46 ms·

Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

• csunbird 5y ago
  > A local history enthusiast was walking in the forest when he noticed the stone marking the boundary between the two countries had moved 2.29m (7.5ft). How do you even measure that effectively? Aren’t the stones more than hundreds of meters away from each other? edit: for example, can I do that as well with minimal equipment (e.g. with just a phone)?
  • mlavin 5y ago
    I'm guessing the hole it originally sat in is still visible?
    • dev_tty01 5y ago
      Not if the soil is being farmed. Plowing, cultivation, etc. will fill in any small hole.
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    GPS. The border was likely digitized a decade or two ago. Someone noticed the stone didn't match the database.
    • BitwiseFool 5y ago
      I also feel like the "real" border is a line in a GIS database. Sure, the stone is supposed to be the border based on a 19th century treaty but we all know a 21st century government is not going to actually treat the stone's placement as the official border.
      • bellyfullofbac 5y ago
        If the stone is the legal marker, take it on a plane to China, mess up all the nice polygons...
        • sellyme 5y ago
          I don't think China would take too kindly to Belgium invading them, but maybe they'll be so confused that it will work.
      • stereo 5y ago
        The real border is in the treaty. They describe geographical features that have sometimes moved ("the river x"), don't exist anymore ("the big oak tree") or take a lot of time to rediscover ("the field belonging to the widow soandso"). The stone is often only near the border - if the border is a path in a forest, you're not going to plonk it down in the middle of the path. The gis database for administrative boundaries in Luxembourg[0] gets updated once a week, because the borders are based on cadastral measurements, which have been constantly updated since the 19th century. There's an error in every measurement, the idea is that over time it will average itself out. [0] https://data.public.lu/fr/datasets/limites-administratives-du-grand-duche-de-luxembourg/ https://data.public.lu/fr/datasets/limites-administratives-d...
        • kazen44 5y ago
          some borders are also based on really, really old treaties in europe. A lot of borders in regards to provinces are based on old counties and baronies for example. Baarle-hertog/baarle-nassau being a famous example of the inconvenice it results in. Prior to world war 2, this was also the case inside germany, considering many Lander still had lands all over the place (especially prussia) which made governance a hassle.
    • foobarian 5y ago
      "One does not simply use GPS to mark a spot..." I tried this at home and it turns out that easily available GPS devices have huge amounts of error, especially without unobstructed line of sight like in woods. I left a phone on a stump recording a walking trail, and it wandered around multiple tens of meters. There is value in what the surveyors do :) Although I guess they would use markers like this as references, so unless they crosscheck with multiple markers and fancy GPS they could make mistakes too. Edit: and the whole while the GPS receiver is reporting a misleading "5ft" or similar accuracy.
      • capableweb 5y ago
        I'm unsure where in the world you are, but accuracy depends on the satellite you're receiving data from. Commercial GPS satellites (or rather the stream you receive) also have better precision than normal "consumer" ones, and one could assume military has the most accurate ones. The new Galileo (Europe) system has a accuracy down to 1 meter, while GLONASS (Russia) has something like 3 meters. The commercial accuracy of Galileo is down to 1 cm though.
        • Twixes 5y ago
          Is Galileo online?
          • capableweb 5y ago
            Yes. Here is the status page for Galileo: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/system-service-status/constellation-information https://www.gsc-europa.eu/system-service-status/constellatio...
        • vbezhenar 5y ago
          How commercial and normal are differentiated? Is it possible to crack it and use in your own GPS device?
          • capableweb 5y ago
            Seems Galileo has four different services that it offers. Open Service is the public service. If you understand the protocol and radio signals, you can build your own device to read it yourself. High Accuracy Service used to be the commercial service, but is now just called HAS and is offered free of charge apparently. Then there is Public Regulated Service for government bodies, and a Search and Rescue Service.
  • gillesjacobs 5y ago
    From experience with living near The Three-Border Region (Drielandenpunt) on the Belgian-German-Dutch border these marking stones are fairly frequent, every hundred meters in the woods. I always figured they were mostly symbolic. At least I hope, because the local loggers have moved Germany about 30 meters into Luxemburg by uprooting a stone.
  • capableweb 5y ago
    Where I was brought up, I was taught how to estimate/measure meters in steps when in school, so everyone had a specific gait that measures a meter. 100 of those steps ~= 100 meters. No phone needed :)
    • csunbird 5y ago
      I do not think that steps have that good of a precision (2.29%) over 100 steps for measuring distance. Can a human achieve that?
