Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Tripoint

  • Also Very Northerly

    Let’s get back to the second part of the geography puzzle originally posed by loyal reader Matthias. We will continue to explore the current northernmost reaches of Google Street View. It’s still Deadhorse, Alaska at the very moment I draft this article. However, that will change as Google’s adventurous drivers reach new extremes. The European…

  • Restaurant Split by 3 Counties

    NOTE: IN 2015 I VISITED FAMOUS LOUISE’S IN PERSON! A restaurant sitting atop the intersection of three different counties? If I were ever to ever become a restaurateur, that would be the place that I’d have to own. Loyal reader Glenn from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina(1), has been following the Twelve Mile Circle for…

  • Colorado’s Remaining Corners

    The United States’ Four Corners phenomenon in the desert southwest receives an inordinate amount of attention on Twelve Mile Circle. I don’t know exactly why. Perhaps it’s because it was one of the first places I ever visited simply because of its geo-weirdness. In fact, the fascination runs so deep that it extends to the…

  • Canadian Border Anomalies

    I’ve discussed border anomalies between the United States and Canada before. Previously I focused on little areas of the U.S. separated from the rest of the country such as Point Roberts, the Northwest Angle and Alburg, Vermont. Here I give equal time to the Canadians. I’ll outline a couple of instances where citizens of that…

  • Neutral Moresnet

    All this recent talk on Twelve Mile Circle about strange European borders and condominium arrangements brings me to one of my favorite former anomalies: Neutral Moresnet. This place existed as somewhat of a no-man’s-land lodged firmly between sovereign neighbors from 1816 to 1920. Europe looked different as Napoleon’s empire dissolved. The victors negotiated amongst themselves…

  • Condominium (not that kind)

    A condominium is a concept in international law that describes a geographic area shared in equal sovereignty by two nations. As a practical matter, it creates a genuinely unusual and often impractical solution. A condominium isn’t distinctly part of any one nation but by agreement it’s within the control of both. So it has no…

  • Border Hunting Related Adventures

    I’d like to recommend a blog I ran across recently, Hugh’s Border Blog (“Border Hunting Related Adventures”). As regular readers of Twelve Mile Circle already know, borders, boundaries and divisions fascinate me to an unusual degree. That’s true whether they’re artificial or natural. Hugh seems to have the same interest, maybe even more so. He…