Enclave and exclave

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(Fig. 1) C is A's enclave and B's exclave
(Fig. 2) C is an exclave of B, but not an enclave of A since it also shares a border with D

An enclave is a territory entirely surrounded by another territory.[1]

An exclave is a territory legally or politically attached to a main territory with which it is not physically contiguous because of surrounding alien territory.[2]

These are two distinct concepts, although many entities fit both definitions. In Fig. 1 at right, suppose that the darker shaded area (marked B and C) is part of the same political or territorial entity, for example a sovereign state, and that the lighter-shaded area marked A is another such entity. Then C is an exclave of B, and is also an enclave within A. If C were independent it would be an enclave but not an exclave. In Fig. 2 at right, C is again an exclave of B, but is not an enclave, because it has boundaries with more than one entity.

Contents

Origin and usage[edit]

The word enclave entered the English jargon of diplomacy in 1868.[citation needed] It derives from French, which was then the lingua franca of diplomacy.[3] The word enclave and a number of related words exist in French, Spanish and Portuguese with the meaning of "surrounded, included, embedded, fixed" and they all ultimately derive from the Latin "clavus" which had two related meanings. One was "nail" (which is embedded and surrounded) and another was a knot in the wood (which is also embedded and surrounded).

The word exclave is a logical extension created three decades later.[citation needed] Although the meanings of both words are close, an exclave may not necessarily be an enclave or vice versa. For example, Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave of Russia, is not an enclave because it is surrounded not by one state, but by two: Lithuania and Poland; it also borders the Baltic Sea. Conversely, Lesotho is an enclave in South Africa, but it is not politically attached to anything else, meaning that it is not an exclave.

In British administrative history, subnational enclaves were usually called detachments or detached parts. In English ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as peculiars (see also Royal Peculiar).

A country surrounded by another but having access to the sea is not considered to be an enclave, regardless of size. For this reason Portugal is not an enclave of Spain, and Gambia is not an enclave of Senegal.

Usage in other fields[edit]

In medicine, an exclave is a detached part of an organ, as of the pancreas, thyroid, or other gland.

Characteristics[edit]

Enclaves may be created for a variety of historical, political or geographical reasons. Some areas have been left as enclaves by changes in the course of a river.

Since living in an enclave can be very inconvenient and many agreements have to be found by both countries over mail addresses, power supply or passage rights, enclaves tend to be eliminated and many cases that existed before have now been removed. The governments of India and Bangladesh have been pressed to resolve the complex system of enclaves along their border – persons in these enclaves have complained of being effectively stateless.[4] In 2011, India and Bangladesh signed a leasehold agreement regarding the Tin Bigha Corridor.

Many exclaves today have an independence movement, especially if the exclave is far away from the mainland.[citation needed]

True enclaves[edit]

See List of enclaves and exclaves.

This refers to those territories where a country is sovereign, but which cannot be reached without entering one particular other country. One example was West Berlin, before the reunification of Germany, which was de facto a West German exclave within East Germany, and thus an East German enclave (many small West Berlin land areas, such as Steinstücken, were in turn separated from the main one, some by only a few meters). De jure all of Berlin was ruled by the four Allied powers; this meant that West Berlin could not send voting members to the German Parliament, and that its citizens were exempt from conscription; however, this was not accepted by the East German government or the Soviet Union, which treated East Berlin as an integral part of East Germany. Two current examples include Büsingen, a true exclave of Germany, and Campione d'Italia, a true exclave of Italy, both surrounded by Switzerland.

Most of the enclaves now existing are to be found in Asia, with a handful in Africa and Europe. While administrative enclaves are found frequently elsewhere, there are no nation-level enclaves in Australia or the Americas.

Enclaved countries[edit]

Position of Lesotho within South Africa

Some enclaves are countries in their own right, completely surrounded by another one, and therefore not exclaves. Three such sovereign countries exist:

The principality of Monaco is not an enclave, although it only borders on France, because it also possesses a coastline and thus it is not completely surrounded by another country. Also The Gambia is not an enclave.

Historically, the Black homelands or Bantustans of South Africa existed under the Nationalist government from 1948 to 1994. Most of these had their origins in the "native reserves" created under earlier British colonial administration. In federal law of the USA, the Indian Reservation system seems to act like "Enclaved countries" in most cases. The same would apply for Indian Reserves in Canada and Aboriginal reserves in Australia[dubious ]. See also List of countries that border only one other country.

Temporary enclaves[edit]

The Scottish Court in the Netherlands, at Camp Zeist near Utrecht, was temporarily declared as sovereign territory of the United Kingdom under Scottish law for the duration of the trial of those accused in the Lockerbie bombing, and was therefore an exclave of the United Kingdom, and of Scotland, and an enclave within the Netherlands. It was also so during the appeal of the man convicted. The court was first convened in 1999, and the land returned to the Netherlands in 2002.

Related constructs and terms[edit]

True exclaves[edit]

In Fig. 1 above, C is both a true enclave and a true exclave. In Fig. 2 above, C is a true exclave of B, but it is not an enclave, because it has boundaries with more than one entity.

Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic

Subnational enclaves and exclaves[edit]

Sometimes, administrative divisions of a country, for historical or practical reasons, caused some areas to belong to one division while being attached to another.