      • capableweb 5y ago
        I was thinking more that he somehow discovered there might be an issue when measuring without good precision, and later came back to verify with a proper method.
        • saalweachter 5y ago
          Honestly, given the roundness of 7.5 ft, I would assume that 7.5 ft was the estimate and it was improperly converted to 2.29m as a precise measure. With the unusualness of a European measuring something in feet. It always irks me when I see signs saying "keep 6 ft (1.8288 m) apart", because 6 feet is just a round number of the approximate distance, and it's fine to just say "keep 6 ft (2 m) apart", for all that you'll get weirdos going "Well which is it??? 6 feet or 2 meters????"
  • koheripbal 5y ago
    A "local historian" - he likely knows the specific marker and has been walking past it for years.
  • detaro 5y ago
    Phone GPS struggles with that kind of precision, but for professional GPS gear (which is becoming a lot more affordable recently) few cm precision is not that much of a challenge. And I would assume that the enthusiast just noticed it being off from what it had been before and the precise number being one determined by a professional, or someone with professional tools.
  • teachingassist 5y ago
    I'd guess this has got this level of accuracy via back-and-forth mis-translation. "A good 2 metres" (as Flemish news is quoting) became "7.5ft" became "2.29m" Or, if you can identify where a stone has been moved from and to, you can use the pre-installed iOS app 'Measure', which always gives you a number to the nearest cm over this distance.
  • xiphias2 5y ago
    Quite often the border is in the middle or a side of a path / river. I think it was in the middle of the path for a reason.
• StavrosK 5y ago
  Must be nice to have neighbours that aren't threatening to go to war if your borders change.
  • frockington1 5y ago
    Are there many border wars in the developed world? I can think of Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan but admittedly am not familiar on the subject
    • StavrosK 5y ago
      Turkey is threatening war if Greece extends its borders to the 12 nm allowed by the UNCLOS. A farmer moving a stone that changed the border here would be a serious incident.
    • rsynnott 5y ago
      For sea borders, sometimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars#Third_Cod_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars#Third_Cod_War
    • robert_foss 5y ago
      Russia/Ukraine is a big one. China/neighbors in the South China Sea.
  • kazen44 5y ago
    mind you, this was not the case in Europe for a better part of it's history.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea
• danlugo92 5y ago
  I wish that one day all borders in the world were like this.
  • nerbert 5y ago
    Yeah it really shows how peace and nations working together can make stuff like that a non-issue. Everyone is so relaxed about it.
    • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Or more cynically, things only go smoothly when there's nothing at stake.
      • majewsky 5y ago
        It's the other way around. The thing that's at stake is economic cooperation, so both sides are more willing to find an amicable solution than otherwise.
        • oblio 5y ago
          World peace will happen when everyone in the world [1] will be convinced that every other human out there is worth more to them alive, unharmed and happy. [1] Or at least an overwhelming majority of people.
        • brnt 5y ago
          Not to mention peace! War is expensive, deadly, and altogether unpleasant. It's good to know this gets higher priority than minor territorial changes.
        • SllX 5y ago
          France and Belgium are within the Schengen Area and the sign out front says 81 years since the last Blitzkrieg. This is really small potatoes.
        • enimodas 5y ago
• leokennis 5y ago
  This made me wonder...are (most) of the (undisputed) borders of the world actually stored somewhere? Or are some stones and posts still the "official" borders?
  • libertine 5y ago
    Here in Portugal we (and Spain) have landmarks that define the border, and there's a treaty signed in 1846 that states these landmarks should be maintained in cooperation between the two countries. You can see some examples here, with the numbers and type of landmarks (apparently there are 1010 stone marks, other types of marks are wet marks for example, like rivers and lakes): https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_tro%C3%A7os_da_raia_(tratados_de_limites) https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_tro%C3%A7os_da_raia_(...
    • pedrocr 5y ago
      Although we don't officially agree what those actual borders are everywhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivenza#Claims_of_sovereignty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivenza#Claims_of_sovereignty
      • jdasdf 5y ago
        We both agree on the border there, see the treaty of vienna. The problem is that spain doesn't do what they agreed to do.
        • libertine 5y ago
          I wonder when this we be brought to light, specially when we have a pressing matter with Spain that's also being avoided, yet it could be extremely damaging to Portugal... I'm talking about the management of Tejo river. The re routing Spain is doing is contributing to the destruction of a massive portion of Portugal ecosystems.
