You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) By Enclaves and exclaves are intriguing geographical anomalies that defy the typical notion of contiguous territory An enclave is a piece of land that belongs to one country or region that’s entirely surrounded by the territory of another Imagine an island within a lake – that’s an enclave but on a much larger scale a small African country with a population of around 2.2 million is a prime example of an independent enclave wholly surrounded by another country – South Africa are portions of a state that are geographically separated from the main part by the territory of one or more other states They are like detatched limbs extending outwards is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland separated from the main Russian territory by more than 350 kilometres and beneficial geopolitically to Russia as its only ice-free port on the Baltic Sea and an outpost of Russian soft power The border between the Netherlands and Belgium through the village of Baarle features a unique and intricate pattern of enclaves and exclaves there are eight Dutch exclaves (called Baarle-Nassau) within the pockets of Belgian territory This complex border arrangement stems from centuries of land swaps and treaties between local aristocratic families The resulting patchwork of territories presents unique challenges for residents with the drinking age differing from street to street A territory’s geographical position and borders can significantly affect trade transportation and even access to basic services Gaza (a sort of enclave as it borders Israel and Egypt) serves as a stark example of how enclaves can exacerbate geopolitical tensions and increase vulnerability for their inhabitants; their isolated position coupled with Israel’s control over key border crossings has severely restricted the movement of people and the flow of humanitarian aid during the recent conflict enclaves and exclaves serve as reminders of the fluid and contested nature of territory borders and sovereignty – an interplay between humans and their geographical realities Filed Under: Science & Environment Tagged With: Click Here for SUBSCRIPTION details Want to access Geographical on your tablet or smartphone Android or PC/Mac image below to download the app for your device Copyright © 2025 · Site by Syon Media In a quiet corner of northern Europe there exists a geopolitical anomaly where many buildings have an international border running right through them It’s a place where a person might be in the same bed as his or her spouse A place where people move their front doors for economic advantage They look like cartographic amoebaeNot far from the Belgian border the Netherlands municipality of Baarle-Nassau is home to nearly 30 Belgian enclaves • The strange US-Canada border dispute • The village divided by a border • The library straddling two nations This whole confused mess dates to the Middle Ages when parcels of land were divvied up between different local aristocratic families Baarle-Hertog once belonged to the Duke (hertog is the Dutch word for ‘duke’) of Brabant while Baarle-Nassau was the property of the medieval House of Nassau When Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1831 the two nations were left with an international muddle so complicated that successive regimes were deterred from defining exact jurisdictions The borders were not actually finalised until 1995 when the last remaining piece of no man’s land was attributed to Belgium it’s not easy to tell the territories apart as they look no different from any typical red-brick small Dutch town Around three-quarters of the region’s roughly 9,000 total residents are Dutch passport holders and the Dutch municipality also has by far the larger share of land (76 sq km compared to 7.5 sq km) But after a while the differences become apparent albeit with the help of pavement markings – white crosses with ‘NL’ on one side and ‘B’ on the other – and house numbers which are marked with the appropriate flag The Dutch properties are more uniform in appearance than their Belgian counterparts and Dutch pavements are lined with lime trees their limbs carefully pruned and braided like vines The Belgian areas tend to be more architecturally diverse chairman of the Baarle tourist office (himself a Dutch passport holder Although French is taught in the Belgian schools Dutch is the primary language of both communities “With the Belgians it is more like a dialect and the less prescriptive approach to residential landscaping on the Belgian side has led to a tendency on the part of some of the Dutch to look down on their neighbours “Back in the days when the schools emptied out at the same time but that all stopped in the 1960s when the town’s two mayors (one Dutch and one Belgian) altered the school timings so that they didn’t overlap and combined the youth club to promote positive interactions Today, many residents of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog have dual citizenship and both a Belgian and a Dutch passport. The peaceful interweaving of the two nations has attracted the interest of advisors to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an example of how two different communities can live harmoniously together So is all this border obscurity to Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog’s benefit hotels and cafes we have would be more suited to a town of 40,000 rather than 9,000 And when the Belgian shops have to close on Sunday The complexities can still prove difficult especially when it comes to infrastructure Building permits can be particularly tricky Belgium had to seek Dutch permission to build part of their mayoral building – the part delineated by the brightly illuminated border strip running right through the meeting room Everything is a matter of negotiationMuch of Tilburg’s time is devoted to sorting out the delivery of services – education infrastructure – in co-operation with his Dutch counterpart Resurfacing the roads is his particular bugbear as roads can cross borders several times within a few hundred metres And then there are issues like the planning of sewage pipes “The road under which the pipe is being installed may be all Belgian but who pays if the pipework has to be enlarged thanks to Dutch houses nearby where the pavement is Belgian but the light shines on Dutch windows?” Tilburg said 98 of them will turn out to be no problem – after plenty of discussions Given that Belgium’s planning laws are less restrictive than the Netherlands’ there are clear advantages to having a front door in Belgium as Kees de Hoon (no relation to the Dutch mayor) explained when I met him at his border-straddling apartment block A Dutch passport-holder living in Baarle-Hertog Kees wanted to redevelop the original building but the front door was in the Netherlands and he couldn’t get planning permission from the Dutch town hall He solved the problem by simply installing a second front door adjacent to the first but on the other side of the border So now with two front doors to the building Although loophole-exploiting isn’t as common as it once was I couldn’t help imagining the glory days of cross-border rule-bending The cattle that mysteriously changed fields overnight The shop stock that was acquired in one country and sold in the other without bothering the tax man “It is a subject the locals like to talk about,” agreed van Gool “and it was done on both sides of the border.” That doesn’t mean the two jurisdictions are without friction The drinking age in the Netherlands is 18 but Belgians can legally drink beer and wine at 16 so if a Dutch barkeeper refuses to serve a crowd of teenagers they can just thumb their nose at him and walk across the road And the many fireworks shops in the Belgian parts of town are a source of irritation to the Dutch authorities the sale and carriage of fireworks is illegal (except for around the New Year) So when I came to the end of my November visit in Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog I had to face Dutch police who were scrutinising everyone leaving town in this laboratory of trans-frontier co-operation there are still a few outstanding issues to be resolved Places That Don’t Belong is a BBC Travel series that delves into the playful side of geography taking you through the history and identity of geo-political anomalies and places along the way Join more than three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". 