The Canada–United States border to the north of the Contiguous United States and to the east of Alaska; The Mexico–United States border to the south. In the picture above you can see the Netherlands on the left and Belgium on the right. The two even share the same borders. It was inadvertently created in 1902, when the United Kingdom drew a different border from the one that was created in 1899. The International Date Line passes between the Diomedes and serves also as the border between the United States and Russia. Conversely, there is a legal crossing into Canada from Fort Fairfield, Maine to Four Falls, New Brunswick while visitors from Canada cannot enter the United States from this location. However, there is a tiny thumb of land both east of the Mississippi and north of 36°30’ — the Kentucky Bend. And how they got to be so weird. Eastern Avenue and Western Avenue form the Northeast and Northwest borders, respectively. So an error remains along the western border of Colorado, a confirmed non-rectangle. Stores on one side of the street showing phone numbers in their windows will have one area code (for Maryland) on the north side of the street, and a different area code (for the District) on the south side. Other exclaves include Akwesasne, the Northwest Angle, and Point Roberts. But there’s a kink in the western border with Utah. A few of the stones are missing today, but most are still present. Due to its size, shape and location, the border has some unusual features. The fifteen Kentuckians who live there send their children to schools in nearby Tiptonville, Tennessee. Halaib has various resources, making it desirable, but Bir Tawil has nothing. Macher, Dusty Top 10 Unusual Finds Involving Rare Remains, Top 10 Unusual Insights Found During Scientific Studies, Top 10 New Mysteries And Insights From Unusual…, Top 10 Unusual Facts And Stories About Nuns, Top 10 Unusual Facts And Stories About Giraffes, Top 10 YouTube Channels To Make You Seem Smarter, Top 10 Over-Blinged Versions Of Everyday Things, Top 10 Fascinating Historical Photographs, Top 10 Song Lyrics That Make You Go “Wait, What?” – 2020, Top 10 Things That Aren’t As Modern As You May Think – 2020, Top 10 Surprising Facts About Working At Google – 2020, 10 Peoples That Might Have Discovered America Before Columbus – 2020, 10 Breathtaking Little-Known Places in Images, Top 10 Everyday Things Banned in Saudi Arabia. Had his house been drawn in 18, Mascara would have been up against a relatively weak incumbent Republican. Everyone knows, of course, that it’s the tallest mountain in the world, but what a lot of people don’t know is that the border of Nepal and China goes right through the middle of the mountain, including the peak itself — making it not just the highest mountain, but also the highest border area. The border is unusual in other ways as well. Morocco claims Ceuta, along with the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, and a number of Mediterranean islands which border it, which has led Spain to erect a 3 meter high border fence around the city topped with barbed wire. Founded in 1865 by King Kamehameha V and his legislative assembly, Kalaupapa was a forced settlement camp for sufferers of Hansen’s Disease, a.k.a. As you can see, there's some weird border around the tab, and the Windows "Minimize" "Maximize" and "Close" button are Black, and it's supposed to be transparent. Here are 25 such weird and unusual borders from around the world: Slovakia, Austria and Hungary; Ever heard of having breakfast in one country, lunch in another and dinner in yet another country? Top 10 Most Unusual Borders in the World. 10. leprosy. How about why Alaska isn’t connected to the rest of the United States? Colorado certainly looks like a rectangle. The border passes right through the town, even through some buildings and homes. However, it also surrounds another Bangladeshi territory, and that territory itself surrounds yet another Indian territory, Dahala Khagrabari, making it the only place in the world where an exclave contains an exclave that itself contains yet another exclave. USA – Canada: The lakes sandwiched between the US and Canada throw up a series of eccentric borders. Some borders, however, are more unusual. For … When it was originally delineated, large stones were placed one mile apart around the entire District to define the border — one hundred stones in all, since the original district was ten miles long on each side. The District of Columbia was originally a big diamond carved out of Maryland and Virginia (later, the Virginia portion was returned to Virginia). Victoria Johnson is a cartographer and this is her Tumblr. Is Colorado a perfect rectangle? Churubusco, New York provides a port of entry to the United States from Canada only. The state of Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time. The opera stage is in Canada, but the entrance to the opera, and most of the stage seats, are in the United States. 