  • Bayart 5y ago
    They're stored in law. Treaties define borders in (seemingly) unambiguous terms. Meridians, river beds and so. Problems arise when river beds move and everything becomes extremely ambiguous. In the worst case scenario you've got borders defined by older borders of poorly documented feudal holdings and it's up in the wind where the actual border ought to be. So states have to negotiate to redefine them in modern terms.
• kingkongjaffa 5y ago
  Surely grounds for a full scale invasion!
  • avereveard 5y ago
    They will bypass their land defences going trough Germany
• thedanbob 5y ago
  Reminds me of the dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island#cite_ref-The_Post_12-0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island#cite_ref-The_Post_...
• aetherspawn 5y ago
  A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so they offered to auction the neutral strip and its contents between us to the highest bidder.
  • mschuster91 5y ago
    > In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so they offered to auction the neutral strip and its contents between us to the highest bidder. Here in Germany, he would be issued a demolition order by the court that, in case of non-compliance, will be enforced even with armed police if deemed necessary. On top of that the affected party can sue him for damages.
    • oblio 5y ago
      They don't really enforce it much in Romania, but when they do, same. I've seen stuff get bulldozed down.
    • heavenlyblue 5y ago
      Unfortunately people usually know how the enforcement happens in their countries and happily take advantage of the disfunctional authorities.
    • mnw21cam 5y ago
      In a lot of cases, the affected party is the local council (government) which often doesn't care (or doesn't have enough free time to care).
    • wil421 5y ago
      Sounds like the US. The Sheriff would come if the court issued an order. In my county you can get the survey if it has been done on the property. It’s public records and details the property markers they found.
• Bayart 5y ago
  We shall retaliate by symbolically pouring beer into the gutter and stepping on fried potato chips in front of the Belgian embassy. (For the uninitiated https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/stabbing-oranges-and-burning-french-flags-the-consequences-the-eu-turkey-crisis-for https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/stabbing-oranges-an...)
  • bigmattystyles 5y ago
    But you’ve bought the beer and fries.
  • iudqnolq 5y ago
    Let's all just forget about freedom fries, please.
• nob0dyasked 5y ago
  Huge if true!
• 317070 5y ago
  This is so ironic. There is already a movie (Rien a Declarer / Nothing to declare) whose main premise is a guy spending his nights slightly moving the border between France and Belgium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6MljTh0kws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6MljTh0kws (This extract is French only unfortunately :( ) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQPaxlZWu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQPaxlZWu4 (With English subtitles) But, as someone who grew up less than 100 meters from this border, I'm pretty sure this stuff actually happens all over.
  • 8ytecoder 5y ago
    One of the most complex borders with hundreds of enclaves and people living there with no clear idea on which country they belong to used to be the India-Bangladesh border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_enclaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_encla...
    • aasasd 5y ago
      Belgium has such a place of its own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog However India-Bangladesh has enclaves of a higher nesting order.
    • athenot 5y ago
      Wow this is crazy. But at the same time, it could be an interesting solution for other disputed borders around the world. Leaders are often obsessed with drawing a clean line between 2 areas but reality is a lot more messy and nuanced.
    • gwright 5y ago
      This is another interesting one. A part of Russia that sits on the Baltic Sea disconnected from Russia proper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast
      • jacquesm 5y ago
• purple_ferret 5y ago
  The interesting implication here is the stone seems to mark the 'official' border and the nobody but the farmer can move it back without engaging in some sort of bureaucratic process. If it is in, presumably, French territory now, why can't some French resident roll it back?
  • vidarh 5y ago
    I'd be more inclined to assume it's just that nobody wants the hassle, and so it's easier to just insist it's up to the farmer.
    • mytailorisrich 5y ago
      Yeah, I read this as "just put it back where it was and we'll all forget it ever happened".
      • Arnavion 5y ago
        Also, they probably want to make sure the farmer knows that it's not supposed to be moved, so that he doesn't just move it again.
• wglb 5y ago
  Texas says hold my beer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038157
• henvic 5y ago
  Damn. Just leave the farmer alone.
• _the_inflator 5y ago
  This is funny. Even funnier are the so-called line houses along the USA/Canada border: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_house
  • smnrchrds 5y ago
    The US-Canada border situation is more sad than funny in the post-9/11 world. I wish the borders were open between US and Canada as they are in Europe. But crossing the border, even though it is barely marked, is a serious crime and heavily enforced. 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...
