Category: Borders
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Let’s Get County Lines Drawn on Google Street View
[UPDATE: Google Maps finally added county lines in January 2012]. Loyal reader “Greg” wonders, “why Google [Maps] doesn’t show county boundaries?” Google Maps and its ongoing lack of county borders is a continuing frustration to me, but I suspect it doesn’t exist for the same reason as the not-quite-perfect international borders: except for a few…
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Missisquoi Bay Exclave
Often a question once answered leads to another question on Twelve Mile Circle. So I’d just analyzed the thousands of separate border segments between Canada and the United States. Then I stumbled upon a very small US exclave that I’d never noticed before. It’s located on Missisquoi Bay, an extension of Lake Champlain. Thus, it…
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Canada-USA Border Segment Extremes
Many superlatives describe the border between Canada and the United States. It’s the longest non-militarized border on the planet. It touches three different Oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic) plus the Great Lakes. It extends 8,891 kilometres (5,525 miles). While impressive, this isn’t about any of that. No, I’m more interested in the extremes in the opposite…
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Ignorance or Brilliance?
So it’s a very simple question. Is there an area with no time zone? Nonetheless, I dismissed the question when it first landed on Twelve Mile Circle in the form of a search query the other morning. I noticed it waiting in my user access logs although this random visitor never asked me personally. The…
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Bibb-Monroe Revisited
The recent changes Google made to embedded scripts for Street View is rather annoying. However, it did produce a couple of positive results. So, remember when I mentioned those newly-available images previously? They let me take a step back and wax nostalgic on some of my older articles. They’re history now but they were current…
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Nation, State or County?
The sovereignty of Native American nations in the United States presents a complicated set of issues, wrapped in various viewpoints and interwoven with the past, present and future. However, this entry doesn’t discuss the historical or political situation, it points to current geography. Please excuse me as I sidestep the sensitivities while focusing on boundaries…
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Northernmost England. Maybe.
Berwick-upon-Tweed is the northernmost town in England. However, due to geography and history it also holds a lot in common with Scotland. First, notice it’s peculiar location along the River Tweed: specifically the northern side of the River Tweed. How did a little piece of England find its way to the opposite side of a…
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Cross-Province Municipalities
Usually towns that rest upon a border are distinct entities. They may have the appearance of a single contiguous municipality but often that’s deceiving. Two separate local governments actually administer the two separate portions. Kansas City along the Missouri/Kansas border comes to mind: one metropolitan area; same name; different municipal governments. However there are two…
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Llivia & Ile des Faisans
Today marks a special occasion on Twelve Mile Circle, with its first ever guest blogger, Matthias Gries from France. He has researched a couple of French geo-anomalies that fit in well with the spirit and content of this blog and has written a lively narrative to accompany it. I hope you enjoy his effort —…
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The Stranded Airport
Twelve Mile Circle has a fascination with little chunks of land stranded on the “wrong” sides of rivers that occur when waterways change course. Usually this happens when severe flooding digs a new channel through a gradually sloping area of relatively soft soil. I noticed just such a spot in St. Joseph, Missouri awhile ago…