10 bizarre borders in the USA If you’ve ever gone on a cross-country road trip, you know how thrilling it is to cross a border into the neighbouring state . In an area near the coast, on the border between Russia and North Korea, just to the south of Lake Khasan, the Tumen snakes down between Russia and North Korea and is actually in Chinese territory. Which was just as well as the other reason the site was chosen is because it’s completely cut off from the rest of the island by a 2,000-foot cliff. This is the most interesting thing you’ll see today! United States – Canada. Media in category "International borders of the United States" The following 28 files are in this category, out of 28 total. It shares an unusual border with the Belgian municipality of Baarle-Hertog. Once Colorado was granted statehood, a team of surveyors traveled northwards from 37°N to 41°N, leaving mile markers as they went, as was customary. New York got away with the enlarged island until 1998, when New Jersey’s lawsuit against the state of New York reached the Supreme Court. Original 13 state borders were those given by Royal decree. Choire Image sources, from top: Maps of United States and Kalawao via Wikipedia; Kentucky Bend image from Google Maps; Ellis Island via NPS.gov; PA-20 via the National Atlas; Rio Rico and lower Colorado map detail both from Google Maps. Thus, in this area, you can start off in North Korea, and just by walking North for less than half a mile, you will pass through China and end up in Russia. Following the 2000 Census, GOP-led redistricting eliminated the 20th and redrew Mascara into fellow Democrat John Murtha’s district, PA-12. The borders were so cleverly gerrymandered that Mascara’s house in Monessen ended up in Murtha’s district 12, but his parking spot was in district 18. Here is a list, in no particular order, of nine border areas that are somehow peculiar or noteworthy. So when an irrigation company illegally altered the river’s course in 1906, a tiny section of Texas was separated from the rest of the state. The Diomedes are a pair of islands in the Bering Strait. Instead, forced to campaign against a popular Democrat incumbent, Mascara lost by a wide margin. What’s Mount Everest doing on this list, you may ask? Ceuta is an 18.5 square kilometres (7.1 sq mi) autonomous city in Spain and an exclave located on the north coast of North Africa, surrounded by Morocco. The Texas-Mexico border has been set as the Rio Grande since 1845. But that only applies to what is above ground; the water is in Jersey’s jurisdiction. Weird Lines and Borders Macros and VBA Malicious Macros vba in Microsoft Word Master Documents Feature in Microsoft Word A Back CoverPage in Microsoft Word Normal Template in Microsoft Word - How to Open or Find the Normal Template My docs open in the wrong program! Due to its size, shape and location, the border has some unusual features. The smallest parcel belonging to Belgium is only two-thirds of an acre (one-quarter of a hectare). Poland, without changing its own borders, no longer borders any of the countries it did in 1989 – Source. When the leprosy survivors all die off, it’s expected that Kalawao will be formally annexed by Maui County. A number of highly endangered species have taken up residence there, and there are indications that some of them may even be increasing in population. The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2020 Whether you're traveling solo or planning a family vacation, here are the 50 best places to visit in 2020. On the other hands, there are a lot of countries which have unusual borders, might not be visible to any ordinary person. Had his house been drawn in 18, Mascara would have been up against a relatively weak incumbent Republican. The US government has a law enforcement unit consisting entirely of Native Americans who use indigenous tracking/ranging methods to catch drug smugglers on the US-Mexican border. The Kentucky Bend is an area of Kentucky that sits completely within Missouri and Tennessee, disconnected from the rest of its own state. Sudan, conversely, claims the 1902 border, which gives Halaib to Sudan and Bir Tawil to Egypt. Elected to the House in 1994, Army veteran Frank Mascara served as representative of Pennsylvania’s 20th district, located in the southwesternmost corner of the state. If you’re walking on the sidewalk on the northern side of the street, you’re in Maryland; the street itself is in the District, and the curb is the state line. To understand how this came to be, we have to look at the entire southern border of Kentucky. The kink in the western side of America’s Otherwise Squariest Landmass is just one example of the kind of cartographic aberrations that have made for oddball borders in today’s United States. The Korean DMZ is a strip of land about 160 miles (258 kilomters) long and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) wide, dividing North and South Korea. It’s a common place for North Koreans to attempt to defect and, for that reason, it is heavily patrolled by North Korean soldiers. And how they got to be so weird. Most of the time, a border is an imaginary line that isn’t remarkable in any way, usually not even readily visible. Little Diomede hosts the American city of Diomede, with a population of 146. Matthews. Thus, when residents on Little Diomede look across the strait at Big Diomede, they are not just looking at another country, they are “looking into tomorrow”; for example, when it is 9 AM on Saturday on Little Diomede, it is 6 AM on Sunday on Big Diomede. Of those, there are two that are one-way crossings only. It lies between Egypt and Sudan. The United States shares international land borders with two nations: . 13. The border is so complicated that there are even some houses that are bisected by it. More often than not, the only indication you’ll get when you’re crossing one is a sign that says “Welcome to Oregon” or “You are now leaving California”, while you’re driving on a highway where nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. A few years later, Tennessee separated from North Carolina and, like siblings arguing over the middle seat in a family car trip, each territory accused the other of taking its land. On the borders between friendly nations, especially those in the European Union's Schengen zone, the separations seem almost non-existent, marked by no more than a line or a road sign. The United States has over 580 miles of wall supposedly intended to delineate the border between Mexico and itself. The famous Wall between Mexico and the United States is actually a real thing! An additional peculiarity is the Indian area Balapara Khagrabari. Therefore, Egypt claims the 