8 ms·

Border between Belgium and the Netherlands at Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau (2017)

105 points by pulisse 8y ago

jypepin 8y ago
That's an interesting story and I wonder why the two governments today wouldn't work together to clean that up a little bit, since it seems like it's bringing a fair amount of troubles for the people. I also wonder if the story about the restaurant clients needing to change table is true tho. In theory, sure, but come on. Do you really expect police to come in with a map of the border and enforce the fact that clients should not be sitting at table #4 but table #5 is ok? That seems a little ridiculous too. Also, does that imply that business on the border have to be incorporated in both countries? If not, does the Belgian business have to comply to Dutch laws since it's in part physically located in the Netherlands? In that case, is it really only subject for what's physically in the Netherlands? What if the kitchen is on Belgium side, The Netherlands are not allows to do proper health and safety inspection? As I write this I realise that it brings a lot of interesting questions and everything must be very complicated over there!
- anticensor 8y ago
  Front door rule applies. If there are two front doors side by side, its tax jurisdiction is determined by area share and legal enforcement territory of both.
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  > What if the kitchen is on Belgium side, The Netherlands are not allows to do proper health and safety inspection? It seems that way. A couple of years ago Belgium & Netherlands agreed to swap ownership of a small peninsula because it was on Belgian territory, but the only access was from the Netherlands, and so the area was being used for crimes where neither country had legal access: "In short, the Dutch could not go there because it was Belgian, and Belgian police and judicial authorities found it tough to get there. They are not allowed to cross into the Netherlands without permission and the peninsula had no proper landing zone for boats or equipment coming in by water." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/belgium-and-the-netherlands-exchange-land-because-it-makes-sense https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/belgium-and-th...
  - detuur 8y ago
    By the way, police can now enter each other's countries more easily by now. Belgium and the Netherlands work together on integration through BENELUX, a politico-economical union between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These days it serves as a testbed for integration policies in the EU at large. So recently we signed an agreement that allows our nations' police forces direct access to each other's police databases and to cross borders without having to get prior permission.
    - Ftuuky 8y ago
      Portugal and Spain signed a similar agreement.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    Not exactly the same situation, but this reminds me of the area between the Utah-Arizona border and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Legally it's part of Arizona but it's much more accessible from Utah (there's no bridge across the Canyon, so to get to the North Rim from the rest of Arizona, you have to drive hundreds of miles out of the way). It ends up being a sort of no man's land. It's difficult to access for Arizona authorities, and Utah authorities don't have jurisdiction there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Strip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Strip
    - gpvos 8y ago
      There's an area in Yellowstone National Park where you can kill someone without the authorities being able to sue you.
- gpvos 8y ago
  Due to the long-standing cooperation of the two countries, it's not really bringing trouble; in fact, it's a bit of a tourist attraction. There were, however, difficulties during the two world wars. They did clean it up a bit a few years ago, because there was some legal uncertainty about a small number of the enclaves.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tnolet 8y ago
  There are no real issues. Belgians and Dutch get along fine. It’s mostly seen as a fun, quaint relic and as mentioned below is a bit of a tourist attraction.
- hyperman1 8y ago
  As the countries are very friendly and work together in almost anything, this is not a big problem in practice. Presumably some very small scale hustling is tolerated as no government official really cares. When there is an actual problem, the two governments arrange another land swap. There is one every few years. Nobody cares, it gives both our monarchs something to sign on an official visit and gets another sheer for international cooperation from the press. If you want to have some fun, you can smoke pot while standing on the border and holding it in your left, Dutch hand. If you're really daring you swap it over to your right, Belgian hand, and congrats, you're an international drug smuggler. If a cop sees it and you're unlucky, I suppose he'll ask a few puffs from you - Yeah I saw that happen in real life, and that was in Brussels a.k.a Belgium and as far from the boundary as you can get.
  - ParanoidShroom 8y ago
    This, once in a while a land swap if needed. Else no one cares. The Dutch are fun neighbours.
    - lb1lf 8y ago