    • dmurdoch 5y ago
      This is only true in certain places. For example, in the thousand islands, the border between US and Canada is VERY nebulous. A line on a map exists, but you can drive your boat around the islands, entering and exiting the US dozens of times, and absolutely nothing will happen to you. The US Coast Guard is there boating around watching, but only rarely pokes around peoples boats. Now I'm sure if you landed and somehow were talked to by the border police and didn't have a passport you'd be pretty screwed, but honestly thats pretty unlikely to happen. I know an old couple set in their ways who to this day just boat across the river sans passport for a favourite restaurant.
  • iggldiggl 5y ago
    I also found this (online) exhibition documenting the whole USA/Canada border rather interesting: http://www.clui.org/section/united-divide-a-linear-portrait-usacanada-border http://www.clui.org/section/united-divide-a-linear-portrait-... Although from a European perspective, the post 9/11-state of that border also seems somewhat depressing…
  • walrus01 5y ago
    Not only that, but due to limitations in 19th century surveying technology, the actual 49th parallel as measured by a high precision GPS+GLONASS+Galileo receiver is some dozens of meters different from where the practically enforced line is (such as zero avenue and its ditch in South Surrey/Langley, British Columbia where it meets Whatcom County, WA). If you go here and search for "B street, Blaine WA" and right click in google maps, look at the latitude, the actual 49th parallel is considerably south of what is enforced in practice. Much of Blaine, and a very long strip all the way to the great lakes, is actually in Canada... https://www.google.com/maps/place/B+St,+Blaine,+WA+98230,+USA/@48.9999487,-122.7422753,824m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x5485c403ae0fb04d:0x8ae175f7921379f5!8m2!3d48.9999452!4d-122.7400813 https://www.google.com/maps/place/B+St,+Blaine,+WA+98230,+US...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Invictus0 5y ago
  Borders are shifting all the time based on how the water flows: [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_border_rivers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_border_r... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_river_borders_of_U.S._states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_river_borders_of_U.S._...
  • OldHand2018 5y ago
    Yes, but in some of those cases, the borders have been set while the water hasn’t. Like this hilarity: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.1205633,-89.1155927,15z https://www.google.com/maps/@37.1205633,-89.1155927,15z
  • bombcar 5y ago
    Rivers are an incredibly convenient border and also incredibly flexible over time. "Go west until you hit the river" is easy to understand and convey, and when things are measured in square miles or local it doesn't really matter, but over time that river moves and the exactitude of the boundaries matter more and more.
    • macintux 5y ago
      My uncle argued such a case before the U.S. Supreme Court: the Ohio River is gradually migrating south into Kentucky, so more of that state is now on the Indiana side of the river.
• yosito 5y ago
  Serious question: why does anyone but the farmer care? A 2m move in the middle of a field hardly seems to make much of a difference to anyone else.
  • Anechoic 5y ago
    It's likely that surveys reference positions from that stone. No one may care now, but a few years down the line if someone is trying to survey the path for a rail project, power line, etc, that could lead to problems.
  • bigmattystyles 5y ago
    Because you have to draw the line somewhere!
    • macintux 5y ago
      I’m conflicted: HN frowns on humor, but this really is a brilliant reply.
• blacksqr 5y ago
  Now do Mt. Fuji.
• wincy 5y ago
  Wow, as a US citizen looking at the France/Belgium border [0] I can’t imagine what it’d be like for a disagreement with your next door neighbor to become an international incident. I suppose it’s probably just no big deal. [0] https://goo.gl/maps/cPbAY3DxQNhUy2SZ9 https://goo.gl/maps/cPbAY3DxQNhUy2SZ9
  • cr1895 5y ago
    Oh, that’s nothing! Look up Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau on the Belgian-Dutch border. During the beginning of the pandemic, it brought about some truly bizarre situations: https://www.thebulletin.be/coronavirus-store-dutch-border-half-open-half-shut https://www.thebulletin.be/coronavirus-store-dutch-border-ha...
  • capableweb 5y ago
    Most of the people in Europe are war-weary since wars have been had in their front-yard, as compared to some other countries who only fight on foreign soil but still seem aggressive. So I would think it's easier to keep peace with your neighbors.
    • kazen44 5y ago
      Also, digging up world war 1 and 2 bombs and artillery shell from our literal front and backyards serves as a reminder aswell.