1899 border, which gives Halaib to Egypt and Bir Tawil to Sudan. Though the quarantine ended when leprosy was cured in the ’60s, people must still have state permission to visit and no one under the age of 16 is allowed unless they’re a relative of one of the hundred(-ish) elderly leprosy survivors that reside in the county. The Navajo Nation in Arizona does observe Daylight Savings Time. The two islands are only about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) apart. Re-registering Word using the commandline. Northwest Angle: United States/Canada To cross into the exclave of Lake of the Woods, Minnesota, from Canada, you most first make a video phone call at Jim's Corner and talk to a border agent. By the way, things are equally weird, if friendlier, on the Canadian border. Each country insists that Bir Tawil belongs to the other, making Bir Tawil the only piece of land in the world (outside of Antarctica) that is not claimed by any nation. Little Diomede has set up a webcam looking across the strait. In order to understand why the border is so weird, we need to go back in time to see how it was created. Not even the fact that it’s unprotected makes it all that strange; there are big, undefended borders in lots of places, although it’s getting rarer all the time. But wait t’ill you see how some of europe’s and the rest of the worlds weird borders look like! From Detroit, for example, you can head directly south into Canada. joshmend Most of its administrative tasks are handled by Maui County, and Kalawao’s sole local official is a sheriff chosen from among the resident population by the state health department. Deep in rough terrain they slipped a tiny bit west. When Ellis Island was artificially enlarged in the early 1900s through land reclamation (that is, blocking off an area of water, draining it and filling it with earth; the same process used to create the land used for Wellington, New Zealand’s harborfront and about a fifth of The Netherlands), New Jersey had a legitimate claim: the reclamation project enlarged Ellis Island by 90% and New Jersey argued that the land reclaimed from the bay was theirs. Of the 50 states in the United States, forty-eight are contiguous, meaning they are next to each other. The area past the Tennessee River, purchased from the Chicksaw tribe at a later date, stretches to the Mississippi border and sets the border back at the original line, 36°30’ N. West of the Mississippi, it’s Missouri. There is no access from the United States to Canada at this location. 1. The border spans from the Gulf of Mexico in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. "Rebuilding Monument 40" by D. H. Payne, under the direction of the U.S. section of the International Boundary Commission, along the Mexican border west of the Rio Grande, 1892-94.gif 600 × 491; 106 KB This small size is because Kalawao County (on the island of MolokaÊ»i) governs the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement and National Historical Park and nothing else. The border shared by the United States and Mexico is 1,954 miles in length, making it the second-longest international border in North America. However, sometimes this border goes wrong. In a 6–3 decision, the Court ruled that while the naturally occurring island belongs to New York, all of the manmade land belongs to New Jersey. Though Congress specified 109°03’W as the edge, the official borders are not what is legislated on paper but what is actually marked on the ground. Separated from the Iberian peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar, Ceuta lies on the border of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. These international borders are far from the conventional boundaries While all countries have weird quirks, some just have weird borders ... Line that marks the border between the USA … Most of the time, a border is an imaginary line that isn’t remarkable in any way, usually not even readily visible. Kentucky was once part of Virginia and, in the process of becoming a territory, kept the same southern borders (at 36°30’ N, halfway between the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay and the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina). In some cases, a family at home cooks its meals in one country and eats them in the other. As an exclave, it is surrounded by Bangladeshi territory. You may have even jumped out of the car to take pictures standing next to the sign welcoming you to the new state! There are a number of parcels under Bangladeshi jurisdiction that lie inside of India, and vice versa. The state borders are a lot weirder than they first appear, and often simple river borders will have crazy zig-zags that seem to arbitrarily cross the river. Zoran Nikolic's "Atlas of Unusual Borders" collects some of the best-known examples of bizarre boundaries, both internationally and on the subnational … (Picture via wikipedia). Because the building straddles the border, it has two mailing addresses, one for the US and one for Canada. Although that might not be a good idea. In this article, we have featured the most unusual borders around the world. Below is a list of the fifty states in the United States with the names of their bordering states. Here’s how different countries define their international borders across the world. Kalawao, HI Hawaii is composed of five counties: four counties of comparable size and one 13-square-mile blip, Kalawao County. A considerably long section of the border follows the Rio Grande River. There’s one in Silver Spring, Maryland, that marks the northernmost point of the District. A cease-fire was agreed on in 1953, but there has never been an actual peace treaty. It is the most heavily militarized border in the world. Though technically US territory, Mexico absorbed the area as a sort of resort town, a US territory without enforcement. Visitors can control the camera, panning from side to side and zooming in on Big Diomede. Both Ellis and Liberty Islands in New York Bay are technically on the Jersey side of the border, but as they were under NY control before the river was divided, they remained part of NY. Bir Tawil is a plot of land about 795 square miles (2,060 square kilometers) in size. Vatican City – Italy ... 