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Belgium and the Netherlands Swap Land, and Remain Friends
- colanderman 10y agoSurprisingly this is not an exclave swap: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/11/the-curious-case-of-baarle-nassau-and.html http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/11/the-curious-case-of-baa...
- herge 10y agoWell, it's un-inhabited, so it's a lot easier to swap, as opposed to exclaves who usually have inhabitants who would not be too happy to switch nationality.
- fs111 10y agoYou would not switch nationality, just the country where you live. If I move to another country, my nationality stays the same.
- ptaipale 10y agoHowever, if another country moves to you, it makes several things awkward. There are plenty of exclaves with country borders out there. For instance, here's a bit of Germany inside Switzerland: https://goo.gl/maps/bw3PwD19JhR2 https://goo.gl/maps/bw3PwD19JhR2 The village is called Büsingen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCsingen_am_Hochrhein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCsingen_am_Hochrhein In United Arab Emirates there is an Omanian exclave called Madha, which in turn contains a UAE exclave called Nahwa: https://goo.gl/maps/REXtsfb3gHs https://goo.gl/maps/REXtsfb3gHs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahwa And there's even one third-order enclave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahala_Khagrabari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahala_Khagrabari Dahala Khagrabari is a piece of India, surrounded by Bangladesh, surreounded by India, surrounded by Bangladesh. And things stay this way because it is quite awkward to change places where people live to belong to another nation - however impractical these exclaves may be.
- caf 10y agoDahala Khagrabari is no longer an exclave. India and Bangaldesh executed a wide-ranging land swap in 2015 to resolve a large number of these tiny exclaves.
- ptaipale 10y agoAh, thanks for information. So, border adjustments are possible there as well (India and Bangladesh are on friendly terms, unlike India and Pakistan).
- ThrustVectoring 10y agoThe thorniest question seems, to me, to be how to integrate local government on the city or county scale. Citizenship is fairly straightforward - make the inhabitants citizens of both countries, and let them renounce one and live in the other if they wish. How to ensure that a village has the zoning regulations they want when it was handled by a county in another country seems trickier.
- djsumdog 10y agoThe Netherlands do not allow dual citizenship, so simply allowing all the Belgians/Dutch to chose during an Enclave/Exclave swap wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't be necessary really, as citizenship is more dependent on your parents. Both of them being EU member states also makes residence somewhat irrelevant too, except maybe with taxes.
- tremon 10y agoThe Netherlands do not allow dual citizenship Are you sure? There are plenty of second-generation immigrants here that have both the Dutch and parental (mostly Turkish/Moroccan) nationality.
- magiconair 10y agoMy kids have both German and Dutch passports but that's because their parents are from these countries.
- mseebach 10y agoYeah, but choosing to move to another country just isn't the same as the country changing under your feet against your will.
- ghaff 10y agoYes, parent should have written "country they live in" rather than nationality. But the basic point holds of course. Lots of people would be unhappy to suddenly live in a country where they're not a citizen and subject different laws, taxes, and health care. In fact, it's not hard to see why it would be pretty much a non-starter politically.
- dnautics 10y agopretty sure that the residents of baarle hertog quite like the status quo. If one country does something they don't like (e.g. tax policy), they can redesignate their "front door" as being in the other state, and thus be under the other state's jurisdiction.
- vacri 10y agoI don't understand. Given Schengen and free movement, why couldn't the legal team from Belgium just 'freely move' through the Netherlands to get to their area of jurisdiction?
- privong 10y ago> Given Schengen and free movement, why couldn't the legal team from Belgium just 'freely move' through the Netherlands to get to their area of jurisdiction? I suspect this is because it involved official government business and police activity. For example, I don't know if Belgian police carry weapons. But if they do, I assume they don't have jurisdiction to carry in the Netherlands (and vice versa). Folks downvoting @vacri's question: why? It's a legitimate question.
- wodenokoto 10y agoIt's a good question. My understanding is that Schengen doesn't allow for free movement of police or military. You have to travel as a civilian.
- Someone 10y agoThere are exceptions for emergencies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area#Police_and_judicial_co-operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area#Police_and_judic...: "The Schengen Agreement also permits police officers from one participating state to follow suspects across borders both in hot pursuit and to continue observation operations"), but that's correct. (And aside: for the Belgian-Dutch border, that has been the case for decades; border controls in the Benelux (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benelux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benelux) were abolished in 1970)
- 1337chan 10y agoBut is a dead body an "emergency"? Perhaps the laws intend to refer to only dire situations, such as the "hot pursuit" example in your cite. While a dead body is a serious matter, it's hard to argue in this case that there's danger.