• matt_s 5y ago
  Sounds like it was on purpose, not an accident, since the stone marker of the border was always in his tractor's path.
  • stinos 5y ago
    Almost definitely on purpose. Not sure if this is limited to Belgium, but these days it's like the national sport for almost all farmers in my neighbourhood to just take a bit of land extra every year. A nearby road (well, path) used to be about 4m wide 10 years ago. Now only 1.5m is left untouched, the rest is now farmland. It is likely a sign of much bigger problems (food pricing, for one), but also an extra pressure on the few nature which is left in between the fields, not ideal when it comes to erosion, and so on.
• ilamont 5y ago
  If you want to see a messed-up peaceful border situation, there is a Mohawk community straddling the U.S./Canadian border with the actual line going through NY State, Ontario, Quebec, Cornwall Island, and the St. Lawrence River. The convoluted rules inhabitants have to follow to see relatives, go to school, get medical care and conduct daily business are extreme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akwesasne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akwesasne
  • koheripbal 5y ago
    They actually have fewer regulations and can usually cross the boarder very easily. It's one of the reasons that the area is extremely popular for smuggling.
    • ilamont 5y ago
      Vince Thompson is one of about 2,000 Mohawks who lives there. He's also represents the Island as a chief on the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. Just to take his daughter to a dentist appointment and go to some meetings, he says, he has to go back and forth through U.S. and Canadian customs, waiting in line and answering intrusive questions each time. "I’m going home. I gotta report in. Then I gotta race back home, pick up my daughter, then report back in, then proceed to the dental or medical appointments," Thompson shakes his head. "It’s unbelievable." https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/36230/20180517/mohawks-encouraged-to-know-your-rights-with-border-agents https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/36230/201...
      • koheripbal 5y ago
        While I'm sure that's true - it is still a very popular smuggling area exactly because the border patrol is very thin.
        • frenchy 5y ago
          Would it be better just to solve that by putting up stops on both sides of the reserve's border?
• markstos 5y ago
  My family farm got a new neighbor, who noticed that he technically owns a sliver of land with the first 100 feet of our gravel driveway, nevermind that we've been using it for the past 50 years since our property was purchased. I don't think anyone had noticed before, as this goes way back before GIS systems and satellite photos of property boundaries. For decades there's been a fence in the logical place between the driveway and the neighboring property. The legal system would probably side with us, but it's a pain.
  • ifdefdebug 5y ago
    Maybe related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038094
  • thaeli 5y ago
    The easiest thing for everyone involved is for their neighbor to grant an easement for the existing driveway. That way they can keep using it, but it's with explicit permission, so the neighbor doesn't have to worry about an adverse possession claim. If they're not amenable to that, the specifics digfer by state, but usually it's a "boundary line agreement" or similar where you'd basically be buying that small sliver of land and amending the property line accordingly. Here's hoping their neighbors are reasonable!
    • markstos 5y ago
      Thanks for the input! So far the neighbor hasn't been reasonable at all, so I don't expect we'll get to do this the easy way.
      • 1123581321 5y ago
        If they're being unreasonable, you probably can just insist on keeping it. Take a look on the expirations by state here: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/state-state-rules-adverse-possession.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/state-state-rules-ad... Good luck!
    • 5y ago
• gumby 5y ago
  A few meters from my mother in law's house stood a small stone marker next to the forest path (hers was the last one in the village, and was enclosed by the forest itself). One side of the stone read "Brauschweig", the other "Hannover". It was easy to miss, being buried in the undergrowth. A few years ago someone got the idea that it was of Important Historical Interest and so moved it further down the path. It's not clear whether this moved the "actual"* border since they didn't place it in the same orientation. Somehow the misorientation annoys me more than moving it. * "actual" gets quotation marks as the denoted territories no longer exist, though the cities by those names do.
• nestorD 5y ago
  There is such a stone marker in my parent's garden (their house is definitely fully in French teritory)! To be fair they are living so close to the frontier that my cellphone picks up the Belgian cell network in their house...
• yrgulation 5y ago
  I cant' help but rejoice that europe's borders (at least within the eu) are a mere stone. Not too long ago moving that stone might have led to war, now it leads to jokes.
