The Most Complex International Borders in the World - Part 4

we all know by now that International borders can be complicated sometimes just check out the previous three videos in this series if you haven't already I really thought I had covered all the borders that I wanted to and there wouldn't be any more episodes but I was wrong turns out there are always more complex borders out there you just have to look for them let's first start with somewhere you might not expect to find any border anomalies like Malawi the border between Malawi and Mozambique is split down the middle of the lake except for these

two islands here back in the 1880s British missionaries established a mission base on lioma island this grew over time eventually evolving into its own dicese with its own Bishop in fact even to this day the Island's biggest attraction is St Peter's cathedral built in 1903 along with the smaller island chizumulu island where the missionaries also operated they were treated as part of the British protectorate of NASA land as it was known at the time the exact border with the Portuguese was defined in 1954 and it was agreed that the islands should be British due to

the presence of the missionaries on the islands these borders were kept the same when both Malawi and mosambique gained their independence so today these islands despite being very much on the mamb bean side of the lake belong to Malawi well this might be a bit of a strange border at least both sides agree on where the Border actually is the same can't be said for the northern part part of the lake maps will generally just not show any border here or maybe have two dotted lines like this that's because there's an ongoing dispute between Malawi

and Tanzania see well you might think that by default things are just split down the middle and that is true to a certain extent Article 15 of the UN Convention of the law of the sea states that where the coast of two states are opposite or adjacent to each other neither of the two states is entitled to extend its territory toal SE beyond the median line however I skipped over an important part of that sentence failing agreement between them to the contrary now there is no agreement between Malawi and Tanzania hence why it's a dispute

but that doesn't mean no agreement has ever been made once again we need to go back to Colonial times when this was the border between British and German possessions in a treaty from 1890 it was described precisely where the Border was between their two spheres of influence and it followed the Eastern Coastline which is in line with Malawi's claim you may think it's ridiculous that treaty from 130 years ago between two European colonial empires could possibly still be valid between two independent African nations today and maybe it is but legally speaking it holds a lot

of weight one of the founding principles of the African Union is that countries respect the borders existing on achievement of their independence but hold on though Tanzania didn't achieve independence from Germany after their defeat in World War I Germany lost all of its colonies and guess who got German East Africa Great Britain so now both sides of the lake were British therefore there's no more border and the 1890 treaty is void right well not necessarily there's a principle in international law called utti postis huris which translat to something like as you possess under the law

and basically means that internal administrative boundaries within the same power should become International borders upon Independence there's even precedent from the international court of justice when a border dispute arose between Burkina Faso and Mali both of which had been part of French West Africa but things get further Complicated by the fact that the British were inconsistent throughout their colonial rule there exist maps from the British colonial office showing the Border going through the the middle of the lake there's also inconsistency from Tanzania too the prime minister in 1962 rashidi kaaa said no part of Lake

NASA lay within the borders of Tanzania and yet despite this in 1967 the Tanzanian president wrote a letter to the malawian representatives stating that he rejected the shoreline boundary thus starting the dispute between the two sades now at this point you may be thinking this is all a bit much it's an imaginary line in the middle of a lake the Lake's been used by both countries for decades for fishing transport and trade so even though it has been a long-standing disagreement it was never something that either side considered especially important or urgent that is until

it was Malawi gave permission for a British company to search for oil deposits in Lake Malawi suddenly pushing the dispute to the Forefront and significantly upping the tensions between the two countries oil was indeed found in the lake but political and also environmental concerns have stalled the process of actually extracting any of it for now Malawi stated their intention to take the case to court criticizing Tanzania of stalling the mediation process that was in 2017 though and I've not found any followup since Malawi very well may have a good case if it goes to court

but Tanzania has in the past threatened to take military action if necessary Tanzania is the more powerful country with a larger military and economy if diplomatic ties break down due to this border dispute Malawi would likely be the country that would hurt the most whether it's something they choose to fight or not only time will tell okay let's move on to two countries that took a very different approach to the water boundary between them this time it's a river typically when a river marks the border between two countries a standard middle point is used usually