      Land swaps can be a royal PITA; the highest point in Finland is most of the way up a mountainside; the peak is just across (as in, within a stone throw) the border, in Norway. To mark the centennial of Finnish independence, there was a campaign in Norway to give the Finns a few hundred square metres of Norway, so that they could get a highest point which was indeed a local maximum. Too bad the Norwegian constitution says you cannot give away bits of the country; a land swap was suggested to ensure both countries remained the same size afterwards, but apparently this, too, would violate the constitution...
      - kuroguro 8y ago
        I wonder if they could both agree to wage a fake war for an hour, then sign a peace treaty detailing the new border.
        8y ago
- johannes1234321 8y ago
  Cleaning up isn't trivial - cleaning this up means that some people suddenly life or work in a different country, with different regulation and taxation. For good and bad reasons this will lead to protests.
- toolslive 8y ago
  They exchanged some pieces of land along the Maas river. Belgium had a piece of land on the Dutch riverside with no bridge near. There were parties there and the Dutch police had no jurisdiction, while the Belgian police needed at least 45 minutes to get there. In the end, both governments had enough of this and swapped a bit of land.
- dnautics 8y ago
  It was actually troublesome for cooch Behar in India/bangladesh, but that situation was resolved recently by treaty.
- vincvinc 8y ago
  I’ve spent a few days there working for a Japanese television program - it seems everyone there has a quirky story regarding the borders. The city hall has a border going through it. Both the Belgian and Dutch municipalities are housed there, as are the two police stations. The Belgian and Dutch police share one office, but the border goes right through it. https://goo.gl/maps/LBreHZLyjqo https://goo.gl/maps/LBreHZLyjqo The police shared plenty of stories with us about how they have to cooperate with each other in order to do their work - since some of the borders are “3D” (eg. where the ground floor of an old house is half Belgian half Dutch, but the upper floors are full Dutch) they sometimes officially need the help of the other police to get access to all of a crime scene. Then there’s the fact that people in that town consciously choose in which of the two jurisdictions they do something: getting gas, going to school, groceries, all related to tax and regulations. If your house is located in the two countries at once, the position of your front door decides under which jurisidiction you actually live. Same for stores / restaurants.
sebazzz 8y ago
> I also wonder if the story about the restaurant clients needing to change table is true tho. In theory, sure, but come on. Do you really expect police to come in with a map of the border and enforce the fact that clients should not be sitting at table #4 but table #5 is ok? That seems a little ridiculous too. It seems far fetched, as you would expect a restaurant to have one legal address, and which rules apply depend on the rules of that country.
- close04 8y ago
  As locals in a town of several thousands and ~2Km at the widest part the police wouldn't really need a map to know every single place. Also the border is literally drawn on the pavement in most if not all places.
- merinowool 8y ago
  Police can come and search you to see if you have any dried plant matter on you. I can't see how switching tables is any more ridiculous than that and this is "accepted" as "normal".
- ajdlinux 8y ago
  The concept of "one legal address" makes no sense when legally one would assume they are two completely separate blocks of land registered separately in each jurisdiction.
ddebernardy 8y ago
The ugliest of all borders must have been Dahala Khagrabari at the border between India and Bangladesh. It was the only third order enclave until India ceded the tiny piece of land to Bangladesh in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahala_Khagrabari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahala_Khagrabari It was a piece of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh - which itself would be enclaved within India if not for a small border with Myanmar.
- gpvos 8y ago
  > ...which itself would be enclaved within India if not for a small border with Myanmar. And international waters; the jargon term for that is semi-enclave (if there hadn't been the border with Myanmar, that is).
aequitas 8y ago
Some nice entertaining education about maps/borders is provided by the "Map Man" over here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3qWTeJEbC_QCp https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3... To bad they stopped making new ones.
- clamprecht 8y ago
  I've been watching this guy's channel, who has lots of content about interesting borders and such: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVnko6tQ56PYB5BNNChPGg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVnko6tQ56PYB5BNNChPGg
hyperman1 8y ago
I once heard how the border between the 2 countries close to Maastricht was established: Maastricht was the first city not conquered by the Belgian revolutionaries. There were some military units stationed there, and 1 or more canons. As a result, the border was defined as everything that could reasonably be reached by shooting these canons from Maastricht.
- overkalix 8y ago
  Quite a literal application of sovereignty - if you can defend it, you can keep it.
  - ovi256 8y ago
    That was the original reasoning for the 3 (now 12) mile territorial water limit, which was how far coastal artillery of the time could reach. The US lobbied for extending this repeatedly, and applies a de facto larger limit to the continental US. This makes sense if you consider that modern coastal artillery uses over the horizon radars and missiles. But a reasonable argument can be made that contemporary coastal defense is not artillery, but air-launched missiles whose range can be considered to be the missile range plus the combat range of the launching aircraft.
