One town is split into dozens of national fragments
In Baarle, the Belgium–Netherlands border zigzags through cafes, gardens, and front doors.
An enclave is a piece of one country completely surrounded by another. The town of Baarle has the most tangled enclaves on Earth. The Belgian municipality of Baarle-Hertog is broken into 22 separate parcels sitting inside the Netherlands — and tucked inside several of those Belgian patches are counter-enclaves of the Dutch town Baarle-Nassau.
The mess dates to medieval land deals between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant, confirmed centuries later by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843. Nobody ever tidied it up.
The border literally runs through buildings. Locals painted the line across pavements and even through living rooms; for houses straddling it, the country you live in is decided by which side your front door opens onto.
Two mayors, two police forces, and two sets of national law all operate within a single small town — a working miniature of Europe’s patchwork past.
Sources & references
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