defined by the so-called talve for the reference between Luxembourg and Germany though things are a bit different the border is not some middle point of the river the river is the border the whole river the river is considered to be part of both countries simultaneously this actually dates way back to the Congress of Vienna when Europe basically had to redraw its borders after defeat Luxembourg sort of became an independent country it was in a personal Union with the Netherlands and it was also upgraded from a duche to a grand duche but anyway the treaty stated

that the rivers themselves and so far as they form the frontier shall belong in common to the two Powers bordering on them this was reaffirmed in 1986 in a treaty between the two countries it even clarified that any Islands within the river are also under joint sovereignty this goes equally for the 21 Road Bridges and seven pedestrian bridges that cross the river this border marker here shows the transition from one country into both countries a territory with two countries sharing sovereignty is called a condominium and there's actually another one in Europe but it's a bit

different in the basur river between France and Spain there's an island that is part of both countries just not at the same time name it's called feasant Island and it switches between the two countries every 6 months from February through July the island is Spanish and from August through January it's French the island was chosen as a neutral location for the signing of the Treaty of the Pines in 1659 which put an end to the Franco Spanish War however the island itself wasn't actually mentioned in the treaty it wasn't until 1856 that it was agreed

that the two countries would share the island but even then there was no clear mechanism in place it was actually the two sides navies that came up with the switching every six month solution which has been occurring ever since the island is completely uninhabited and access to the island is actually forbidden there's not really much to see on it anyway the island switching country is rather unceremonious seems to be just a letter sent from one side to the other or possibly even just an email these days now let's look at somewhere which is not part

of two countries but practically speaking it sort of is with a population of just 300 this is the Austrian skiing Village of Yung HS it is entirely surrounded by Germany but technically not an exclave it's connected to the rest of Austria but the borders meet at a Quadra Point border marker 110 at the peak of this 1600 M tall mountain marks the very spot where these four Bo borders meet before Austria joined the EU in 1995 The Village was part of the German Customs area and before 2002 when both countries adopted the Euro The Village

used the Deutsch Mark as its currency instead of the Austrian shelling addresses in the village have two separate postcodes one for each country babies born to people living in the village are usually born in Germany because the nearest Austrian hospital is too far away and because there's no second AR School in the village most of the older school children go to school in Bavaria given that young Holtz is a popular ski destination The Village gets a lot of tourists especially from the nearby major city of Munich many that travel there aren't even aware of the

Border anomaly and don't even realize they ever left the country most people who work there are German and most people who live in the village regardless of nationality speak with a German dialect all right let's head across the Atlantic now and once again look at two countries that can't seem to agree on anything in 2010 there was a story that was making the rounds about how Nicaragua accidentally invaded Costa Rica due to an error on Google Maps if we look beyond the headlines though and dig a Little Deeper there's a lot more to this story

in reality Google Maps played quite a minor role in what has actually been an ongoing border dispute dating back over 50 years it all started with the kanyas Herz Treaty of 1858 when the border between the newly independent countries was agreed the Border over this Coastal area was set as the right Bank of the San Juan River this put all of the river on Nicaragua's side but the agreement also allowed Costa Rica to use the river for Commerce however it didn't take long until there was an issue as we've seen from a previous episode having

a river as a order isn't always ideal because Rivers change course to solve the dispute the two sides sought the help of US president Grover Cleveland who agreed to be an arbitrator he sent a friend of his Edward Alexander who actually fought in the Battle of gburg as a Confederate Colonel that's not relevant here I just thought it was interesting anyway Cleveland sent him down to Central America in 1897 to carry out a thorough investigation of the region and give his opinion on the border disp this is what he came up with here we can

see Nicaragua's claim in which the river meets the coast much earlier than this part of the river here which flows up north Costa Rica claimed the Border went over here I'm not sure how they came up with this straight line section but never mind the border that Alexander Drew was a compromise between the two the Border follows the right Bank of the river up North and then loops around and follows the edge of this Lagoon here here both sides agreed to respect Alexander's opinion On The Border's location the dispute was then dormant for over a