- patmcguire 10y agoHow do countries usually handle rivers moving around? It looks like in the US for state borders they go with where the rivers used to be. Makes for some messy borders https://www.google.com/maps/place/Louisiana/@32.2167684,-91.0512079,11.94z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x8620a454b2118265:0xc955f73281e54703!8m2!3d30.9842977!4d-91.9623327 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Louisiana/@32.2167684,-91....
- macintux 10y agohttp://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1489&context=law_urbanlaw http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article... makes for interesting reading. TIL: "thalweg" (Update: my uncle argued before the Supreme Court regarding the Indiana/Kentucky border. Trying to find transcripts to no avail, but he lost.)
- trhway 10y agonot exactly river moving around, just a border demarcation style change after several decades, small island, 2 big states possessing thermonuclear weapons : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenbao_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenbao_Island
- ptaipale 10y agoAt least between Finland and Sweden, in the Tornio/Torneå river, there are small adjustments to the border done on a regular basis, every 25 years. The previous border adjustment was in 2006 and the one before that in 1981. The river changes a little bit as it erodes its banks, and the border is officially moved accordingly. This naturally results in minuscule changes in the land area of both countries, though in this case the changes cancel each other out in the long run. It's a friendly border.
- dnautics 10y agoin the US whether the state border changes depends on the specific agreement between the states, which may in some cases go back to the colonial era (for virginia vs. maryland, along the potomac, it's the low tide mark on the virgina side except for tributaries - so if VA builds out into the river it doesn't become part of maryland). It gets quite difficult to amend these because both states have to agree, plus congress, for any revision of borders. It's usually just not worth it. One well known dispute was between new jersey and new york, over ellis and liberty islands; the supreme court had to intevene on that one and I think currently both states have jurisdiction.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoThere's a really interesting bit at the end: > Norway was considering an unlikely birthday present for neighboring Finland: an Arctic mountain peak on Mount Halti, the highest mountain in Finland, whose 4,478-foot summit is in Norway. > To mark the 100th anniversary of Finland’s declaration of independence from Russia, a group of Norwegians was urging the government to move a point on its border with Finland about 490 feet to the north and 650 feet to the east. > But that ran afoul of an article of the Norwegian Constitution that states unequivocally that the Kingdom of Norway is “indivisible and inalienable,” and the friendly gesture was called off, at least for now. The constitution is available online, and has other interesting bits in it, especially as a contrast to the US Constitution: https://www.stortinget.no/globalassets/pdf/english/constitutionenglish.pdf https://www.stortinget.no/globalassets/pdf/english/constitut... > The King shall at all times profess the Evangelical-Lutheran religion. There's also a repealed Article 10, but the English-language Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about it.
- ptaipale 10y agoThe repealed Article 10 simply says that "The King is of age, when he turns 20 years. As soon as he enters the 21st year, he declares himself publicly to be an adult." https://lovdata.no/dokument/HIST/lov/1814-05-17-18140517 https://lovdata.no/dokument/HIST/lov/1814-05-17-18140517 I don't quite see why that was repealed, though. Some Norwegian might tell. As a Finn I sort of appreciate the gesture of proposing moving border to bring the hilltop of Halti to Finland, but I don't really think it is that significant. The main issue I know about is an old confusion in schoolbooks. The highest point in Finland is 1324 meters above sea level, on the Norwegian border, on the slope of Halti near the top. The top is on Norwegian side and its height is 1328 meters. Someone writing a schoolbook long ago found out that Halti is 1328 meters high and put that as the elevation of highest hill in Finland, without considering that this highest point is actually in Norway. [edit: typos]
- foota 10y agoMaybe they didn't want a legal precedent that you aren't an adult till 21?
- hetman 10y agoThe comment at the bottom of the article reminds me why secession is virtually impossible in most places in the world. Any such attempts falter because they're instantly declared unconstitutional by the parent country. The global community encourages this kind of status quo because many countries worry their ethnic minority will be next. The only way sadly still seems to be decades of bloodshed before the host population gets fed up enough to let them go. I don't only mean developing countries like Sudan either. It took until 1998 for the Belfast agreement to be signed over Northern Ireland for example.
- mmanfrin 10y agoI don't think this is always true. Scotland was given its referendum. Britain voted on secession from the EU. Northern Ireland is talking about unification. There are certainly places like Spain which have been beating the drum of 'No Catalan Independence', but there are modern states that do recognize some uncodified right to self determination. Some resistance is natural though, and in some cases good -- tribal divisions can happen on any line. If California seceded, the Jefferson region would want to secede from that, and no doubt there would be even smaller fractures. In the end, I think every state has its own gravity and own structural strength. Grow too big, and you suffer from your own weight, risk fractures.