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Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker many buildings and streets in the town of Baarle are simultaneously located inside the Netherlands and Belgium This unusual frontier zigzags through the town creating an erratically-shaped Belgian enclave that somehow contains even smaller parcels of Dutch land Baarle looks relatively normal and resembles other smaller settlements located on the Dutch-Belgian border that many streets around the village feature lines marked with crosses that run between slabs labelled with the letters B and NL These markings delineate where one country ends and the other begins reminding everyone who passes over them that they have entered into another sovereign state altogether the Netherlands | © Victor Maschek / Shutterstock It is quite common for these lines to run straight into buildings or lie horizontally across roads, splitting public and private property right down the middle. Thankfully, the Netherlands and Belgium are both located in the Schengen Area which means that their borders are completely seamless making it possible for travellers (and residents) to walk through Baarle without stopping for passport checks The town actually contains two separate municipalities called Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog which are administered by the Netherlands and Belgium As its Belgian sections lie roughly five kilometres away from Belgium-proper they are collectively recognised as an enclave several stretches of Belgian land in Baarle encircle plots that are claimed by the Netherlands but was denied planning permission from Baarle’s Dutch town hall bypassed this decision by adding an additional front door to the Belgian side of his property It is also said that bars in Baarle (at some point in recent history) would continue serving alcohol after licensing hours were over in the Netherlands by simply moving their tables and chairs across the border to Belgium A man is standing at the border between Belgium and the Netherlands | © Kokklang / Shutterstock As the bank’s entrance and vault were located in the Netherlands and Belgium respectively it was impossible for authorities from either country to conduct full investigations without stepping outside their national jurisdictions Eventually the Dutch and Belgian police joined forces and closed down the corrupt bank for good Thankfully Baarle rarely witnesses this type of criminal activity and most residents spend their daily lives jumping between the Netherlands and Belgium without questioning their hometown’s incredibly complicated borders Sign up to our newsletter to save up to $800 on our unique trips See privacy policy About the author Tom Coggins writes about culture and travel See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in Summer Guides & Tips The Best European Cities to Visit in November See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in July Guides & Tips The Most Naturally Beautiful Destinations in the Netherlands Guides & Tips The Best European Cities to Visit in December See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in Autumn Art 6 Highlights of Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum Guides & Tips This Is Europe's Ultimate Road Trip See & Do Lesser-Known Summer Destinations to Visit in Europe See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in September Guides & Tips Beat the Crowds with these Alternative Summer Destinations See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in October US: +1 (678) 967 4965 | UK: +44 (0)1630 35000 tripssupport@theculturetrip.com © Copyright 2025 The Culture Trip Ltd The Netherlands will begin implementing new border checks on Monday in an effort to curb migration and human trafficking a move that has drawn sharp criticism from dozens of mayors and members of the Tweede Kamer Concerns have been raised about the feasibility and transparency of the plan spearheaded by Asylum and Migration Minister Marjolein Faber aims to empower the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar) to conduct targeted border inspections based on risk analyses These checks will take place at selected crossings rather than setting up broad checkpoints which the government says will help avoid long delays Minister Faber defended the measure during a cabinet meeting on Friday These checks will stop people who have no right to be here." She expressed confidence in the enhanced capabilities of the Marechaussee which will be supported by an additional 150 million euros allocated for personnel However, concerns over limited capacity remain "The Marechaussee can only monitor a fraction of the crossings," admitted Faber she assured that the allocated funds and new technologies would enable more efficient inspections The announcement has sparked discontent among local governments led by Marjon de Hoon-Veelenturf of Baarle-Nassau submitted a letter outlining their objections Key issues include the potential disruption to daily cross-border commutes and a lack of clarity surrounding the implementation of the checks Faber met with representatives from border regions including mayors from Oldambt and Winterswijk While the minister promised to involve local leaders in evaluations after three and six months she acknowledged that earlier consultation would have been beneficial "She has committed to better communication moving forward," said a spokesperson for Baarle-Nassau The implementation plan has also faced intense scrutiny in the Tweede Kamer Lawmakers have accused Faber of failing to provide adequate details about the operation and the chamber has zero information on how this will be managed," said D66 MP Anne-Marijke Podt during a heated debate on Thursday claiming there is "nothing secretive" about the operation opposition leaders expressed frustration at her perceived unwillingness to address concerns "I find it unacceptable that you show so little motivation to properly inform us," Podt said with SP leader Jimmy Dijk calling the government’s asylum policy short-sighted The tension escalated when Faber rebuked Dijk prompting criticism from GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans who described her conduct as unbecoming of a government minister Minister Faber maintained that the measure is a necessary step to address unauthorized migration and smuggling "This is about ensuring the safety and integrity of our borders," she said adding that the Marechaussee has systems in place to prioritize high-risk areas for inspections The Belgian-Dutch border was established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1843 which mostly confirmed boundaries which were a few centuries old (as the separation of Belgium and the Netherlands has its origin in the religious wars of the 16th century) it proved impossible to reach a definitive agreement both governments opted to allocate nationality separately to each of the 5.732 parcels of land in the 50 km between border posts 214 and 215 These parcels ‘coagulated’ into a veritable archipelago of 20-odd Belgian exclaves in and around Baarle some of these Belgian exclaves completely surround pieces of Dutch territory Deliciously complicating this picture is a small enclave of Baarle-Nassau situated entirely within Belgium proper – and there’s even a Belgian parcel within a Dutch parcel within a Belgian enclave which in turn is surrounded entirely by Dutch territory… Numerous attempts have been made throughout the centuries to (literally) rectify the situation but they have obviously all failed – leaving the double entity of Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog with some absurd folklore This map taken from this page of previously mentioned website Updated version of an article originally published under the title "A Model for the Jordan Valley." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed annexation would cut the Jericho area and scattered other Palestinian villages off from the rest of the West Bank. You’ve probably never heard of Baarle-Hertog a Belgian territory consisting of an unremarkable three square miles in an otherwise unremarkable part of Europe things get interesting when you look at a map Baarle-Hertog contains about two dozen unconnected areas entirely surrounded by the Netherlands some of these territories in turn completely encircle parts of Dutch Baarle-Nassau In the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announced plans to annex the Jordan Valley which will in turn fragment parts of a future Palestinian state Baarle-Hertog challenges the dogmatic insistence that only a maximally contiguous Palestinian state can be viable The town provides a small-scale working model of how such a state will look and operate Baarle-Hertog challenges claims that only a contiguous Palestinian state can be viable When Netanyahu first proposed a Baarle-Hertog style approach to drawing borders in 2014 then in reference to annexing Israeli settlements completely surrounded by Palestinian land Representatives from the Belgian territory emphasized the peaceful nature of area compared to the Israeli-Palestinian theater no wall and no religious struggle,” and “We don’t walk around with hand grenades and don’t throw stones.” This sentiment was echoed by Vincent Braam Several interesting points arise from the European officials’ bewilderment the primary issue centers on peace rather than the size of the territory Baarle-Hertog is significantly smaller than a Palestinian state would be which would seem an intuitive objection to the analogy Points along the borders between Belgian Baarle-Hertog and Dutch Baarle-Nassau situations arose in which patrons of a restaurant straddling the border would need to move to one side at the time of other side’s mandatory business closing hour such situations would not arise in the Jordan Valley issues will probably center on municipal services In large Palestinian territories such as Jericho services would remain under Palestinian control Israel could continue to extend such services when most efficient If Israel can presently supply electricity to Gaza a belligerent territory governed by a terrorist organization it could just as easily continue to provide services to any fragmented Palestinian villages after peace has been achieved Palestinian areas of the Jordan Valley can remain distinctly Palestinian [...]A large Palestinian enclave consisting of Jericho and surrounding areas (designated as going to Palestine on the map presented by Netanyahu) and the scattered Palestinian villages in the Jordan Valley can remain distinctly Palestinian Just as Arab villages within Israel’s 1948 borders exist undisturbed despite being surrounded by Israeli-controlled territory the same can hold for Arab villages under Palestinian sovereignty surrounded by the Israeli-annexed Jordan Valley the common refrain on the Left is that annexing the Jordan Valley would severely threaten the two-state solution or usher in an apartheid regime against the Palestinians According to the organization’s own statistics only 80,000 Palestinians live in the region a minuscule fraction of the 4.7 million Palestinians living