Borderlines explores the global map, one line at a time.

No, “apology” is not the collective noun for enclaves. The accepted term is a complex of enclaves — although more imaginative suggestions are welcome. Nor do I feel the need to apologize for enclaves. Yes, these geopolitical anomalies — for the uninitiated, a chunk of one political or ethnic unit lying wholly within another — have caused their fair share of misery and grief. But fascination with a subject does not equal approval of all its phenomena; herpetologists need not apologize for snakebites.

In keeping with the original meaning of the word, this apology is a defense of enclaves, a fascinating but endangered border phenomenon. Yet at the same time, this piece is also an apology of sorts for enclaves [1], for two examples in particular: Baarle, Belgium, and Cooch Behar, India/Bangladesh, both of which involve not one or two but dozens of atomized enclaves spread throughout, respectively, Dutch and Bangladeshi/Indian territory. It’s fair to ask why these lands, which by all accounts feed daily bureaucratic nightmares, have been allowed to survive.

This article must also contain an apology as well — in particular to Simon, from Singapore. In a comment on the previous post in this series, Simon, a self-declared border/no-man’s land/enclave buff, warned me against visiting the subjects of Baarle and Cooch Behar. “Am a bit fed up reading about the town in Belgium and the mess in Bangladesh/India,” he wrote. “We need new ones!”

Understood, and agreed. Border studies, and enclave-spotting in particular, are disciplines that should not be reduced to their star subjects. Obscure examples, and the concomitant thrill of discovery, are part of the attraction of scouting for border anomalies, a few of which Simon suggested: “Haven’t seen much in the literary record on the Malaysian railway in Singapore … used to be Malaysian territory once you got on the train.” He likewise suggested “the little back door leading into Guantánamo Bay solely for the Cuban pensions officer.”

My own favorite obscure border anomalies include the Drummully Polyp, a pene-enclave [2] on the intra-Irish border, and the omelet-shaped enclave complex of Madha and Nahwa — Madha being a small Omani enclave inside the United Arab Emirates, and Nahwa in turn a tiny emirates enclave inside Madha [3]. And there are plenty of river/border asynchronicities [4] around the world to get excited about.

I’m sure that we’ll eventually get to these, or other equally obscure examples of anomalous borders. But when it comes to enclaves, Baarle and Cooch Behar are, for lack of a better word, uncircumventable. How better to explain to an entry-level enthusiast the ins and outs of this particular border phenomenon than via the world’s two most spectacular examples?

Here’s what’s in it for Simon, and other advanced border buffs: Baarle and Cooch Behar have often been mentioned in the same breath, but have hardly ever been compared. Beyond the obvious formal similarities and practical differences, both complexes share a few surprising traits, and are marked by at least one glaring divergence.

Joe Burgess/The New York Times

Cooch Behar is often called the world’s most complex enclave complex, with Baarle a close second. But both have totally different outcomes on the ground. Baarle is a best-case scenario: a money-spinning tourist attraction; Cooch Behar a worst-case scenario: a continuing source of poverty and misery for the locals.

Before we attempt to find a moral in that story, let’s find a definition for the main ingredient on either map: those geopolitical islands stranded inside another territory. The most common term is “enclave”; a related, seemingly opposite one is “exclave.” Both are often used interchangeably, and indeed, enclaves often are also exclaves. In spite of that overlap in practice, in theory they are each other’s semantic opposites. Prepare to have your mind slightly boggled.

An enclave is a piece of sovereign territory (that may or may not be part of country X), wholly enclosed by country Y. For example, the Vatican is an enclave within Italy, even though it is not the dependence of a third country. Yet Monaco is not an enclave within France, because it also borders the sea.

An exclave is a piece of sovereign territory that is separated from its “mainland” (country X), possibly but not necessarily by country Y. So Lesotho, entirely surrounded by South Africa, is not an exclave, because it is sovereign and does not “belong” to a third country. But Llivia, a Spanish village north of the Pyrennees, is an exclave of Spain (as well as being an enclave within France). Ceuta and Melilla, tiny Spanish territories on the Moroccan coast, are exclaves of Spain, even though they sit on the Mediterranean Sea.