100 years until 2010 and the previously mentioned headlines about a Google Maps error unsurprisingly the geography of this marshy Coastal area has changed quite a bit over the last century if we compare Alexander's drawing with a satellite image from today we can see how things look a bit different in the drawing the border is one continuous line up the river which flows into the Lagoon and loops around it to meet the coast but if we try to do that on the satellite image we can't the coastline has receded somewhat over the years and the river

is now completely cut off from the Lagoon or is it see the Nicaraguan soldiers that were there weren't just carrying out some random Mission or training exercise they were there specifically to dredge the river and clear trees the purpose of this was to connect the river to the Lagoon Nicaragua claimed that this was the original River's path from 1858 and in Alexander's border opinion he says until it reaches the river proper by the first channel met we can faintly see on satellite images that at least at some point there was a branch of the river

here for whatever reason Google Maps had marked this very part of the river that nicaragu was dredging as the Border cost Rica accused Nicaragua of violating its sovereignty calling the operation an invasion the Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega claimed that the San Juan River had dried up and moved so much over the years that Costa Rica had been encroaching on their terrain for centuries he then cited Google Maps as proof that the river dredging was within their own territory Costa Rica made a complaint to Google saying that the Border was an error Google agreed the map

was wrong and changed the Border order a representative of the company stated that while Google Maps are of very high quality Blah Blah Blah by no means should they be used as a reference to decide military action between two countries yeah that's probably a good idea Costa Rica made a formal complaint with the international court of justice with regards to Nicaragua's activities in the Border region the decision took several years but eventually the Court ruled in favor of Costa Rica stating that the disputed area belonged to them this wasn't the end of the dispute though

because in 2017 the nicaraguans put up a small military outpost on the beach next to the Lagoon right here it was claimed that because the whole Coastal area was a wetland there's a continuous stretch of water from the river to the Lagoon thus making the whole Coastal area Nicaraguan territory the court disagreed and again sided with Costa Rica it was reaffirmed that Nicaragua owns the Lagoon and also this narrow Sandbar but oddly it was stated that they were not entitled to the traditional 12 nautical miles of territorial Waters and so this is the Border as

things stand today with Nicaragua having a small exclave surrounded by Costa Rican land and water so after all these years and several treaties and arbitrations On the Border surely this dispute will be put to rest once and for all right well no of course not the geography is going to change again it's not a question of if but when Court failed to put into place any kind of Provisions for what to do in the event of any future changes to the coast or river probably best to let future judges deal with that one I suppose

now given that the previous episode of this series was over six years ago it's hard to say if I'll end up making another episode or not but feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below if there are any more complex borders you think are worth covering and who knows maybe I'll get around to making a fifth episode someday but if you're looking for some more interesting videos to watch in the meantime I would highly recommend you check out the nebula original series the logistics of X by Wendover it's a really fascinating series that

looks at the logistics of things like search and rescue commercial fishing and arms manufacturing the fishing episode is probably my favorite the video shows the whole process from how the fish are caught and follows all the way until it reaches our place looking at the economics of the industry various laws that need to be followed and complications along the way there's a lot packed into this one video and the other episodes are just as dense with information along with great editing and animations as you probably already know by now nebula is a Creator own streaming

platform featuring so many awesome creators like Leo egole real engineering Johnny Harris and so many more nebula gives creators the freedom to to experiment and be free from the YouTube algorithm or demonetization concerns all videos on nebula are adree and sponsor free and many creators upload their videos to nebula early including me so you can watch videos before they go live on YouTube you can even catch the latest episodes of jet lag a whole week early if you sign up to the annual plan using my link you can get 40% off the subscription price that

works out to just $250 per month and in doing so you'd really be helping this channel in the process if this is something you're interested in you can click the button on screen now or the link at the top of the video description to sign up and as always thank you so much for watching merry Christmas and all the best for 2024 I'll see you next time