- hetman 10y agoBut Northern Ireland _is_ an example of freedom through bloodshed. There was decades of violence before the UK conceded to give them genuine choice. Arguably Scotland benefited from this change in the UK's public opinion as a result of Ireland, without having to go through the same process.
- gsnedders 10y ago> But Northern Ireland _is_ an example of freedom through bloodshed. There was decades of violence before the UK conceded to give them genuine choice. I think that's an oversimplification; the intent was there to give Ireland self-governance from the 1880s (initially as a single, unified area). Notably, the Government of Ireland Act 1914, better known as the Third Home Rule Bill (the prior two had failed to pass through Parliament) would've led to a unitary Ireland, though this led to the Home Rule Crisis (though there had been some rioting going back to the 1880s) and was ultimately never implemented due to the outbreak of war. The real fatal errors in the case of Ireland were the handling of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the coupling of implementation of Home Rule with conscription in Ireland, along with many more errors during the guerrilla war that followed. Had WW1 not happened when it did, who knows what would have happened in Ireland.
- maverick_iceman 10y agoIndia and Bangladesh swapped territories in 2015 during which India lost 40 sq km of land.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_enclaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_encla...
- dghughes 10y agoThis reminds me of Hans island between Canada and Greenland it's disputed territory but we joke about fighting over it. I'd gladly wrestle with a 20-something blonde Danish woman. ;)
- ptaipale 10y agoIt's interesting that so close to the heart of European Union, the police and judicial authorities needs special permits to enter through the area of neighbouring country, even if they won't do any official business there, they just pass through. Anybody else can move about freely, no questions asked. Between Finland and Sweden, the police forces on both sides of the border have an agreement so that they can move about, even in official business. A pursuit of a criminal can be extended across border, and e.g. ambulances are shared. The crew is bilingual or works in Finnish (the population in the border area is traditionally mostly Finnish-speaking even in the Swedish side). The countries each have a nation-wide public safety digital radio network (TETRA) and while the networks are strictly distinct, the police cars or ambulances in each country may have a radio unit from the neighbour so that they can connect to the neighbour network when they need to, or their radios can be roamed to the neighbour network through ISI interface.
- Someone 10y ago"A pursuit of a criminal can be extended across border, and e.g. ambulances are shared" The examples you mention all involve cases where one cannot reasonably wait for permission to pass. Those are handled similar between Belgium and the Netherlands and, I guess/think (there may be exceptions for cases like Switzerland and Norway, who are in the Schengen area but not in the EU), everywhere in the Schengen area. This case was different, though; the victim was clearly dead, so there wasn't much of an urgency. If there is no urgent need, would Sweden allow armed Finnish police officers to enter the country or vice versa? What if it were a few heavily armed SWAT teams in armed personnel carriers?
- ptaipale 10y agoThe police in the border region in both countries is currently being trained for patrolling in the other country (there are some differences in legislation and operational procedures). So not just pass-through but actual law enforcement work. After WW II, when Finnish Lapland's roads were largely destroyed by retreating Germans, Finns used the roads on the Swedish side of the river to get up north. Today it is perhaps the other way round; the Finnish side has more population and the roads up river are bigger so it might be feasible for the Swedish to use Finnish roads even if the destination is again across river on Swedish side. SWAT teams no, not without urgent need and/or official request, and people would rise eyebrows also for SWAT teams driving around in their own country for no reason.
- lucb1e 10y agoI got an apartment a few kilometers away. It's on the outskirts of Maastricht and to properly enter Belgium, you need to cross the Maas first (or Meuse I think the article called it?). Everyone there speaks Dutch, works in Maastricht, shops in Maastricht... It's the same city but officially you're in a different country. And so I'll be missing out on 291 euros a month in rent subsidies... But it was the only thing available and reasonably priced so better than nothing. I just wish they'd swap more land where it makes sense :/
- ThrustVectoring 10y agoIn all likelihood, your landlord is missing out on 291 euros a month in rent subsidies.
- lucb1e 10y agoNah it's not that cheap. This is not a normal price lowered by 291, though maybe half.
- bigblind 10y agoJust out of curiosity, are you a student at Maastricht University?
- lucb1e 10y agoNo but my girlfriend is. I study a bit further north. Why?
