamese boat people, circa 1975-77? My understanding is that Thai and other pirates cut a horrific swath through them.
How about tsunamis, where the high seas come to the victims?
Seeing that the OP doesn’t seem to include monsoons and tsunamis, it’d have to be the British, who had a long dependence on trade and navy to maintain their empire.
Even leaving aside cruise ships, there are more merchant sailors from the Philippines than any other country on earth. Whatever the yearly casualties are on cargo vessels, most likely there are a bunch of Filipinos among that statistic.
OK, that would seem not to apply to the OP after rereading it. The OP is specifying seamen who are acting on orders of their government, i.e. basically military. I would have to assume either Spain or England.
In the modern era, I’m going with Vietnam. Estimates of deaths at sea of Vietnamese fleeing the Communists range between 200,000-400,000. Going back to WWII, Japan lost 414,000 sailors. In contrast, the British merchant marine forces lost about 36,000 people (couldn’t find numbers for the Navy, but its losses come nowhere close to Japan’s), Germany lost about 138,000 sailors, and the U.S. lost about 62,000.
That’s an awful lot of deaths. I would have guessed lower, in every case.
Let’s not forget Japan. Lots of islands, lots of small ships.
The OP refers to the “high seas” and “sea farers” so I think that’s discounting the fishermen.
“Records [from WW2] indicate 50,758 Royal Navy deaths as well as 30,248 Merchant Navy deaths, and include figures from the losses of Newfoundland and Southern Rhodesia.”
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/world-war-two-naval-losses
That’s naval personnel. Not all would have been lost at sea. Besides naval air crews from land bases, a significant number of naval personnel were killed in land combat as part of island garrisons. For example IJN forces on Luzon alone in 1945 totaled over 30,000, service troops and the Manila Defense Force, almost all of whom were eventually killed in land combat and air raids. Also the total IJN personnel loss varies by source. The wikipedia page for Imperial Navy gives a figure around 300,000 which is from the book “Kaigun” by Evans and Peattie.
OTOH it doesn’t include Japanese merchant mariners, other civilians and Army personnel killed in the sinking of Japanese merchant ships. This link says the total killed in the sinking of Japanese merchant ships in the Pacific War was 232,000, though that would have some overlap with the IJN total as to naval personnel killed while being transported or serving as gun crews on merchant ships. It’s also said to include Allied POW’s killed in the sinking of Japanese merchant ships. The link also implies though that it’s a bottom-up number from individual ships’ histories so might not be complete.
One of the more notable losses by Germany on the “high seas” was Operation Hannibal- the evacuation of military personnel and civilians on the Baltic towards the west.
Some big losses of life. But exact data is impossible given the chaotic situation.
There’s a Wikipedia page on loss of life incidents at sea but it is far from complete. OTOH, they think that over 100k people were lost in the failed Mongol invasion of Japan. That a now-landlocked country would rank in such a stat is interesting.
Coastal waters ≠ high seas. The monsoon casualties referred to above don’t count.
High seas n.pl. (nautical) Regions of the ocean that are far from shore, especially those regions that do not belong to any country.
My guess would be the nation that historically has sent the most people out in ships on the high seas, especially in the past eras when ships were more sinkable: the UK. Probably the US Navy and merchant marine put more people on the high seas in actual numbers today, but the ships are probably less sinkable than when they were made of wood, caulked with tar and oakum, and deploying big sails, with masts making a higher center of gravity, that made them more likely to capsize in gales.