So even if both definitions sound similar, their point of view is opposite: enclaves imply total encirclement by country Y, exclaves imply non-contiguity with country X.

The difference sounds academic, and the discussions over which fleck of enclosed territory is what can be quite sterile. Doesn’t the result look sort of the same on the map? Well, no, at least not always — but let’s follow the lead of those border aficionados who would rather sidestep the issue. They will use the term “’clave,” a one-size-fits-both abbreviation, allowing them to get straight to the more important, or at least more exciting business of “border anomaly appreciation.”

So let’s appreciate the weirdness that is Baarle and Cooch Behar.

Joe Burgess/The New York Times

Baarle, on the Dutch side of the border with Belgium, is a Siamese twin of a town, one part Belgian and one part Dutch. Each part has its own mayor, town administration and police force, each is beholden to a different set of national laws. The Belgian part, called Baarle-Hertog, is a collection of 26 separate parcels, four of which are on the Belgian-Dutch border (therefore technically not ’claves) and 22 within Baarle-Nassau, the Dutch part of town [5]. The largest of those Belgian ’claves contains six Dutch ones, with a seventh one ensconced in the second largest Belgian ’clave. These Dutch ’claves within Belgian ’claves are called “counterenclaves” [6]. An eighth Dutch territorial splinter is located within Zondereigen, the largest of Baarle-Hertog’s 26 parcels and one of the four on the Belgian-Dutch border. As this is not a Belgian ’clave, the Dutch splinter it contains is not a counterenclave, merely an enclave (within Belgium), but also an exclave (of the Netherlands).

Whereas Baarle mainly consists of Belgian enclaves within the Netherlands, the Cooch Behar complex is more evenhanded — except in its name. “Cooch Behar” describes only one half of the equation: the former Indian principality that now is a district in the Indian State of West Bengal. That district possesses 106 enclaves in Bangladesh, but conversely, Bangladesh has 92 enclaves in that part of India. To muddy the waters, Bangladesh has 21 counterenclaves (i.e. located within Indian exclaves inside Bangladesh). India has three of those, and a single counter-counterenclave (i.e. Indian territory, located within one of Bangladesh’s counterenclaves).

The Baarle complex is dwarfed by Cooch Behar, which is the world’s largest archipelago of ’claves. Baarle-Hertog’s assorted bits of land total just under three square miles, and have a mere 2,500 inhabitants [7]. Both Baarles form a compact whole. Cooch Behar, on the other hand, is an approximately 200-mile-long confused concatenation of ’claves, the combined area of which is 37 square miles with a combined population of around 70,000.

Remarkably, both complexes’ territorial splinters have similar origins, in what were essentially self-sufficient agricultural units. As was standard in pre-modern times, even neighboring and interdependent farms and estates often owed allegiance to different overlords. In the case of both Baarle and Cooch Behar, these allegiances hardened over centuries, as local lords were succeeded by national governments. The Baarle split in its earliest form dates from the 15th century, when the Duke of Brabant competed with the counts of Breda for local loyalty. Cooch Behar finds its origin in the motley border drawn up in the 18th century, between the local principality and the advancing Mogul Empire.

In fact, enclaves were quite common before modern national borders became significant [8], which is when they acquired the potential to wreak geostrategical havoc. As nature abhors a vacuum, modern geopolitics dislikes the enclave. The march of time is against them. When and where possible, they are exchanged and erased, to decomplicate national borders.

That some survive, and resplendently so in the cases of Baarle and Cooch Behar, is a testament to a combination of factors: international unwillingness, administrative inertia, local pride, and the ’claves’ general inobtrusiveness to the affairs of state.

Related More From Borderlines Read previous contributions to this series.

Yet the fact that they were too out of the way for governments to take much notice of them doesn’t mean that being ’claved in (or out) has no consequences for the locals. In Baarle, the peculiarities of the border are now part of the local folklore. For example, as taxes are paid in the country where the front door is situated, houses on the border would move their main entrance in accordance to the country where taxes were, for the moment, more advantageous. House numbers are marked in the respective national colors, and a line marking the border heightens the tourist appeal of Baarle’s town center. And shops and restaurants on the border will have different closing times, serving rules and/or sales periods on either side of the line, with interesting consequences for their customers.

