Exclaves Around the World: How the Weirdest Borders Came to Be

Photo by Valleluce

🗺️ Why Exclaves Exist: A Taxonomy

Some of the world's strangest borders aren't random—they come from treaties, empire collapse, medieval land deals, or colonial maps. Here's a tour of famous exclaves (territory belonging to one country but cut off from it by another) grouped by how they happened. We've already deep-dived Point Roberts, Namibia's Caprivi Strip, and Kaliningrad; this post ties them into a bigger picture and adds more standouts.

📐 1. Treaty & Map Quirks: The Straight Line That Didn't Care

When diplomats draw a line on a map without following rivers or mountains, geography can bite back. The classic example is Point Roberts, Washington: the 1846 Oregon Treaty set the US–Canada border at the 49th parallel, which sliced through the Tsawwassen Peninsula and left its tip as US soil reachable by land only through Canada. Same border created the Northwest Angle (Minnesota, US) and tiny Elm Point (Manitoba, Canada). One treaty, several exclaves.

⚔️ 2. Empire Collapse & War: Territory Left Behind

When empires shrink or borders move, pieces of a country can end up on the "wrong" side. Kaliningrad Oblast is Russia's Baltic enclave between Poland and Lithuania—once East Prussian Königsberg, handed to the USSR in 1945 and stranded when Lithuania and Belarus became independent in 1991. Another striking case is Nakhchivan: an Azerbaijani exclave wedged between Armenia, Iran, and Turkey. It was created by Soviet border-drawing in the 1920s and survived the USSR's collapse. Today it's Azerbaijan's only land link to Turkey and a flashpoint in the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict. No bridge to mainland Azerbaijan—just a sliver of history and geopolitics.

🏰 3. Feudal Oddities: Borders That Never Got Tidied

Some exclaves are medieval leftovers—tiny parcels that survived because nobody bothered to "fix" the map. The poster child is Baarle-Hertog (Belgium) and Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands). The border doesn't just run between towns; it runs through buildings, cafés, and front doors. You can have your bedroom in Belgium and your kitchen in the Netherlands. There are Belgian enclaves inside Dutch territory, and even a Dutch enclave inside one of those Belgian enclaves—enclaves within enclaves. It stems from old land deals between the Duke of Brabant and the Lord of Breda. Nobody ever simplified it.

Then there's Llívia: a Spanish town entirely inside France. In the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, Spain ceded villages in the Cerdanya region to France—but Llívia was classified as a "town," not a village, so it stayed Spanish. One word in a 350-year-old treaty, and you still need to leave France to drive from Llívia to the rest of Spain.

📏 4. Panhandles & Corridors: Reaching for a River or Sea

Some territories are long, narrow strips that "reach" for a river, coast, or strategic route. Namibia's Caprivi Strip (now Zambezi Region) is a 450 km panhandle that stretches east so Namibia could touch the Zambezi—a colonial-era gift from the British. On the other side of the world, the Wakhan Corridor is a narrow strip of Afghanistan poking east between Tajikistan and Pakistan. It was created as a buffer between the Russian and British empires in the 19th century. Today it's one of the most remote and rugged corners of Afghanistan—geography as imperial artifact.

🌍 5. Colonial & Overseas Remnants: Far from the Mainland

Colonial borders often left exclaves when the metropole kept a foothold or when one colony was split. Cabinda is an oil-rich Angolan province north of the Congo River, separated from the rest of Angola by a strip of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Portugal administered it separately; at independence it became part of Angola but remains a distinct exclave and has seen separatist tension. Melilla and Ceuta are Spanish cities on the Moroccan coast—EU territory in Africa, with fences, migration pressure, and centuries of history. They're exclaves that defy the idea that "Europe" stops at the Mediterranean.

🌟 Why It Matters

Exclaves aren't just trivia—they affect identity, trade, transit, and conflict. Understanding why they exist (treaty, war, feudalism, or colonialism) makes the map make sense. Next time you see a weird border, ask: treaty line, empire remnant, or medieval deal that never got cleaned up?

📚 Test Your Geography with CapQuiz

Can you place Kaliningrad, Nakhchivan, or the countries that host Baarle? Try our Map Quiz and Capital Quiz to sharpen your sense of where these exclaves—and their parent countries—sit in the world.