Enclave

In human geography, an enclave is a piece of land which is totally surrounded by a foreign territory. If another country has sovereignty over it, it is also called an exclave of that other country.

Subnational enclaves

Sometimes, administrative divisions of a country, due to historical or practical reasons, caused some areas to belong to a division while being attached to another one. There are countless examples; here are some:

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• In Australia, the Australian Capital Territory is an enclave of New South Wales. The ACT also administers the separate coastal enclave of Jervis Bay on the New South Wales south coast. The Australian constitution (written before the founding of the ACT) specified that the site for the national capital should be wholly within New South Wales.
• In Austria, Vienna is an enclave of Lower Austria. Interestingly Vienna was also Lower Austria's capital until 1986.
• In Belgium, the Brussels-Capital Region is an enclave of Flanders. Strangely enough, it is also Flanders' capital. Flanders has an exclave, the municipality of Voeren, whereas Wallonia also has an exclave, the municipality of Comines-Warneton. The territory of the German speaking Community of Belgium is also composed of two parts separated by a part of the French speaking Community.
• In Bosnia and Herzegovina the two enclaves, Orašje and Odžak are part of Federation enclaved between Republika Srpska and Croatia and divided from Federation by small strip of land called Posavski koridor that belongs to Republika Srpska. During the war in Bosnia there were also several enclaves controlled by Bosnia and Herzegovina which were surrounded by the army of Republika Srpska. The most famous was Sarajevo. Other besieged enclaves were Goražde, Srebrenica, Maglaj, Bihać and Orašje (which was connected with Croatian territory).
• In China, Xianghe County, Sanhe City and Dachang Hui Autonomous County of Hebei province make up an exclave lodged between the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin.
• In Colombia, Bogotá is an enclave of Cundinamarca, although it is also Cundinamarca's capital.
• In France, the département of Vaucluse has a rather large exclave around the city of Valréas inside Drôme. Valréas used to be part of the possessions of the Pope in France near Avignon and were all attached to Vaucluse when annexed after the divisions were created.
• In Germany, Bremerhaven is an exclave of the state of Bremen.
• In India;
• Dadra, exclave of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, a Union Territory is a true enclave of the state of Gujarat
• Daman is another union territory which is a coastal enclave of the state of Gujarat.
• Pondicherry is a Union Territory which is composed of Pondicherry City and Karaikal (coastal enclaves of Tamil Nadu), Yanam (coastal enclave of Andhra Pradesh) and Mahe (coastal enclave of Kerala).
• In Indonesia, the province of Yogyakarta is a coastal enclave of Central Java province with access to Indian Ocean in the south.
• In Italy, the Comune di San Colombano, named after the Irish missionary Saint Columbanus is an enclave of the province of Milano between the provinces of Lodi and Pavia.
• In Japan, Kitayama Village and Kumanogawa Town Enclave of Wakayama prefecture are located in the border between Mie and Nara prefectures.
• In Malaysia, the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya are enclaves of the state of Selangor.
• In Russia, Moscow is an enclave in Moscow Oblast, although it is the administrative centre of Moscow Oblast. Also, some small exclaves of Moscow in Moscow Oblast exist. Again, St. Petersburg is the administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, being an enclave in it, although this enclave is not true as it has access to Baltic Sea.
• In Spain, the Condado de Treviño is an enclave of the Basque province of Álava and administratively part of the province of Burgos in Castile-Leon. Also, Valencia has an exclave, Rincón de Ademuz between the provinces of Teruel in Aragon and Cuenca in Castile-La Mancha.
• In Switzerland, the two cantons of Appenzell are enclaved in the Canton of St. Gallen. The canton of Fribourg also has pieces within the neighboring canton of Vaud.
• In the United States of America:
• The City of Glendale, Colorado in Arapahoe County is an enclave of the City and County of Denver.
• The Town of Brookline, Massachusetts, just west of downtown Boston, is an exclave of Norfolk County, Massachusetts.
• Most recently, the town of Killington, Vermont, voted on March 2, 2004 at a Town Meeting to secede from that state and join New Hampshire, whose border is 25 miles (40 km) away. This vote was repeated in the March, 2005 town meeting, after a group of residents filed a new ballot warrant on the issue. The secession is under consideration by the New Hampshire legislature, however Vermont refuses to discuss the issue and will not consider a bill on secession.
• The town of Carter Lake, Iowa, originally east of the Missouri River, became attached to Nebraska in 1877 when flooding caused the river to jump its banks, leaving an oxbow to the east of the town. A lengthy court case ensued; the Supreme Court of the United States held that the sudden change in the river's course did not change the original boundary, and Carter Lake was still part of Iowa. (Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. 359 (1892)). The Court delayed a final decree to allow Nebraska and Iowa to reach an agreement consistent with its holding, which they did. (145 U.S. 519 (1892)).
• Humarock Island, legally part of Scituate, Massachusetts, was separated from the rest of the town in the Blizzard of 1898, in which the mouth of the North River shifted. The island is only accessible via a bridge which connects it to Marshfield, Massachusetts.
• The westernmost part of Fulton County, Kentucky is a piece of land known as the Madrid Bend, located inside a loop of the Mississippi River, detached from its mother state. Crossing the river in any direction from the Madrid Bend would bring a traveler to Missouri; the only road in the area goes to the south, into Tennessee.
• The construction in 1895 of the Harlem River Ship Canal isolated Marble Hill, a small portion of the northern tip of Manhattan (New York County). Initially an island, it was later physically connected to the Bronx by the filling of Spuyten Duyvil Creek. It remains politically part of Manhattan, to which it is connected by the Broadway Bridge.
• Riker's Island, the jail complex of the City of New York, is considered to be in the borough of The Bronx, but is only accessible via the Riker's Island Bridge, which terminates in the Borough of Queens.
• Liberty Island, New York, site of the Statue of Liberty, is a part of New York City but is on the New Jersey side of the state boundary running through the Hudson River.
• The state of Virginia has several county seats that are enclaved in the counties that they serve, but are not part of the counties, plus some other cities enclaved within counties. This situation exists because under Virginia law, all municipalities that are incorporated as cities are legally independent of any county.
• During the American Civil War, Winn Parish, Louisiana refused to secede from the Union, rendering it an enclave in Confederate Louisiana.
• In addition, the lands within numerous Indian reservations have been fragmented, with privately owned real estate intermixed with tribal, city, county, state, and federal authorities in a bewildering array of jurisdictional geographies.