I love getting comments from readers. Recently I received an email about a quote from my recent Jungholz Quadripoint Boundary Cross posting. As a reminder, a quadripoint occurs when four borders meet at a single point, and example being the “Four Corners” of the United States where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado join together. I wrote:
“In fact, there are no places where four nations form a quadripoint. Even the Jungholz example involving four borders and two nations is rare, one of only three examples.”
So my reader wanted to know whether I could provide the other two examples of quadripoints formed by international boundaries.
Baarle
One involves Baarle-Hertog of Belgium and its intertwining with Baarle-Nassau of the Netherlands. But I’ll save the other example for a future post.
This border area is almost indescribable. It includes a multitude of exclaves, mainly Belgian exclaves totally surrounded by the Netherlands. However a few also exist in the opposite direction. So this means seven Dutch exclaves sit totally within the Belgian exclaves!
Now take a look at the map; zoom in and out, and switch between modes. Then you’ll notice that some of the parcels enclose a single field or a couple of blocks or houses within the town. You’ll also see that indeed this features several quadripoints sprinkled within those convoluted boundaries.
An interesting website documents much of the Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog phenomenon. It includes some excellent maps, a photo and some history behind how this situation arose a thousand years ago. Somehow –very improbably — it survives to the present, making it through several missed opportunities that could have fixed the situation. Baarle results from an unusual artifact of feudal times that somehow exists undisturbed in modern Europe.
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