in the disputed territories and as little as 9,000 would fall outside of the Jericho enclave The vast majority of settled Jordan Valley Palestinians live in Jericho and surrounding areas which are already governed exclusively by the Palestinian Authority It may be time to unilaterally move toward a final status scenario that ensures secure borders for Israel While the geographic aspects of the annexation would not directly hinder a Palestinian state former chief of staff to Ehud Barak and lead negotiator at the 2000 Camp David talks just issued a scathing report on the consequences of any West Bank annexations He presents nightmare scenarios that would result ranging from sanctions against Israel to the collapse of the PA they presently have plenty of land available to use for their economy Matthew Mainen is a fellow at the Middle East Forum © 2025 Middle East Forum • E-mail: info@meforum.org • Tel: 1 (215) 546-5406 This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Sudan broke in two last year; now both sides are fighting Syria has split so many ways it's barely there Even Scotland is thinking of ditching Great Britain new borders — further evidence of our failure to amalgamate That's one way to think about borders — they're trouble the more the merrier — that under the right conditions borders add spice to our otherwise ho-hum lives But border boosters have one extraordinary case for their side May I introduce two villages: One is a Belgian town called Baarle-Hertog The other's a Dutch town called Baarle-Nassau The hunky yellow bit labeled "H1" (for Hartog) toward the bottom is mostly the Belgian town But notice those little white bits inside the yellow — labeled "N1 N3" — those are little patches of the Dutch town (N for Nassau) The two towns are not geographically separate and they are sprinkled together; so sometimes you've got bits of Belgium inside Dutch areas and sometimes Dutch patches inside Belgian neighborhoods much of Europe was a crazy quilt like this Princes would control a bunch of fields and forests They would swear fealty to one king or emperor then produce sons (who would divide the land) with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment kings to laws and parliaments; nations solidified and wiped away the clutter of little borders within Local differences were suppressed or erased That's what should have happened to our two towns But for some reason, writes Alastair Bonnet in his new book villages were swept cleanly into one nation or another but apparently — and no one can quite explain why — Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog escaped the broom a "living laboratory of medieval micro-borders." Some folks complained. In 1959, a Belgian cattle dealer, Sooy Van den Eynde, sued to reclaim a Dutch patch for Belgium, and the International Court of Justice transferring 12 hectares of Holland back to Belgium a border commission looked at all the various bits and announced that while they were indeed unusual That should have been the end of the story "of complicating an already complex situation." "How wide is the border itself?" people asked "How many centimeters thick is it?" If someone found a rare treasure (a buried necklace and beautiful teacup say) in a flower garden directly inside the border line "the custom has been that a property belongs to the country in which its street door is located "But what if the border runs through the door "the unsatisfactory outcome has been that the two parts of the building belong in different nations." (One imagines an angry spouse slamming a spoon on the table "I'm leaving for Belgium!" And then walking one step to the left.) When the tax rate in Holland became disadvantageous that's what people did; they shifted their doors "a few feet to the cheaper country." That is happening less often now as Belgium and Holland are both members of the European Union which has smoothed out tax rate differentials If you visit the Baarles (and Alastair Bonnett did) you wander the streets constantly wondering what country you're in by white painted crosses on the pavement." And still you can't be sure: "On one 160-meter stretch of Kapelstraat where visitors leave one large Belgian enclave only to pass through the borders of two nearby rectangular Belgium slivers I was able to walk in a straight line across five international borders in a minute," Bonnett writes many others) a walk through the Baarles would be a kick for 10 or 20 seconds Both villages have applied to be listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site because they believe they are a living monument to cartographic complexity "but I'm not sure [the Baarles] will ever attract many visitors .. But maybe it's what you don't see that UNESCO should honor who choose to point out their differences by drawing lines — more borders than almost anywhere else on Earth — and instead of keeping folks apart This post originally described Myanmar (also known as Burma) as having a "Muslim/Hindu split." That is incorrect. As the CIA World Factbook notes Myanmar's population is nearly 90 percent Buddhist with most of the remaining population Muslim or Christian Become an NPR sponsor Clothing store on Belgium-Netherlands border takes unique approach to crisis The owners of a clothing store straddling the border between Belgium and the Netherlands have been forced to close half of their shop and cordon it off to halt the spread of the coronavirus – while cheerfully keeping the part on Dutch territory open for business The Zeeman store in the municipality of Baarle-Nassau took the unique approach after the Belgian federal government ordered the shuttering of all non-essential stores None of the clothes on the Belgian side of the shop are available for purchase but the half of the store in the Netherlands continues to welcome customers as the Dutch government has only called for physical distancing A cordon has been erected within the shop to ensure that customers respect the respective national measures Marjon De Hoon, the mayor of the Dutch municipality of Baarle-Nassau, told the Flemish broadcaster VRT: “The square metres in Belgium just follow the Belgian measures The square metres in the Netherlands follow the Dutch measures.” ShowSymptoms are defined by the NHS as either: NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days to avoid spreading the infection outside the home anyone you live with who does not have symptoms can return to their normal routine they should stay at home for 7 days from the day their symptoms start. Even if it means they're at home for longer than 14 days If you live with someone who is 70 or over is pregnant or has a weakened immune system try to find somewhere else for them to stay for 14 days try to keep away from each other as much as possible if you no longer have a high temperature you can return to your normal routine stay at home until your temperature returns to normal you do not need to continue staying at home A cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone You can also leave the house to exercise – but stay at least 2 metres away from other people If you have symptoms of coronavirus, use the NHS 111 coronavirus service to find out what to do Source: NHS England on 23 March 2020 Thank you for your feedback.A spokesman for Zeeman said that many of the big-selling items were available on the Dutch side while men’s shirts were on the Belgian side and therefore strictly not for sale She said: “We show our solidarity with Belgium by keeping our store closed on that side but we are happy that we can now provide customers with the necessary things.” Asked by the regional television broadcaster Omroep Brabant about the availability of the goods on show on the Belgian side the spokesperson said: “Those people have to [buy] that via the website or another store we have looked for a solution in which we can still be of use to society.” '+n.escapeExpression("function"==typeof(o=null!=(o=r(e,"eyebrowText")||(null!=l?r(l,"eyebrowText"):l))?o:n.hooks.helperMissing)?o.call(null!=l?l:n.nullContext||{},{name:"eyebrowText",hash:{},data:t,loc:{start:{line:28,column:63},end:{line:28,column:78}}}):o)+" \n '+(null!=(o=c(e,"if").call(r,null!=l?c(l,"cta2PreText"):l,{name:"if",hash:{},fn:n.program(32,t,0),inverse:n.noop,data:t,loc:{start:{line:63,column:20},end:{line:63,column:61}}}))?o:"")+"\n"+(null!=(o=(c(e,"ifAll")||l&&c(l,"ifAll")||n.hooks.helperMissing).call(r,null!=l?c(l,"cta2Text"):l,null!