    - petre 8y ago
      Not to mention ICBMs and other ship launched missiles.
- roel_v 8y ago
  The cannons are still there, they're down the street from my house. The general who was then in charge of Maastricht was much despised by the locals because of his decision then to be loyal to the Dutch king. So when his remains were ordered to be moved when a new road was build (decades later), the workers who were supposed to do it didn't, and a lamp post was built on his grave. They're redoing that area now and the new park that is being built there, will have an old lamp post in a weird spot as a reminder of this historical quirk. (Very OT but I find it such a cool story that I thought I had to share :) )
cagataygurturk 8y ago
I know you wonder, yes in Dutch part there are coffeeshops where people can buy pot.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tnolet 8y ago
Slightly off topic maybe, but it always surprises people that the Netherlands has a border with France. It’s just in the Caribbean on the island of St. Maarten / Saint Martin. Obligatory YouTube clip “Holland vs. The Netherlands” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc
- GijsjanB 8y ago
  Thank you for this insight! I am using this for our yearly New Year's Eve quiz! (I'm Dutch)
- forinti 8y ago
  You could say that France has a border with Brazil because of French Guiana. And that the Netherlands also had a border with Brazil until 1975.
  - nolok 8y ago
    Note that while St Martin is an oversea collectivity, whereas we consider Guiana to be an actual part of France not a territory or collectivity or dependance or ... (the same way we did with Algeria). So France the (geo)political entity and France the country absolutely has a border with Brasil, and it is its largest land border.
- eCa 8y ago
  Likewise, there’s a bridge between France and Brazil[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyapock_River_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyapock_River_Bridge
- crote 8y ago
  Even more complicated: The country of The Netherlands does not border France, but the Kingdom of The Netherlands does, as St. Maarten is a separate country within the kingdom. St. Maarten isn't part of the EU, but St. Martin is. But inhabitants of St. Maarten are EU citizens, and there is no hard border between the two parts even though there should be one, as this is a border of the Schengen Area. This means that I, a citizen of the country of The Netherlands with a identity card but without a passport, am allowed to travel directly to France via Belgium, and I can book a flight and enter St. Martin, but I am not allowed to visit St. Maarten!
Proven 8y ago
Another great example of why the EU sucks. No competition for better governance = high taxes and worst rules for everyone.
smnrchrds 8y ago
How were things before the EU and Schengen area were formed? Has it always been legal to cross Dutch-Belgian border in this town, or did people get in trouble for walking into the wrong street? Lack of border wall does not mean lack of border. There was a big story here in Canada a couple of months ago about a French woman accidently crossing the border between Canada and the US and having to spend two weeks in detention. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jogger-who-accidentally-crossed-u-s-border-from-b-c-detained-for-2-weeks-1.4717060 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jogger-who-a...
- toolslive 8y ago
  the EU grew out of the BENELUX (BElgium-NEderland-LUXemburg) Crossing the borders was always pretty straight forward, except for the period during WWI when Belgium was occupied and The Netherlands were neutral. So the Germans installed barbwire and guarded the border.
- labster 8y ago
  The fact that we don't have an open border between the U.S. and Canada is a real shame. Just a waste of everyone's time to indulge the U.S. border paranoia. I'm not really worried about the US being flooded with poutine and hockey. Or even better, a sort of super-Schengen area including the EU, the US, Canada, and Japan. Yeah, I know I'm dreaming, but it's not like this set of countries would produce mass migration or security issues that would cause problems beyond the economic benefit of a free migration. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17382400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17382400
  - pcrh 8y ago
    You need to add the UK to your super-Schengen list :-/
  - eloisant 8y ago
    I think the reason why US wants a border with Canada is that the immigration policies of those 2 countries are widely different.
laurentl 8y ago
Makes The City and the City (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City) suddenly more realistic!
- ars 8y ago
  That was a great story - but the ending was a bit of a let down. Tip to the reader: There absolutely nothing supernatural, or extrahuman, going on whatsoever.
louise123 8y ago
andrea
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JoachimS 8y ago
Reminded me of the exclave Point Roberts, Washington. There was a story linked to here on HN a while back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/point-roberts https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/point-roberts It seems to me that Netherlands and Belgium are handling the situation somewhat more pragmatic.
glandium 8y ago
Tom Scott did a video on this border. https://youtube.com/watch?v=oE93J33SfHY https://youtube.com/watch?v=oE93J33SfHY