  • berkes 5y ago
    A related story is the border between Belgium and the Netherlands that was recently moved[1]. Not because some war was imminent, but because of very practical reasons: Belgian police could only reach that piece of Belgium by boat; so "exchanging it with NL" was the easiest, because the Dutch police could just drive there. It makes me happy to see that we're down to "practical exchanges of land" from centuries of war over the most silly pole, church or "slight". [1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2112869-nederland-krijgt-belgisch-schiereiland https://nos.nl/artikel/2112869-nederland-krijgt-belgisch-sch... Dutch only, sorry.
    • sangnoir 5y ago
      What are the logistics regarding nationality and property within the exchanged land? Are the inhabitants now dutch, or Belgians who now own Dutch property?
      • garmaine 5y ago
        I don’t know about this case, but typically this is uninhabited, unimproved land that is exchanged.
        • sangnoir 5y ago
          I had assumed that the land was occupied because the motivation for the exchange mentioned in the article are reports of crime (nudity, drugs) that Belgian police can't easily attend to. It is likely the suspects were visitors to the area.
        • the-dude 5y ago
          Dutchie here, FTA : > wordt geklaagd over drugsoverlast, afval en naaktloperij So the actual problems are complaints about drug users, illegal trash dumping and nudism. And the negotiations only took 5 years.
• yalogin 5y ago
  It looks like the farmer's land spreads across the border. How is that possible? Or at the very least his land goes all the way to the border line. Either way, in today's age when the line can digitally recorded, why do we need the stone? Both countries know where the line goes through. Could they not just ignore that one stone and let the farmer do his work? I was hoping they would just ignore it, instead I see that he has to put it back, else face criminal charges too.
  • foepys 5y ago
    > How is that possible? May I introduce you to the town of Baarle-Hertog? A town that is not only split between the Netherlands and Belgium but inside the Netherlands with Belgium owning most of the town with Dutch fragments inside it. Some houses have a Dutch as well as a Belgian address. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog
    • kazen44 5y ago
      Also, if i remember correctly, they share common services too. (things like garbage, police, fire brigade etc).
    • shdon 5y ago
      The town itself is called Baarle, the Dutch part is part of a municipality called Baarle-Nassau (a little under 7000 inhabitants) and the Belgian part is part of a municipality called Baarle-Hertog (a little under 3000 inhabitants). Both municipalities also contain some smaller villages, which do not have the same border situation going on - that is entirely in the town of Baarle.
• Archelaos 5y ago
  The border between Germany and France, between Rhineland-Palatinate, and the Moselle and Bas-Rhin departments is adjusted from time to time by a few meters, whenever the course of small border rivers has changed.
• autosharp 5y ago
  > Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border So if the farmer takes the stone and tractors it to East Russia, did the farmer accomplish more than Napoleon?
  • orwin 5y ago
    I know it is a joke, but Napoleon did not want any russian land. It was a petty war he started over almost nothing, probably with a touch of arrogance, against a country that have been French friend since the muscovy duchy era. Country that did not join the anti-revolutionnary coalition despite a lot of nobles going there at first.
• js2 5y ago
  South Carolina and North Carolina didn't manage to get their border recorded accurately until a few years ago. After re-surveying, there were 1400 parcels impacted. https://www.wistv.com/story/13784677/dispute-over-north-carolinasouth-carolina-border https://www.wistv.com/story/13784677/dispute-over-north-caro... https://hutchenslawfirm.com/blog/creditors-rights/north-and-south-carolina-border https://hutchenslawfirm.com/blog/creditors-rights/north-and-...
• mercurialshark 5y ago
  A character in Neal Stephenson's "Fall or Dodge in Hell" - exploits a hypothetical issue at the Belgium/French border to fence off his home and form a sovereign city state (enforced by armed guards, political influence and technology).
• rafaelvasco 5y ago
  Only goes to show how ridiculous is the idea of physical borders between countries.
• Nitramp 5y ago
  My father related this story of a German farmer in the northwest of Germany, who it turned out, was Dutch. Apparently somebody incorrectly mapped the border line of 1648 after the 30 years war, and so this family had (barely) lived in the Netherlands ever since, without knowing it, despite considering themselves German citizens. I don't remember how this was resolved. I guess it thankfully just doesn't matter that much anymore, these days.
• yakubin 5y ago
  In other news, Poland accidentally invaded Czech Republic: <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-czech-republic-border-invasion-military-annexation-coronavirus-lockdown-a9564376.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-czech...>
• Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
  What a charming story.
• pers0n 5y ago
  Texas stole land from New Mexico by setting the border wrong