=l?c(l,"cta2Link"):l,{name:"ifAll",hash:{},fn:n.program(34,t,0),inverse:n.noop,data:t,loc:{start:{line:64,column:20},end:{line:70,column:30}}}))?o:"")+" Explore the unique village of Baarle-Hertog cut by a bizarre series of international borders separating the Belgian enclaves from the Dutch ones Visit the remarkable Baarle-Hertog and you might end up with more questions than answers The Belgian village of Baarle-Hertog is extremely difficult to describe When you first hear people talking about it you think it’s merely a village cut in half by the border between Belgium and the Netherlands Baarle-Hertog is not actually on the Belgium-Netherlands border at all It lies a few kilometers inside the border – in the Netherlands Yet the village is very much part of Belgium Walking through the Baarles is a unique experience You constantly criss-cross between Belgium and the Netherlands You will also notice that in the streets divided into Belgian and Dutch parts there is no continuous numbering of houses A street name and number can even occur twice: once in Baarle-Hertog and again in Baarle-Nassau One house even has a front door where the border goes right through the middle of it as each house is deemed to pay taxes in the country where its front door is located it is an old tradition in Baarle to move the front door some meters if that creates a more favorable fiscal situation This isn’t just crazy theory; it’s crazy practice too More than one family has moved their front door from one country to another Spotahome takes the hassle out of househunting by doing the hard work for you and book rental properties all from the comfort of your own home Take the stress out of househunting in Belgium with Spotahome You enter the village and are welcomed not only to Baarle-Hertog but also to Baarle-Nassau these are not different names for the same place Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau are different villages but in the same location Baarle-Hertog belongs to Belgium; Baarle-Nassau belongs to the Netherlands these two places are made up of Belgian and Dutch pockets of land that are mixed up with each other Imagine that a child has mixed up two different jigsaw puzzles thrown all the pieces up in the air to see how they land and then drawn lines around collections of pieces from the same puzzle That’s a bit like the situation in Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau Each collection of Belgian and Dutch pockets of land is actually an enclave. In political geography, an enclave is a country or part of a country lying wholly within the boundaries of another country. Well-known examples are West Berlin before reunification Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau are made up of no fewer than 30 enclaves: 22 Belgian enclaves while there are many joint Belgian-Dutch organizations and double provisions for electricity and telephony The origins of this puzzle lie with medieval feudalism which split up the land into a patchwork of pockets that belonged to the local duke or count some pockets were owned by the Duke (hertog) of Brabant (hence Baarle-Hertog) and others by the House of Nassau (hence Baarle-Nassau) the border between Belgium and the Netherlands had to be determined by a border commission this patchwork of parcels was so complex that it proved impossible to come to a definitive agreement each of 5,732 pockets of land had their nationality laid down separately There have been numerous attempts to dismantle the enclaves plans were drawn up to make Baarle-Hertog part of Turnhout Baarle-Nassau would then join with nearby Alphen and Chaam to form a new Dutch municipality Both the Dutch and the Belgian parliaments voted against the motion The inhabitants of the Baarles are certainly efficient in attracting tourists Particularly on warm dry weekends the place is packed with day trippers This of course means great business for the many shops (open on Sundays) It’s a fascinating place to visit. The borders are painted on the roads and pavements, while front doors are marked or flagged with their national identity. At the tourist office in Nieuwstraat you can pick up a wide range of walking guidebooks Enclave Uit’ will take you on a tour of the village and is crammed with interesting facts and stories You may also like to visit Baarle’s Museum with its collection of religious scenes hand-carved from wax by Fritz Spies. An impressive example is the 2.5 metre high copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, which is sculpted from 200kg of beeswax. Another museum in Baarle is Vergane Glorie with its collection of old hand tools used by local builders as well as various war memorabilia from the two world wars If you fancy a weekend in Baarle-Hertog, I recommend De Hertog van Baerle, a B&B that also offers wine-tasting weekends and brewery visits. It’s an extremely civilized base from which to visit this utterly bizarre place, which has to be one of the most confusing places in the world. 2021 Photo: Brandon HartleyIt’s a town so nice they named it twice the story of this unusual community that engulfs the Dutch/Belgian border in and near North Brabant is actually quite a bit more complicated The borderlines that divide Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog are so convoluted they’ve been making the eyes of real estate agents Baarle-Nassau is the name of a Dutch town that’s entwined like a hopelessly knotted ball of yarn with a Belgian one called Baarle-Hertog a few of which contain enclaves of the other town and two income tax rates down there along with border markers that run down several sidewalks and right through the middle of businesses and even private residences It’s possible to travel to Belgium and back again several times while shopping in the local Zeeman and every building that spans a border has both a Dutch and a Belgian address The mishmash map is the result of a bizarre series of treaties and other agreements between various lords and other officials that were all presumably slapped together during negotiations that involved copious amounts of wine and/or ale At least a few of them date all the way back to the 12th century which got even more complicated after Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1830 an agreement that at least firmly established many of the existing boundaries Officials finally figured out the final one in the 1990s Many current citizens have dual citizenship and everyone seems to get along well enough down there. This is one of the reasons why former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked a cabinet secretary to research the community back in 2014 and come up with ideas on how to settle border disputes with Palestine Cross the border (over and over and over again) It’s possible to visit both countries dozens of times as you explore the streets Having a photo taken of yourself with one foot in the Netherlands and the other in Belgian is pretty much a prerequisite Visit unusual museums Barle-Hertog is home to not one but two museums that are a bit weird. The first is devoted to the religious scenes and sculptures of artist Frits Spies. Instead of clay or stone, they’re made of beeswax and other natural materials. They technically qualify as candles so you’ll find them at the Kaarsenmuseum Stranger still is Museum Vergane Glorie. That one focuses on regional tools and utensils that were all once used by local farmers, blacksmiths, and others. The interior resembles a collector’s passion project that’s really gotten out of control. The museum is currently only open by appointment Explore the histories of two World Wars The community’s strange borders presented more than a few complications during World War I The Netherlands remained neutral during the conflict the Dutch government surrounded both towns with a fence but this did little to stop them from becoming a haven for smugglers and members of the Belgian resistance who set up a secret telegraph station Cover your tracks A former railway line between Tilburg and Turnhout passes through the community and now serves as a 30 kilometre-long bicycle and walking path. The border once cut through one of the stations and a portion of it can still be found on the route. There’s other signs of its history to be found along the way in addition to plenty of nature Catch a smuggler ‘Catch the Smuggler’ is a chase game inspired by the television series Jachtseizoen It will put you and your colleagues into the shoes of a group of cops determined to This involves tracking them via an interactive map on your favourite mobile devices The smuggler can fight back with signal jammers and other tricks Where to eat If you’re heading out for a walk or a bike trek, you may want to stop at Het Smokkelbroodje for sub sandwiches that are served on fresh Belgian baguettes baked on site that you can ‘smuggle’ back across the border It’s a popular spot among everybody from tourists to local construction workers and the wait can be long during lunchtime on weekdays They also have soups and full meals available for takeaway housed inside a former train station/bowling alley/pudding factory Brouwerij De Dochter van de Korenaar is where to head for a craft beer (or two or three…) They have a tasting room with a limited snack menu, a bottle shop, and a terrace that’s often patrolled by a true bierhond. The brewery’s lovable Labrador is known to roam around in search of cuddles or will happily plop down beside your table. At the time of this writing, opening hours are limited so be sure to check their website beforehand Where to stay Den Engel is a small hotel dating back to 1894 with a terrace that has a border running right through it. Schaluinenhoeve is a more rustic lodge on the outskirts with a swimming pond and a hunting room that’s been converted into a library/cafe/lounge There are a multitude of short-stay chalets and cottages available as well Anything else At least a few things are still being smuggled across the border down there. One district on the Belgian side of the community seems almost entirely devoted to small shops that sell fireworks year-round. There’s so many of them that the streets literally reek of sulphur. We could not provide the Dutch News service, and keep it free of charge, without the generous support of our readers. Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter, and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day. Many thanks to everyone who has donated to DutchNews.nl in recent days! We could not provide this service without you. If you have not yet made a contribution, you can do so here. Please help us making DutchNews.nl a better read by taking part in a short survey. 