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.

True enclaves

This refers to those territories where a country is sovereign, but which cannot be reached without entering another country. The best-known example was West Berlin, before the reunification of Germany, which was de facto a West German exclave within East Germany, and thus an East German enclave (many small West Berlin land areas, such as Steinstücken, were in turn separated from the main one, some by only a few meters). De jure all of Berlin was ruled by the four Allied powers; this meant that West Berlin could not send voting members to the German Parliament, and that its citizens were exempt from conscription.

Related Topics:
West Berlin - Germany - West German - East Germany - Steinstücken

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From the numerous enclaves that used to exist in Europe, only the following ones now remain:

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• The town of Baarle in the southern Netherlands is made up of the municipality of Baarle-Hertog, a group of 22 Belgian enclaves within the Netherlands; and of the Dutch municipality of Baarle-Nassau, which itself has 3 enclaves in Belgian soil and a small one inside one the Belgian enclaves.
• Büsingen, Germany is an exclave in the canton of Schaffhausen, northern Switzerland. Germany also has a group of 5 enclaves created by a railway track between the towns of Roetgen and Monschau (south of Aachen) that was granted Belgian sovereignty.
• The town of Campione, in Italy, is enclaved in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is partly administrated by Switzerland: custom, phones, schools,... and partly by Italy: laws, police, local administration, taxes,...
• The Spanish town of Llivia, an exclave in southern France, a few kilometers east of the Principality of Andorra.
• In the eastern part of Belarus, the Russian exclave of San'kovo-Medvezh'e is made up of two villages.
• The villages of Ormidhia and Xylotimbou in Cyprus, surrounded by the British Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia. Inside this base, the Dhekalia Power Station also belongs to Cyprus although it's surrounded by British land and is even divided in two by a British road.
• In Armenia, there exist three exclaves of Azerbaijan. Barxudarli and Yuxari Askipara in north-eastern Armenia. The other one, Kaki, is located north of the region of Nakhchivan (which is a detached fragment of Azerbaijan stuck between Armenia, Iran and Turkey).
• Reciprocally, there exists one Armenian exclave, a village called Artsvashen in north-western Azerbaijan.

Outside Europe, enclaves are to be found in Asia :

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• Madha is an Omani territory enclaved in the United Arab Emirates which in turn hosts the tiny territory of Nahwa, an UAE enclave within Madha.
• On the India-Bangladesh border in the Indian district of Cooch-Behar, there are 92 exclaves of Bangladesh. Similarly, there are 106 exclaves of India inside Bangladesh. 21 of the Bangladeshi exclaves are embodied in Indian exclaves. 3 of the Indian exclaves are embodied in Bangladeshi exclaves. The largest Indian exclave, Balapara Khagrabari, embodies one Bangladeshi exclave, Upanchowki Bhajni, which itself embodies an Indian exclave called Dahala Khagrabari.
• The Fergana Valley, a region where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meet, has a large number of enclaves. Barak, a small Kyrgyz village is surrounded by Uzbekistan. The Tajik village of Sarvan is in Uzbek territory and the Tajik village of Vorukh and a small piece of land near Kairagach are embodied in Kyrgyz land. The Uzbek towns of Sokh and Shakhimardan and the two tiny Uzbek territories of Qalacha and Khalmion, north of Sokh are all surrounded by Kyrgyz territory.

Three sets of islands, surrounded by the territorial waters of another country, can be found elsewhere:

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• The Malawian islands of Chizumulu Island and Likoma Island are located within Mozambican territorial waters in Lake Nyasa.
• The Argentine island of Isla Martin Garcia is surrounded by Uruguayan territorial waters of the Río de la Plata.
• The Overseas Collectivity of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is surrounded by Canadian territorial waters. The French zone consists of waters within a 24 nautical mile (44 km) radius. A 10.5 nautical mile (19 km) wide channel allows access to open sea.

The life in such areas varies greatly from one to another. Whereas in modern times European enclaves are usually legally well-defined and their population is often free to move from one country to another, Asian enclaves often result from disagreement over border treaties. This causes their inhabitants to be at worst enclosed inside, at best seriously impaired in their usual life.

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