12. Kalawao County was created in 1905. The District of Columbia was originally a big diamond carved out of Maryland and Virginia (later, the Virginia portion was returned to Virginia). The site was chosen for its incredibly fertile volcanic ash-based soil — it was believed this soil would make it possible for residents to sustain themselves by farming. The state is seven degrees of latitude from east to west and four degrees of longitude from north to south, so the northern border is about 34 km shorter. The DMZ is also notable in that it does not delineate a border per se; rather, it surrounds a “Military Demarcation Line”, or MDL. The town of Derby Line straddles the US/Canada border. It turns out that due to various permits, zoning laws, contracts, and similar legalese, the U.S. is not always able to build a wall wherever it wants along the border. Between Egypt and Sudan lies an 800-square mile region called Bir Tawil, which is not claimed by any country, and next to it is the Hala’ib Triangle, a region claimed by both Egypt and Sudan. Ellis Island is partially in New York and partially in New Jersey. Big Diomede belongs to Russia and is uninhabited. A section of the border, at San Ysidro, San Diego, claims to be the world's busiest border crossing with around 14 million crossings every … Most of us think of international borders as invisible, but clear-cut, lines: stand on one side, and you’re in one country; stand on the other, you’re in another country. Derby Line is also home to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which was purposely built on the border. The borders are defined by strict latitude and longitude lines, so by all accounts it should be; but thanks to a surveyor error back in 1879, it isn’t. Baarle-Nassau is a Municipality in the Netherlands. The Tumen is a river in Northeastern Asia. In quite a few cases, the U.S. government decided to YOLO and just build a wall miles inside of the U.S. border, essentially quarantining some U.S. citizens outside of the U.S. via a wall. The official borders all correspond to latitude and longitude. The Cooch-Behar District has borders somewhat similar to the Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog border. The Hopi Nation, an enclave within Navajo land, does not observe Daylight Savings Time. Essentially, New York earns tax revenue from souvenirs sold in the museum and New Jersey collects payments from the utilities it provides to the New York section. Typically, based on the territorial boundaries they were created from. Baarle-Hertog consists of 26 separate pieces of land surrounded by Baarle-Nassau, but some portions of Baarle-Hertog also contain areas belonging to Baarle-Nassau. Well, at this tri-point between Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, that could actually be done! Other borders are delineated by natural markers like rivers, or by man-made … More often than not, the only indication you’ll get when you’re crossing one is a sign that says “Welcome to Oregon” or “You are now leaving California”, while you’re driving on a highway where nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. There are 119 legal land border crossings between the United States and Canada. 12. While Alaska (the largest and most sparsely populated) and Hawaii (an isolated volcanic archipelago) are the non-contiguous states. Sicha, Michael ; The Russia–United States maritime boundary was defined by a disputed agreement covering the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Arctic Ocean. The area was officially annexed by Mexico as the Horcon Tract under the Boundary Treaty of 1970, a provision of which granted US citizenship to anyone born on the 400 acres after 1906. There are several exclaves between the United States and Canada, including the entire state of Alaska (though the state can still be accessed by sea from the United States, except the small settlement Hyder which is only accessible by road from British Columbia). Thomas Walker, surveyor, set the uneven border between the western edge of Virginia to the Tennessee River as it exists today. A border between the two Koreas cannot be formally agreed upon, as the two nations are technically still at war. Because it is so heavily guarded and almost nobody ever enters it, it has inadvertently created a nature preserve. On the northern side, the border is shorter than the southern one because circles of latitude get shorter as they get farther from the equator and closer to the poles. While it is a huge stretch of land, that’s not really what makes it bizarre. The two different borders created two different areas, Bir Tawil and Halaib. As you can see in the ScreenShot that I took from a video, the "Minimize" "Maximize" and "Close" buttons aren't supposed to be Black, they're supposed to be White/Transparent. The world's top 10 strangest borders from a quirky lake in Europe to the North Korea/South Korea divide A look at some of the weird and wonderful borders from around the world mirror According to my opinion, its all depend on the relationship between two countries. The borders were so cleverly gerrymandered that Mascara’s house in Monessen ended up in Murtha’s district 12, but his parking spot was in district 18. There is a street (called Canusa Avenue) that sits directly along the U.S./Canadian border -- and we mean the eastbound lane is in Vermont, while the westbound lane is in Quebec.