A maritime power is able to easily control their coast, and exert influence upon both nearby and far countries.
A nation that dominates the world navally is known as a maritime superpower.
Many countries that become maritime powers become strong to defend themselves from an extant threat, as the USSR did during the Cold War to defend itself from the United States Navy.
[3] Its status as an island nation that needed naval protection against Continental European states, Britain's fleet of naval and trade ships had already become several times larger than that of its closest rival before the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
Britain maximised the economic advantage of the Industrial Revolution only by using the same naval power to convince or to force other countries to purchase its factory-manufactured goods.