105 points by pulisse 8y ago

That's an interesting story and I wonder why the two governments today wouldn't work together to clean that up a little bit, since it seems like it's bringing a fair amount of troubles for the people. I also wonder if the story about the restaurant clients needing to change table is true tho. In theory, sure, but come on. Do you really expect police to come in with a map of the border and enforce the fact that clients should not be sitting at table #4 but table #5 is ok? That seems a little ridiculous too. Also, does that imply that business on the border have to be incorporated in both countries? If not, does the Belgian business have to comply to Dutch laws since it's in part physically located in the Netherlands? In that case, is it really only subject for what's physically in the Netherlands? What if the kitchen is on Belgium side, The Netherlands are not allows to do proper health and safety inspection? As I write this I realise that it brings a lot of interesting questions and everything must be very complicated over there!

anticensor 8y ago
Front door rule applies. If there are two front doors side by side, its tax jurisdiction is determined by area share and legal enforcement territory of both.
SyneRyder 8y ago
> What if the kitchen is on Belgium side, The Netherlands are not allows to do proper health and safety inspection? It seems that way. A couple of years ago Belgium & Netherlands agreed to swap ownership of a small peninsula because it was on Belgian territory, but the only access was from the Netherlands, and so the area was being used for crimes where neither country had legal access: "In short, the Dutch could not go there because it was Belgian, and Belgian police and judicial authorities found it tough to get there. They are not allowed to cross into the Netherlands without permission and the peninsula had no proper landing zone for boats or equipment coming in by water." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/belgium-and-the-netherlands-exchange-land-because-it-makes-sense https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/belgium-and-th...
- detuur 8y ago
  By the way, police can now enter each other's countries more easily by now. Belgium and the Netherlands work together on integration through BENELUX, a politico-economical union between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These days it serves as a testbed for integration policies in the EU at large. So recently we signed an agreement that allows our nations' police forces direct access to each other's police databases and to cross borders without having to get prior permission.
  - Ftuuky 8y ago
    Portugal and Spain signed a similar agreement.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Not exactly the same situation, but this reminds me of the area between the Utah-Arizona border and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Legally it's part of Arizona but it's much more accessible from Utah (there's no bridge across the Canyon, so to get to the North Rim from the rest of Arizona, you have to drive hundreds of miles out of the way). It ends up being a sort of no man's land. It's difficult to access for Arizona authorities, and Utah authorities don't have jurisdiction there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Strip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Strip
  - gpvos 8y ago
    There's an area in Yellowstone National Park where you can kill someone without the authorities being able to sue you.
gpvos 8y ago
Due to the long-standing cooperation of the two countries, it's not really bringing trouble; in fact, it's a bit of a tourist attraction. There were, however, difficulties during the two world wars. They did clean it up a bit a few years ago, because there was some legal uncertainty about a small number of the enclaves.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tnolet 8y ago
There are no real issues. Belgians and Dutch get along fine. It’s mostly seen as a fun, quaint relic and as mentioned below is a bit of a tourist attraction.
hyperman1 8y ago
As the countries are very friendly and work together in almost anything, this is not a big problem in practice. Presumably some very small scale hustling is tolerated as no government official really cares. When there is an actual problem, the two governments arrange another land swap. There is one every few years. Nobody cares, it gives both our monarchs something to sign on an official visit and gets another sheer for international cooperation from the press. If you want to have some fun, you can smoke pot while standing on the border and holding it in your left, Dutch hand. If you're really daring you swap it over to your right, Belgian hand, and congrats, you're an international drug smuggler. If a cop sees it and you're unlucky, I suppose he'll ask a few puffs from you - Yeah I saw that happen in real life, and that was in Brussels a.k.a Belgium and as far from the boundary as you can get.
- ParanoidShroom 8y ago
  This, once in a while a land swap if needed. Else no one cares. The Dutch are fun neighbours.
  - lb1lf 8y ago
    Land swaps can be a royal PITA; the highest point in Finland is most of the way up a mountainside; the peak is just across (as in, within a stone throw) the border, in Norway. To mark the centennial of Finnish independence, there was a campaign in Norway to give the Finns a few hundred square metres of Norway, so that they could get a highest point which was indeed a local maximum. Too bad the Norwegian constitution says you cannot give away bits of the country; a land swap was suggested to ensure both countries remained the same size afterwards, but apparently this, too, would violate the constitution...
    - kuroguro 8y ago
      I wonder if they could both agree to wage a fake war for an hour, then sign a peace treaty detailing the new border.
      - 8y ago
johannes1234321 8y ago
Cleaning up isn't trivial - cleaning this up means that some people suddenly life or work in a different country, with different regulation and taxation. For good and bad reasons this will lead to protests.
toolslive 8y ago
They exchanged some pieces of land along the Maas river. Belgium had a piece of land on the Dutch riverside with no bridge near. There were parties there and the Dutch police had no jurisdiction, while the Belgian police needed at least 45 minutes to get there. In the end, both governments had enough of this and swapped a bit of land.
dnautics 8y ago
It was actually troublesome for cooch Behar in India/bangladesh, but that situation was resolved recently by treaty.
vincvinc 8y ago
I’ve spent a few days there working for a Japanese television program - it seems everyone there has a quirky story regarding the borders. The city hall has a border going through it. Both the Belgian and Dutch municipalities are housed there, as are the two police stations. The Belgian and Dutch police share one office, but the border goes right through it. https://goo.gl/maps/LBreHZLyjqo https://goo.gl/maps/LBreHZLyjqo The police shared plenty of stories with us about how they have to cooperate with each other in order to do their work - since some of the borders are “3D” (eg. where the ground floor of an old house is half Belgian half Dutch, but the upper floors are full Dutch) they sometimes officially need the help of the other police to get access to all of a crime scene. Then there’s the fact that people in that town consciously choose in which of the two jurisdictions they do something: getting gas, going to school, groceries, all related to tax and regulations. If your house is located in the two countries at once, the position of your front door decides under which jurisidiction you actually live. Same for stores / restaurants.