2011Save this storySaveSave this storySaveAll products and listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links they convey something magical about the world and make us want to explore it So we've enlisted KenJen to pen a weekly column for us tracking down and explaining the stories behind the most unusual the most inexplicable spots you can find on a map View Larger Map Five kilometers north of the Belgium-Netherlands border sits Baarle Baarle (officially two separate municipalities: Baarle-Nassau Belgium) is an archipelago of 24 little Belgian enclaves entirely surrounded by Dutch soil it looks less like a border town than a kindergartner’s paper snowflake The whimsical-looking border is the result of a complex series of 12th-century treaties partitioning the area between two local bigwigs: the Baron of Breda and the Duke of Brabant the political situation in the area changed many times but the Baarle snarl was so complicated that no one ever dared redraw the border The current map of the area was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843 which divided the area into 5,732 separate parcels and assigned each one to either Belgium or the Netherlands The smallest enclave at the moment is a Belgian field just two-thirds of an acre in area Baarle has two of everything: two town halls a motorcyclist suffered a traffic accident on the Belgian side When the Baarle-Hertog ambulance team arrived they argued that they couldn’t “leave the country” to treat the injured man Many homes and businesses in Baarle are sliced in two by the border and official residency depends on which country the front door lies in Residents have been known to move their front doors every time tax laws change Back when Dutch restaurants had to close earlier diners would just move their tables to the Belgian side of the eatery and continue the party up-to-the-minute voice in all things travel Condé Nast Traveler is the global citizen’s bible and muse We understand that time is the greatest luxury which is why Condé Nast Traveler mines its network of experts and influencers so that you never waste a meal or a hotel stay wherever you are in the world This is Radio Schuman, your new go-to podcast to spice up your weekday mornings with relevant news, insights, and behind-the-scenes from Brussels and beyond. From the economy to the climate and the EU's role in world affairs, this talk show sheds light on European affairs and the issues that impact on our daily lives as Europeans. Tune in to understand the ins and outs of European politics. No agenda, no argument, no bias, No Comment. Get the story without commentary. Dare to imagine the future with business and tech visionaries Deep dive conversations with business leaders Euronews Tech Talks goes beyond discussions to explore the impact of new technologies on our lives. With explanations, engaging Q&As, and lively conversations, the podcast provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology and society. Europe's water is under increasing pressure. Pollution, droughts, floods are taking their toll on our drinking water, lakes, rivers and coastlines. Join us on a journey around Europe to see why protecting ecosystems matters, how our wastewater can be better managed, and to discover some of the best water solutions. Video reports, an animated explainer series and live debate - find out why Water Matters, from Euronews. We give you the latest climate facts from the world’s leading source, analyse the trends and explain how our planet is changing. We meet the experts on the front line of climate change who explore new strategies to mitigate and adapt. Welcome to one of the strangest and most complex border situations in the world. These are the intertwined villages of Baarle-Hertog, which is in Belgium and Baarle-Nassau, which is Dutch. You’re standing right on the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. The door on the right side is in Belgium, the left door is in the Netherlands. The Belgium town is made up of 22 enclaves. These are pieces of tiny land surrounded by Dutch territory. The Dutch town exists of eight enclaves, of which seven are sub-enclaves within the Belgium enclaves, located within the Netherlands. With this level of complexity, the town decided to visualise the borders on the pavement. If you follow it, you quickly realise that it runs criss-cross through the town’s roads, gardens, and even straight through people’s living rooms. Mrs van Gool, who has lived in the Dutch part her whole life, explains smuggling was frequent in the region. People would wear special clogs backwards to mislead customs. And women would smuggle butter under their clothing because they couldn’t be frisked by police-men – until the police made them next to the radiator so the butter waiting for the butter to melt. Today, there are still side-effects: the Belgian bread tastes much better says Van Gool, and petrol is much cheaper in Belgium. Yet for groceries everyone goes to the Netherlands. You won’t even find a supermarkets on the the Belgium side. While residents found a way to live harmoniously together, governing this confused mess is a whole new kettle of fish. A bit like a forced marriage with a daily dose of strange municipal politics. Yet both mayors dream of unification, for the sake of their residents. Marjon De Hoon-Veelenturf, the Mayor of Baarle Nassau, says: “It would be brilliant if these two city councils from different countries could become a single European entity. But in reality that idea is still a utopia.” Luckily, there are very few border controls between European countries these days. If there were, residents of Baarle would have to show their ID cards all the time. After all, the town belongs to Belgium and the Netherlands. The Belgian border town of Baarle-Hertog is intervening to curb the influx of Dutch fireworks buyers. The municipality will soon prevent outside vehicular traffic on two streets where many fireworks shops are located. "It has just become too much," said mayor Frans De Bont on the Flemish broadcaster Radio 1. "The residents have totally had it." They are not only bothered by the endless procession of Dutch cars, but also by people urinating in public, and by fireworks boxes and packaging lying around, De Bont said. Baarle-Hertog has "six fireworks shops, while there are only about three thousand inhabitants," according to the mayor. The village previously only received many Dutch fireworks enthusiasts in the last weeks of the year, but this time, according to the mayor, the influx started at the end of September. In the Netherlands, fireworks may only be sold on the last three days of the year. The Dutch therefore shift their focus to Belgium, where this is allowed all year round. Kapelstraat and Klokkenstraat will close from Friday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Only residents, suppliers, emergency services and cyclists will be allowed to pass. De Bont has coordinated the road closures with its Dutch neighbor, Baarle-Nassau, because the streets run across both towns. The enclave municipality of Baarle-Hertog is completely surrounded by the Netherlands, and parts of Baarle-Nassau are also surrounded by Baarle-Hertog. © 2012-2025, NL Times, All rights reserved. Patches of one country completely surrounded by another I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice commented on an “intriguing oasis of Italian soil as he passed through on the train from Milan to Lugano When the canton of Ticino chose to become part of the Swiss Confederation in 1798 a decision confirmed by referendum in 1814 it tried to join Switzerland but the Swiss refused not wanting to be drawn into Italian disputes the world’s only third-order enclave (a piece of India inside a piece of Bangladesh inside a piece of India inside Bangladesh) Baarle’s second-order enclaves are as complicated as it gets – there are pockets of the Netherlands inside some of the Belgian enclaves “they operate a front-door rule where the country of your front door determines which law applies” which is an enclave inside an enclave of Omani territory in the UAE (below) a railway (the rails now gone) that was assigned to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and which created five German enclaves in Belgium There used to be a Belgian counter-enclave “a traffic island inside a three-way German road intersection near Fringshaus” Nominated by Philip Mann and Neil Marshall gave all villages north of the Pyrenees to France but Llívia was a town...” Also nominated by Geof Walker and John Peters I hesitated over a nomination for the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan but Artsvashen is an enclave of Armenia in Azerbaijan that is internationally recognised now uninhabited because of contamination by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in 1986 an enclave of Tajikistan surrounded by Uzbekistan in the Fergana Valley Uzbekistan has five enclaves in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have inherited a particularly complex set of borders,” said Alasdair Brooks A 1783 mapping error left a chunk of US territory in Canada Similar applies at the other end of the 49th parallel border between the US and Canada to Point Roberts a cape south of Vancouver that belongs to the US There are several historical examples of enclaves of English and Scottish counties but things were complicated enough already Next week: Best Parentheses in Literature, such as: “My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three...” Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. Coming soon: Bands Named After Other Band’s Lyrics, starting with the Rolling Stones, originally the Rollin’ Stones, from “Rollin’ Stone”, a Muddy Waters song Your suggestions, and ideas for future Top 10s, in the comments please, or to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Katsiaryna Khanyak's relatives were not invited to the sentence pronounce and have no information about the murdered Belarusian's daughter Katsiaryna Khanyak found her death in the city of Baarle-Nassau back in November 2007 Her jealous husband Robert Brockel  cut her in the hip with a knife first and then put her into a children's cupboard and poured with construction mix He was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment only this year in August Katsiaryna's Belarusian sisters (the only full-aged casualties mentioned in the criminal case) were not invited to the trial when the sentence was pronounced I saw an article about his conviction accidentally on the Internet - the victim's sister Nadzeya tells Euroradio - Thank God they sent him to prison for murder - I thought they would do it for children's pornography or drugs I still think that 11 years is a too short term It was suspicious that the investigation lasted for so long and they couldn't find the proofs although they were obvious They twisted and postponed everything..." Robert Brockel (left) accompanied by one of his lawyers Robert Brockel escaped to the United States and was caught there The Dutchman with a good financial state hired the best lawyers He was arrested several more times during all these years another criminal case was started against Brockel for transportation of cocaine He was also accused of child pornography distribution Brockel was a relatively free man throughout the years Two Belarusian sisters of Katsiaryna Khanyak (the parents had died) couldn't influence the case in any way The murdered Belarusian was buried in the social grave without her sisters' permission with even no indication of the years of birth and death Whom does she live with?" we ask Nadzeya.  "I have no information about her whatsoever I think they treat us with no proper respect abroad they don't think it is necessary even to give us information." Euroradio also came across the assumed biased attitude to Belarusians in the Netherlands we sent an official enquiry to the sector of assistance to crime victims of Breda Public Prosecutor's Office We asked why the Belarusian sisters of the murdered woman got no information and why Katsiaryna Khanyak was buried in the Netherlands without her sisters' permit The foreign law-enforcement officials provided us no reply.  Become a journalist!Report topic! Support usDonate The TimesLockdown life is complicated in Baarle a town that is in both Belgium and the Netherlands sitting on the messiest border in the world The small municipality has 22 Belgian pockets in the Netherlands and seven tiny Dutch zones in Belgian territory People navigate the intermingled boundaries between Baarle-Hertog with painted pavement crosses marking intermingled borders that sometimes cut through shops or homes Normally the two Baarles are just an oddity popular as a quirky destination for tourists Now with closed borders and different lockdown rules across Europe the pavement crosses have suddenly become real and more surreal at the same time Registered in England No. 894646. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. with its Belgian section closed following the Belgian directive for all non-essential shops while its Dutch half remains open for business This meant that customer Onno from Baarle Nassau who wanted to buy ‘two night shirts’ at the shop was told by staff the shirts were officially situated in Belgium and he could not cross the border which is marked with a police tape ‘I had a good laugh,’ Onno told the broadcaster ‘but it does show how strict the rules are.’ A Zeeman spokesman confirmed the shop in Baarle Nassau has been divided into two to comply with the Belgian rules but said the shop actually falls under Dutch law ‘We are doing it to show our solidarity with our Belgian neighbours,’ he said Essentials like baby clothing and household articles are on the Dutch side so people can still buy those concrete blocks put up by the Belgian authorities to close the border with the Netherlands in the province of Zeeland have resulted in a conundrum for the inhabitants near the Dutch village of Philippine as well The only asphalt road going to their homes takes them into Belgium, the Dutch alternative being an extremely bumpy track which ‘is not very convenient,’ one of the locals told local broadcaster Omroep Zeeland. 2020 The Netherlands and Belgium share an intricate border at Baarle-Nassau Photo: Robin Utrecht ANPThe Netherlands and Belgium share an intricate border at Baarle-Nassau Photo: Robin Utrecht ANPBelgium has issued code orange travel warnings for the Dutch provinces of Noord-Holland Zuid-Holland and Zeeland because of the rise in coronavirus cases The code orange travel warning means Belgians who have visited the provinces should have a test and go into two weeks quarantine at home on their return the Netherlands issued a code orange warning for the Belgian province of Antwerp recommending against all but essential travel The increase in travel warnings has complicated the situation at the border between the two countries, particularly in Baarle Nassau, which straddles the border and whose residents are now subject to different rules, depending on where they are. Belgium, for example, requires face masks to be worn in shops, unlike the Netherlands. Belgium, where the number of positive coronavirus tests is rising by around 500 a day, has also issued a code red warning for parts of France, Spain, Britain, Bulgaria and Switzerland. and you’re in one country; stand on the other But here’s a list of five international borders that Most of us think of international borders as invisible is one of the most confusing border zones in the world with 102 mini-exclaves belonging to India splattered on the Bangladeshi side of the border and 71 exclaves belonging to Bangladesh peppering the Indian side even smaller exclaves belonging to the other country take the Indian region of Balapara Khagrabari It’s an Indian exclave on the Bangladeshi side of the border contains yet another Indian territory—like a doughnut inside of a doughnut inside of a doughnut Or in non-pastry terms: Balapara Khagrabari is the only place in the world where an exclave contains another exclave that contains yet another exclave It can all be traced back to power struggles between local kings hundreds of years ago who would try to claim pockets of land inside each other’s territories as a way to leverage political power When Bangladesh became independent from India in 1947 (as East Pakistan until 1971) all those separate pockets of land were divvied up the Indian and Bangladeshi governments signed a treaty that will eventually get rid of all the exclaves draw a nice clean line between the countries and allow people living within the enclaves to choose which nationality they’d like to have Any border buff worth his salt will tell you about the little town of Baarle is not so much a hunk of territory as a smattering of tiny exclaves inside of the Netherlands town of Baarle-Nassau many of those Belgian exclaves also contain Dutch exclaves making a map of the whole town look like one of Jackson Pollock’s crazier designs The official border between Belgium and the Netherlands runs through living rooms it happens more often than you’d think – to sit across a table having a cup of coffee with someone who is actually in a different country a Dutch law requiring dining establishments to close earlier than they did in Belgium laid the foundation for an absurd nightly charade in some Baarle restaurants patrons would have to get up and move tables Baarle’s complex borderline has to do with how regional lords and dukes divided up their land hundreds of years ago the Treaty of Paris basically laid out which British territories would go to the freshly victorious American rebels and which would remain part of British Canada The treaty said that the Americans would get all the British territory “through the Lake of the Woods and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi…” The only problem was the map they were using wasn’t quite right They didn’t know at the time that the source of the Mississippi was actually farther south so if you follow their instructions to a T 123 square mile blip of Minnesota up in the middle of Canadian territory It’s called the “Northwest Angle,” and can only be accessed from the U.S by land by crossing into Canadian territory first The citizens of the tiny Angle Township must check in via videophone to the Canadian customs authorities when they want to leave their village and with the American customs authorities when they want to come back There are two islands — known as the Diomedes about two and a half miles apart — right smack in the middle of the Bering Strait The space between these two islands marks not only an international border making it possible for the folks on Little Diomede to wake up on a Sunday when the British Empire controlled Egypt and Sudan They said that Sudan would get all the stuff south of the 22nd parallel while Egypt would get all the stuff north of it a different group of Brits drew a different map The 1902 map gave Sudan an extra chunk of fertile territory while allotting the Egyptians a rather useless chunk of desert the Egyptians insist the 1899 map shows the “real” borders while the Sudanese say the 1902 map is more accurate Both countries claim the fertile Hala’ib Triangle © 2025 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved Mental Floss may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.",{"type":"75","value":"gs"},"AR_1",{"type":"75","value":"gu"},"This article contains affiliate links to products selected by our editors as well as products provided to Mental Floss for review purposes d) {\n h = h[d] = h[d] || {\n q: [],\n onReady: function(c){ h.q.push(c) },\n };\n d = o.createElement(u);\n d.async = 1;\n d.src = n;\n n = o.getElementsByTagName(u)[0];\n n.parentNode.insertBefore(d \"https://www.datadoghq-browser-agent.com/us1/v5/datadog-rum.js\" Initialize Datadog RUM and then measure TTFB/FCP\n window.DD_RUM.onReady(function() {\n // 3a Initialize RUM\n window.DD_RUM.init({\n applicationId: 'f3f16add-4ebf-4aad-9bb4-adb13da4d17e',\n clientToken: 'pub53fad8ec1eea29e2f92980d95072da2f',\n site: \"datadoghq.com\",\n service: \"voltax-sites-www.mentalfloss.com\",\n env: \"prod\",\n sessionSampleRate: 100,\n sessionReplaySampleRate: 0,\n trackUserInteractions: true,\n trackResources: true,\n trackLongTasks: true,\n defaultPrivacyLevel: \"mask-user-input\",\n });\n\n // 3b Measure TTFB & FCP once the page fully loads\n window.addEventListener('load' {\n ttfb: ttfb,\n fcp: fcp,\n });\n\n // Optional: log them to console for debugging\n console.log('[Datadog RUM] TTFB:' I must admit to being quite a map geek, or perhaps more accurately, a geography geek in general. Which is why one of my favourite Christmas presents this year was the excellent book Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks running through many oddities about the wonderful world of maps The book talks about this amazing Youtube video One of the other fascinating things the book discusses, is the little town of Baarle-Nassau – sitting in the Netherlands (or Belgium, we’ll come to that). Zoomed out, there doesn’t seem to be too much that is strange about the town, sitting near the borders of the two countries: However you see a weird mess of grey lines (indicating national borders): The book Maphead describes the situation: It’s made up of no fewer than twenty-six separate pieces of Belgium sitting thanks to a complicated series of medieval treaties between two warring dukes Some of these little bits of Belgium have little bits of the Netherlands inside them leading to an impossibly intricate border that divides some village homes in half between the two nations Your nationality depends on where your front door is and residents have been known to ’emigrate’ by moving their door every time the tax laws change When bars and restaurants in the Netherlands close landlords just move their tables onto the Belgian side of their establishment and keep on serving the border between India and Bangladesh is really going to float your boat then Enclaves inside exclaves and other variations Bits of India inside bits of Bangladesh which are inside India There’s a map on Wikipedia commons at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Cooch-behar-enclaves-schematisch.png I can recommend following this blog: http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps ummm yip that should float any ones’ boat well for sure But still like the bit where if its not Serving Time in The Netherlands Be one hell of a bugger if one of them pulls out of the EU 😛 I know that Belgium would not leave the EU but from what I can tell the chances of Belgium falling apart into Flanders and the Brussels City Region/EU Capital City are worth discussing I am not sure that the Netherlands would want Flanders back any thoughts as someone who knows the history better than I would Speaking as an expat Belgian I can say that the changes to the constitution in Belgium always happen at a glacial pace It took decades to get to the current federal structure and many aspects of territorial boundaries financial transfers and debt restructuring are still completely unresolved which the Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau post refers to are probably the easy part (and even those are a constant source of squabbles in earlier times when territory would change sovereign overlordship if the monarch’s nationality changed Hence the “Spanish” and “Austrian Netherlands” in the past It’s never been a question of “The Netherlands wanting Flanders back” because together they used to be the United Provinces before the Reformation and civil war tore them apart It was Spanish troops that occupied Flanders in the 16th and 17th Century There are fringe movements to reunite the Netherlands (back to the The United Provinces) but the current political thrust is to further federalise Belgium which may or may not lead to an eventual break-up into sovereign entities this should be relatively easy to do but the economic and financial ramifications are still enormous due to the socio-economic disparity between north and south in Belgium Brussels is a complication on top of it all with Flanders still claiming it as its capital and with a huge number of non-Flemish speaking EU and non-EU migrants (a comparison with Washington DC is apt if you substituted race for language) You may be interested in these pages which have some interesting approaches to mapping http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/ http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps Spain undermines its claim to Gibraltar by having 2 pieces of Morocco still Kowloon Walled City was famous Chinese enclave inside Hong Kong In practice China had no access to it but the British were fearful of going in there hence its control by triads until it closed down Even in Australia we have a piece of NSW inside Victoria at Tom Groggin Station Coolangatta and Tweed Heads have a strange looking piece of border which is fascinating when you get there The Tugun bypass freeway connects Coolangatta with rest of Queensland via a piece of NSW (where you can’t exit) The European thing is really no surprise – feudalism was about loyalty rather than law so the Lord you pledge allegiance to was more important than his sovereign right over your territory in many cases when many of these maps were already drawn a freakish enclave of the selfish inside a city of mostly average self interest I had to reply just to comment on how awesome Pat’s comment was I’ve been following this prodentim blog for a while now I’ll definitely be sharing it with my friends Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Greater Auckland is an independent volunteer-run analysis and advocacy platform for improving the quality of our cities we provide evidence based debate on urban form Our aim is to foster a greater Auckland for all Thanks for signing up for news from Greater Auckland Keep an eye on your inbox for regular updates We love being able to keep you in the loop - it means we know theres a community of like-minded people who are keen on making Auckland better on bikes Sign up for updates about what's happening Our freewheeling blogger visits Europe’s most geographically confusing town which lies across the border of Belgium and the Netherlands… I’ve always been fascinated by odd borders – isolated towns and villages cut off from their own countries like islands in a foreign sea So when my husband Tom suggested a visit to Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog a town that is a muddle of Belgium and the Netherlands If it wasn’t for the fact that Baarle is a place with a split personality featureless modern buildings and some older sturdy Flemish-styled brick buildings but from a geographical point of view it’s one of the most fascinating places in Europe No sooner had we parked in the town’s car park than the questions began (indicating the border throughout the town) crossed the car park diagonally We drove our car into a parking space in the Netherlands Another car sat in Belgium a few spaces away while the car opposite ours straddled both countries in its parking space Did the Dutch and Belgian authorities share the takings from the central ticket machine Did they split them evenly – or did they just maintain their own patches We crossed the road from the car park to a bargain store the border running through the middle of it I bought a beanie in one country and paid for it in another There was no rhyme or reason to where the iron pins or studs popped up to indicate the border It was not as if one side of the road was Belgium and the other the Netherlands (although this was sometimes the case) – it was much more complex but as soon as I stepped back over its threshold So here’s the lowdown with Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog: there are 22 Belgian enclaves inside the Netherlands (isolated pockets of Belgium in the Netherlands) and seven Dutch ‘counter’ enclaves in Belgium – pockets of Dutch land surrounded by Belgian land which in turn is surrounded by the Netherlands This crazy entanglement of Holland and Belgium goes back to the medieval lords of Breda and Brabant who were engaged in an endless round of rental and sales agreements along with land swaps The Maastricht Treaty clarified and ratified the borders – but never simplified them On Kerkplein I came to a 3D model map of Baarle the enclaves electronically rising and falling to show which were Belgian and which were Dutch in reality the land doesn’t rise and fall to let you know which country you’re in; just the lines on the streets and the flag colours painted on the sides of the door number tiles to orientate the visitor – and probably the residents too my head was spinning from working out whether I was in the Netherlands or Belgium but as it was still mid-morning a coffee would have to do As we’d just spent a week in the Netherlands we thought it would be nice to have our mid-morning cuppa in Belgium – only the Belgian cafes were still closed and the Dutch cafes around the corner were open the residents of the town can take advantage of favourable laws whether they are in a Dutch enclave or a Belgian one imagine how it must have been before the two countries joined the European Union there is still the small matter of which government you pay your taxes to As houses are sometimes partly in the Netherlands and partly in Belgium the position of the front door decides which municipal the owner pays their taxes to Some residents have been known to move their door in order to pay a more favourable rate of tax we passed a house with two front door numbers (and two doorbells) as the border goes right through the middle of the front door the lucky owners get to choose which country they want to live in Baarle feels like a surreal social construct or an elaborate joke or hoax – something like the Truman Show – but perhaps the weirdest thing of all is the fact that Baarle