Friday, August 07, 2015

So that's what an enclave is!

Three years ago I wrote about some little bits of one country that are completely surrounded by another country.  Turns out I didn't have a clue.  Such things are far more common than I thought.  They even have a name: they are called enclaves.  And there are even second- and third-order enclaves, i.e. a piece of one country that is surrounded by a piece of another country that is surrounded by a piece of the first country that is surrounded by the second country.

AFAICT the motherlode of enclaves is on the border between India and Bangladesh.  The northern edge (if you can even call it that) of that border is so riddled with enclaves it looks like a Swiss cheese.  Or maybe a fractal.

What brought this to my attention is this story in the Washington Post about a third-order enclave that is going away due to the resolution of a long running border dispute between India and Bangladesh.  I don't really have anything to say about it, but I thought it was interesting so I thought I'd share.

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