sebazzz 8y ago

> I also wonder if the story about the restaurant clients needing to change table is true tho. In theory, sure, but come on. Do you really expect police to come in with a map of the border and enforce the fact that clients should not be sitting at table #4 but table #5 is ok? That seems a little ridiculous too. It seems far fetched, as you would expect a restaurant to have one legal address, and which rules apply depend on the rules of that country.

close04 8y ago
As locals in a town of several thousands and ~2Km at the widest part the police wouldn't really need a map to know every single place. Also the border is literally drawn on the pavement in most if not all places.
merinowool 8y ago
Police can come and search you to see if you have any dried plant matter on you. I can't see how switching tables is any more ridiculous than that and this is "accepted" as "normal".
ajdlinux 8y ago
The concept of "one legal address" makes no sense when legally one would assume they are two completely separate blocks of land registered separately in each jurisdiction.

ddebernardy 8y ago

The ugliest of all borders must have been Dahala Khagrabari at the border between India and Bangladesh. It was the only third order enclave until India ceded the tiny piece of land to Bangladesh in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahala_Khagrabari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahala_Khagrabari It was a piece of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh - which itself would be enclaved within India if not for a small border with Myanmar.

gpvos 8y ago
> ...which itself would be enclaved within India if not for a small border with Myanmar. And international waters; the jargon term for that is semi-enclave (if there hadn't been the border with Myanmar, that is).

aequitas 8y ago

Some nice entertaining education about maps/borders is provided by the "Map Man" over here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3qWTeJEbC_QCp https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3... To bad they stopped making new ones.

clamprecht 8y ago
I've been watching this guy's channel, who has lots of content about interesting borders and such: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVnko6tQ56PYB5BNNChPGg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVnko6tQ56PYB5BNNChPGg

hyperman1 8y ago

I once heard how the border between the 2 countries close to Maastricht was established: Maastricht was the first city not conquered by the Belgian revolutionaries. There were some military units stationed there, and 1 or more canons. As a result, the border was defined as everything that could reasonably be reached by shooting these canons from Maastricht.