Locals, the Dutch and Belgian governments, can take such a relaxed attitude because most borders in Europe have been “de-fanged” (to pick up the herpetology simile again) by the continent-wide process of normalization and integration. The last time the national border really mattered was during World War I, when the Germans occupied Belgium, but the Netherlands remained neutral. The Belgian-Dutch border was fenced off to deadly effect with electrified barbed wire, to prevent more Belgians to seek refuge north of the border. Baarle-Hertog, out of reach of the Germans, was the only part of the country outside the heavily contested, trench-infested “Flanders Fields” in the west of Belgium that remained free of occupation, a haven for refugees and a rallying point for resistance, much to the chagrin of the Germans.

In contrast, in Cooch Behar, the grim imposition of borders on daily life is still a regular occurrence. Inhabitants of the enclaves are caught in a classic Catch-22: They are unable to obtain a visa, as this would require them to go to the “mainland,” which is impossible without a visa. For these people, leaving their ’claves constitutes an illegal border crossing. Adding to a general sense of despair is a criminal element, which has learned to exploit the legal limbo of the ’claves to find a safe haven.

India and Bangladesh have two options to remedy the situation: Either decrease and ultimately erase the enclaves, or improve the security and legality of the ’clave-dwellers. Some progress has been made on the first option, but even the installment of the Tin Bigha corridor, linking the Dahagram–Angarpota enclave with its Bangladeshi mainland, was an arduous, even lethal process that took decades to realize. Maybe both countries should look into the second option, creating a subcontinental Baarle, a geographic anomaly as tourist attraction.

There’d be plenty of interesting things to see. Like Upan Chowki Bhaini (Bangladesh), at 570 square feet, the size of a large living room, the world’s smallest international enclave. Or Dahala Khagrabari (India), the world’s only international counter-counterenclave [9]. Or the quadripoint, reputedly near the Patgram police station, where four international borders (two for each country) meet (Baarle has a similar quadripoint). How about a system of checkpoints, earning badges for borderwalkers and enclave-spotters? Throw in some local folklore about the villains that used these ’claves as untouchable hideouts – but make sure there are no actual villains left … I can hear the tour buses gearing up already.

Frank Jacobs is a London-based author and blogger. He writes about cartography, but only the interesting bits.

[1] This must be, more or less, how apology (in defense of) became apology (I’m sorry for).

[2] Pene-enclaves relate to enclaves as peninsulas relate to islands: they’re almost enclaves, attached to the “mainland” by a narrow strip of land. How narrow this strip needs to be for a pene-enclave to occur is open for debate. Hence there is no limitative list of pene-enclaves. For more on Drummully Polyp — also known as Coleman’s Island — see Strange Maps No. 365.

[3] More on this on Strange Maps No. 60.

[4] Having a river mark the border between two countries may seem like an easy, obvious solution. But rivers move course; do borders then follow? Ask the good people of Kaskaskia, Ill., which now lies across the Mississippi River from its home state.

[5] “Nassau” refers to the medieval count of Nassau, whose descendants include the present royal family of the Netherlands, the House of Orange-Nassau; “Hertog” is Dutch for “duke,” and refers to the duke of Brabant, who held court in Brussels, now the capital of Belgium.

[6] For a purely geographic analogy, think “Island in a lake on an island.” See this site for largest lake on an island, largest island in a lake, largest island in a lake on an island, largest lake on an island in a lake, largest lake on an island in a lake on an island, largest island in a lake on an island in a lake, and largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island. No kidding.

[7] Baarle-Nassau is 29.5 square miles, with 6,500 locals.

[8] The Peace of Westphalia (1648) is often cited as the starting point for the modern concept of the state, endowed with sovereignty and inviolable borders. This is doubly the case for Baarle, as Spain finally recognized the Netherlands at Westphalia, after 80 years of war — recognizing the border of which Baarle forms a part.

[9] Also called a third-order enclave, a counterenclave being a second-order one.