Nassau/Baarle Hertog is very much a real place Sign up to our newsletter for free with the Wanderlust Club drawing borders would seem to be just about the easiest part of running a country even a five-year-old can draw a straight(ish) line on a map there will inevitably be disputes over who owns what and sometimes maps can be inaccurate and miss an island or two but that can all be fixed with a couple of entry-level embassy staffers from the two countries getting together over lunch and signing a quitclaim deed or something Source: Animal Deruta Except that almost never happens in real life. You see, while the average American doesn’t get all hung up about things like that one town that’s completely surrounded by Canada some people get really touchy about their borders and will fight to the death over every last square inch Whether it’s an old medieval border that zigzags through villages multiple encirclements that make it essentially impossible to deliver supplies or even parched African wastelands that are ruled over by third-graders history and nationalism have a way of driving our leaders crazy about their precious borders Here are a few of the dumbest lines on the map Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the town Baarle-Hertog is noted for its complicated borders with Baarle-Nassau In total it consists of 24 separate parcels of land The main division of Baarle-Hertog is Zondereigen (after its main hamlet) located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas In addition there are twenty Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other sections on the Dutch-Belgian border There are also seven Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves Six of them are located in the largest one and a seventh in the second-largest one An eighth Dutch exclave is located nearby Ginhoven Hope you got that. There’s a quiz at the end of this article. Source: Flickr Hive Mind The town is divided into a crazy-quilt patchwork of adjoining blocks of no particular geometry two local aristocrats were quibbling about who owned what and the this-n-that division of land was made before anybody came along to pave roads or deliver mail The division was ratified by treaty in 1848 and the whole thing has been a cute anachronism ever since depends on which nation your front door is situated in When accurate border markers were finally laid down in the 1950s one Belgian man was alarmed to discover that his house was actually part of the Netherlands Rather than go through the hassle of changing his address to a Dutch standard he bricked up his front door and punched a hole in the wall just a bit to one side which officially placed him back in Belgium “Thank God, Hastings. That was close!” Source: Hodgson Consult both Holland and Belgium are members of the European Union so everybody uses the Euro and there isn’t any attempt to enforce piddling customs regulations when tourists stagger drunkenly from their Dutch tables to the Belgian bar where Since everybody in the area shares a common currency it’s mostly treated as a quaint little quirk that doesn’t hurt anybody Source: Lightstalkers Take the border-zone hokey pokey that made Baarle an adorable little boutique town and pump it up with fanatical religious and nationalistic hate and counter-counter-enclaves that spills like the dog’s breakfast across the India-Bangladesh border Source: Flickr Traffic regulators have even been brought in to deal with the number of cars in the towns of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog which share a complicated network of borders A local farmer has opened up his fields as an emergency car park for the Dutch visitors who have not been allowed by law to import fireworks into the Netherlands since December 15 But two youngsters from Zwolle told the paper that ‘fireworks are part of New Year’ Another young man from Breda said: ‘You set off fireworks outside and everyone keeps their distance The Dutch government has banned fireworks this New Year in an effort to make sure that hospitals are not overwhelmed with burns victims In 2019 almost 1,300 people went to hospitals or their family doctor with firework-related injuries inflicted at New Year Police are carrying out border checks but on Monday afternoon and evening there was no-one to be seen ‘Yesterday the Dutch police were delighted about finding 100 kilos of fireworks,’ the traffic regulator told the paper ‘But that is what leaves the shop every minute the Dutch can import 25 kilos of fireworks from Belgium or Germany The government tightened the rules on fireworks earlier in 2020 to ban the most dangerous types We could not provide the Dutch News service without the generous support of our readers Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day Many thanks to everyone who has donated to DutchNews.nl in recent days We could not provide this service without you Please help us making DutchNews.nl a better read by taking part in a short survey straight-lined borders of certain African nations that barely overlap with indigenous ethnic groups But even bearing all this strangeness in mind is separated by a 20-foot wide gap in the treeline that stretches onward to the horizon (and yes also has its Four Corners Monument where New Mexico Portugal has a tiny 10-foot-long bridge that connects it to Spain Belgium and Germany have a bike lane that straddles the line between the countries others are truly convoluted — and tell stories far deeper than lines on a map Since we've already mentioned Belgium and the Netherlands, we might as well top our list with what is arguably the most bonkers border situation in the world in the town of Baarle-Nassau. Technically located in the Netherlands near the Belgian border, parts of Baarle-Nassau are in Belgium. As we can see on Google Maps the Belgian parts of the town cut across blocks at hard-right angles and slice through streets There are chunks of the same nation separate from each other and sections of individual houses are even divided by the border of the two countries (pictured above) It's a good thing that the European Union allows free travel between countries without a passport otherwise there might be a border guard in the living room 12th-century Belgian duke who started handing out pieces of land to Dutch counts in the region of Nassau Fast-forward 800 years and we've got one city with two governments two legal systems depending on where you're standing separate civil services like fire departments residents in the same town standing a meter away from each other can reach across an invisible line to shake hands with a person in a different country Similar to our last entry — but dashed with a bit of sociopolitical disharmony — we've got the three-way intersection between Poland A granite pole and monument called the Trójstyk Granic marks the spot you're standing right at the point where Poland Lithuania and Poland are members of the European Union like Belgium and the Netherlands — folks can walk back and forth between those countries no problem this means that the Trójstyk Granic is in Poland and is not precisely at the point where Poland In case it wasn't obvious where the Russian border is the barbed wire fence is a dead giveaway (pictured above) And even though there aren't any guard stations near the Trójstyk Granic we wouldn't recommend pressing your luck if you visit and poke around the fence too much But wait, you say: "Russia doesn't border Poland." True, but only if we're talking about Russia proper located 300-plus miles east of Poland. A fragment of Russia is detached from the country and wedged between Poland and Lithuania beside the Baltic Sea, as Google Maps shows and is legally indistinguishable from any other part of Russia [Featured image by Nostrix via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED] isn't that weird and actually makes a lot of sense Lesotho — formerly called Basutoland — was occupied by indigenous tribes at its formation in 1822 before becoming a British colony in 1884 The modern nation of South Africa was formed in 1961 mountainous Basutoland declared independence and renamed itself Lesotho accepting the consequences of its odd geographical placement and folks do not speak the Dutch-derived language Afrikaans like South Africa So we come to the strange border situation of Timor-Leste at the easternmost edge of Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands. As Google Maps shows Timor-Leste is split into two halves — east and west — with Indonesia in the middle The west part of Timor-Leste is substantially smaller than the east part and so the entire two-part nation is sometimes called East Timor Timor-Leste nationals have no choice but to pass through another country to get to the same country there's a conflict between Timor-Leste and Australia to the south about exactly how far Timor-Leste's sovereignty extends into its waters Timor-Leste's history explains its strange borderlines Back in the 16th century Timor Island was ruled by two kingdoms: one in the east In 1859 the Dutch and Portuguese agreed on Timor Island's modern east-west borderlines but it took until 1945 for Indonesia to gain independence following World War II it was integrated with the Dutch Western Timor Timor-Leste didn't break away as a sovereign At the time the country adopted the old Dutch-Portuguese east-west borders as its own The water around the islands belongs to Paraguay but the islands themselves belong to Argentina the border between Paraguay and Argentina hugs the Argentinian coast whenever an island is present it runs about midway between the two countries along the rest of the river — at least while water levels are high Paraguayan water at its narrowest squeezes between Argentinian islands to the southwest of Isla Apipé Grande at a width of no more than around 400 feet.