overkalix 8y ago
Quite a literal application of sovereignty - if you can defend it, you can keep it.
- ovi256 8y ago
  That was the original reasoning for the 3 (now 12) mile territorial water limit, which was how far coastal artillery of the time could reach. The US lobbied for extending this repeatedly, and applies a de facto larger limit to the continental US. This makes sense if you consider that modern coastal artillery uses over the horizon radars and missiles. But a reasonable argument can be made that contemporary coastal defense is not artillery, but air-launched missiles whose range can be considered to be the missile range plus the combat range of the launching aircraft.
  - petre 8y ago
    Not to mention ICBMs and other ship launched missiles.
roel_v 8y ago
The cannons are still there, they're down the street from my house. The general who was then in charge of Maastricht was much despised by the locals because of his decision then to be loyal to the Dutch king. So when his remains were ordered to be moved when a new road was build (decades later), the workers who were supposed to do it didn't, and a lamp post was built on his grave. They're redoing that area now and the new park that is being built there, will have an old lamp post in a weird spot as a reminder of this historical quirk. (Very OT but I find it such a cool story that I thought I had to share :) )

cagataygurturk 8y ago

I know you wonder, yes in Dutch part there are coffeeshops where people can buy pot.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tnolet 8y ago

Slightly off topic maybe, but it always surprises people that the Netherlands has a border with France. It’s just in the Caribbean on the island of St. Maarten / Saint Martin. Obligatory YouTube clip “Holland vs. The Netherlands” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc

GijsjanB 8y ago
Thank you for this insight! I am using this for our yearly New Year's Eve quiz! (I'm Dutch)
forinti 8y ago
You could say that France has a border with Brazil because of French Guiana. And that the Netherlands also had a border with Brazil until 1975.
- nolok 8y ago
  Note that while St Martin is an oversea collectivity, whereas we consider Guiana to be an actual part of France not a territory or collectivity or dependance or ... (the same way we did with Algeria). So France the (geo)political entity and France the country absolutely has a border with Brasil, and it is its largest land border.
eCa 8y ago
Likewise, there’s a bridge between France and Brazil[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyapock_River_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyapock_River_Bridge
crote 8y ago
Even more complicated: The country of The Netherlands does not border France, but the Kingdom of The Netherlands does, as St. Maarten is a separate country within the kingdom. St. Maarten isn't part of the EU, but St. Martin is. But inhabitants of St. Maarten are EU citizens, and there is no hard border between the two parts even though there should be one, as this is a border of the Schengen Area. This means that I, a citizen of the country of The Netherlands with a identity card but without a passport, am allowed to travel directly to France via Belgium, and I can book a flight and enter St. Martin, but I am not allowed to visit St. Maarten!

Proven 8y ago

Another great example of why the EU sucks. No competition for better governance = high taxes and worst rules for everyone.

smnrchrds 8y ago

How were things before the EU and Schengen area were formed? Has it always been legal to cross Dutch-Belgian border in this town, or did people get in trouble for walking into the wrong street? Lack of border wall does not mean lack of border. There was a big story here in Canada a couple of months ago about a French woman accidently crossing the border between Canada and the US and having to spend two weeks in detention. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jogger-who-accidentally-crossed-u-s-border-from-b-c-detained-for-2-weeks-1.4717060 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jogger-who-a...

toolslive 8y ago
the EU grew out of the BENELUX (BElgium-NEderland-LUXemburg) Crossing the borders was always pretty straight forward, except for the period during WWI when Belgium was occupied and The Netherlands were neutral. So the Germans installed barbwire and guarded the border.
labster 8y ago
The fact that we don't have an open border between the U.S. and Canada is a real shame. Just a waste of everyone's time to indulge the U.S. border paranoia. I'm not really worried about the US being flooded with poutine and hockey. Or even better, a sort of super-Schengen area including the EU, the US, Canada, and Japan. Yeah, I know I'm dreaming, but it's not like this set of countries would produce mass migration or security issues that would cause problems beyond the economic benefit of a free migration. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17382400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17382400
- pcrh 8y ago
  You need to add the UK to your super-Schengen list :-/
- eloisant 8y ago
  I think the reason why US wants a border with Canada is that the immigration policies of those 2 countries are widely different.

laurentl 8y ago

Makes The City and the City (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City) suddenly more realistic!

ars 8y ago
That was a great story - but the ending was a bit of a let down. Tip to the reader: There absolutely nothing supernatural, or extrahuman, going on whatsoever.

louise123 8y ago

andrea

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JoachimS 8y ago

Reminded me of the exclave Point Roberts, Washington. There was a story linked to here on HN a while back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/point-roberts https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/point-roberts It seems to me that Netherlands and Belgium are handling the situation somewhat more pragmatic.

glandium 8y ago

Tom Scott did a video on this border. https://youtube.com/watch?v=oE93J33SfHY https://youtube.com/watch?v=oE93J33SfHY