- roel_v 10y agoIf the area you're talking about were to be Dutch, most likely it wouldn't be (rental) apartments in the first place; and if it were, rents would be much higher (probably even more than the e291). Which is why there are so many Dutch people living there at all. Also still, many people there would be quite offended if you told them they're more Dutch than Belgian. And a bit further up north there are whole villages on the east side of the river; Smeermaas for example. As to why that part is Belgian: at the end of the "Belgian Revolution" (or "Belgian Uprising", depending on who you ask) the border was drawn at the location that each party occupied at the time. Since there was an Orange-minded general stationed in Maastricht during that period, he had kept the Belgian 'army' at bay quite easily with the cannons on the walls. So the border is at the distance that a cannon could shoot at the time. If you go up the ruins of the city walls in Maastricht (next to the statue of d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer, who died there during another siege of Maastricht), there is still a cannon like that standing there. Also, 'Meuse' is the name of the river in English; which of course is like that because the French name is 'la Meuse'.
- fred_is_fred 10y agoIllinois and Missouri need to do this after years of floods and the New Madrid earthquake have left enclaves on the wrong side of the river in several places.
- OJFord 10y agoThis story prompted me to wonder [0] how mapping organisations (Ordnance Survey, Google Maps, et al) are made aware of the specifics of such details. Grateful to hear from anyone with insight! [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13065514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13065514
- kabes 10y agoDoes anybody live on that land? I mean, this would be like a country kicking its own citizens out. Suddenly your government your house is not in their country anymore.
- gerty 10y agoAccording to OSM, there are no houses in the swapped areas, so they probably just swapped some grass, sand and roads.
- caf 10y agoMaybe Canada and the US can come to a similar agreement at Estcourt Station.
- martinpw 10y agoReminds me of this interesting case of a piece of land between Egypt and Sudan that neither side wants, because having ownership would mean conceding ownership of a second larger piece of land to the other country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil
- aninhumer 10y ago> because having ownership would mean conceding ownership of a second larger piece of land to the other country I don't think claiming Bir Tawil would inherently concede anything, it's just that both sides prefer to base their claims on historical boundaries to make them seem more justified.
- pizza 10y agoOh my god https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/american-claim-africa-science-jeremiah-heaton-egypt-sudan https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/american-claim...
- mastazi 10y agoSimilar case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland
- perilunar 10y agoAnd then there is Liberland [1], a micronation proclaimed on land unwanted by both sides of a border dispute. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- djsumdog 10y agoI got to see the border of this country a while back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria Here's a photo: http://journeyofkhan.us/photo/transnistria-across-the-nistru-river/ http://journeyofkhan.us/photo/transnistria-across-the-nistru... http://journeyofkhan.us/photo/bridge-to-transnistria/ http://journeyofkhan.us/photo/bridge-to-transnistria/
- oblio 10y agoIn case some folks here on HN don't already know it, I like to tell the story of this "country". Basically, it starts in the Middle Ages when there are 2 small states under Ottoman (Turkish) influence: Wallachia and Moldavia. As it happens for all small states, they get bullied around by their bigger neighbors, primarily the Ottomans, Russia and Austria. For our story only the Ottomans and Russia are important. So the Ottomans and Russia keep fighting over the region and they keep trading territories here, completely disregarding the history of the region or the ethnic groups present there. Imperialism at its finest. Wallachia is left more or less unscathed, but around 1812 Moldova is basically split in two, Russia taking the less developed Eastern part, called Bessarabia. After all this abuse, Wallachia and Moldova decide to unite and form modern Romania, around 1860. So Moldova basically disappears as a state. Fast forward to the end of WW1, Romania is getting bigger by incorporating all the lands around it that are majority Romanian, so Bessarabia becomes a part of Romania. Meanwhile, Russia becomes the USSR. It's not hard to guess that Romania and the USSR are not the best of friends. The Soviets never recognize the Romanian takeover/reclaiming of Bessarabia, but can't really attack Romania (yet). So they form a sort of "Moldovan Soviet Republic" outside of the historical territory of Moldova. Basically "Moldova in exile". I like to compare it to Mexico creating a "New Texas" state after being kicked out of Texas. Then, before WW2, as part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Nazi-Soviet pact, the Soviets are allowed to attack Romania. They don't attack, instead they send an ultimatum and Romania is forced to give up Bessarabia, which is incorporated into the Moldovan Soviet Republic. So now the new Moldova has both Bessarabia and that extra part that was never Moldovan. That part is across the river Dniester, ergo "Trans" (across) "nistr" (Dniester is "Nistru" in Romanian) "-ia" (particle for "land of" in Romania). The USSR falls, Moldova becomes independent. Transnistria has Russia armies on its territory, so it declares its independence. Russia signs an agreement to pull back its army. 20 years after the agreement, the army is still there...
- known 10y agoHope India and Pakistan resolve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_dispute in similar manner
- elihu 10y agoPerhaps CGP Grey will add a footnote to his "Holland vs the Netherlands" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc
- rurban 10y agoIndia and Pakistan should have done the same over the sloppy border line in the north done by the british, crossing natural rivers. A constant source for terrorism.