Kentucky Bend and surrounding area
  Missouri (MO)
  Tennessee (TN)
  Kentucky (KY)

Enclaves within enclaves[edit]

It is possible for an enclave of one country to be completely surrounded by a part of another country that is itself an enclave of the first country.

  • The Dutch municipality of Baarle-Nassau has seven exclaves in two exclaves of the Belgian municipality of Baarle-Hertog.
  • The complex of enclaves at Cooch Behar district includes 24 second-order enclaves and one small third-order enclave called Dahala Khagrabari #51: a piece of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh.
  • Nahwa of the United Arab Emirates is surrounded by Madha, an exclave of Oman within the U.A.E.
  • The Portuguese town of Estremoz is made up of two civil parishes (freguesias): the small Santo André and the big Santa Maria. Santo André corresponds to the old town (located inside the medieval walls), but excluding the citadel, which is an enclave inside the old town; the citadel belongs to Santa Maria, which also includes the entire new town (outside the walls) and the vast rural area around it. Thus, Santa Maria has an enclave (Santo André, the old town) with a second-order enclave inside it (the citadel).[5]

Ethnic enclaves[edit]

An ethnic enclave is a community of an ethnic group inside an area in which another ethnic group predominates. Ghettos, Little Italys, barrios and Chinatowns are examples. These areas may have a separate language, culture and economic system.

  • Nagorno-Karabakh is arguably an ethnic enclave. It is a predominantly ethnic Armenian area inside Azerbaijan. The Nagorno-Karabakh War which lasted from 1988 to 1994 resulted in the area self-proclaiming its independence, but this has never been recognized by the international community, which tends to describe the current situation as a frozen conflict.
  • Székely Land is a Hungarian ethnic enclave within Romania, with its people calling themselves székely. Originally, the name Székely Land denoted an autonomous region within Transylvania. It existed as a legal entity from medieval times until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, when the Székely and Saxon seats were dissolved and replaced by the county system. Along with Transylvania, it became a part of Romania in 1920, according with the Treaty of Trianon signed on 4 June 1920 at the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles, France. In 1938–1940, during World War II, post-Trianon Hungary temporarily expanded its territory and included some additional territories that were formerly part of pre-war Kingdom of Hungary, under Third Reich auspices. It was later reduced to boundaries approximating those of 1920 by the peace treaties signed after World War II at Paris, in 1947. The area was called Magyar Autonomous Region between September 8, 1952 and February 16, 1968 a Hungarian autonomous region within Romania, and today there are territorial autonomy initiatives to reach a higher level of self-governance for this region within Romania.
  • The 2008 film Silent Light depicts a Mennonite Flemish sect living within the Mexican state of Chihuahua, who speak a dialect called Plautdietsch.[6]

"Practical" enclaves, exclaves and inaccessible districts[edit]

Pene-enclaves and pene-exclaves are regions that are not contiguous with the main land region, that are not entirely surrounded by alien land or alien territorial waters, and that have land access only through a second country. Hence, they are enclaves or exclaves for practical purposes, without meeting the strict definition.

Pene-exclaves partially border the sea or another body of water, which comprises their own territorial waters (i.e., they are not surrounded by other nations' territorial waters). Alaska is the largest pene-exclave in the world. Because they border their own territorial waters in addition to a land border with another country, they are not true exclaves. Still, one cannot travel to them on land without going through another country.

  • Kaliningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), a pene-exclave situated on the Baltic coast.
  • Cabinda (also spelled Kabinda, formerly Portuguese Congo) is a pene-exclave and a province of Angola on the Atlantic coast.
  • Oecusse, a district on the northwestern side of the island of Timor, is a pene-exclave of East Timor.
  • Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish pene-exclaves on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.
  • The Northwest Angle in Minnesota is geographically separated from the rest of the state (and United States) by Lake of the Woods and is only accessible on land through Canada.
  • Point Roberts, Washington, is an unincorporated community in Whatcom County — located on the southernmost tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula, south of Delta, British Columbia, Canada — that can be reached by land from the rest of the United States only by traveling through Canada.

Inaccessible districts are regions that are contiguous with the main land region but that are only easily accessible by going through a second country.

  • The Spanish village of Os de Civís can only be accessed through the independent Principality of Andorra, as it is virtually isolated from the rest of Spain by mountains.
  • The Kleinwalsertal Alpine valley in Vorarlberg, Austria can only be accessed by road from Germany, being separated from the rest of Austria by inaccessible high mountains traversed by no roads.
  • Jungholz is a village, also in Austria (in Tyrol), which is surrounded by German territory except for one single point on the summit of Sorgschrofen, where it touches the rest of Austria. As with Kleinwalsertal, road access is only through Germany.

Conversely, a territory that is an exclave but does not function as one (instead functioning as a contiguous part of the main nation) is deemed a "quasi-exclave".(Robinson 1959)

Subnational "practical" enclaves, exclaves and inaccessible districts[edit]

Extraterritoriality[edit]

Embassies and military bases are usually exempted from the jurisdiction of the host country, i.e., the laws of the host nation in which an embassy is located do not typically apply to the land of the embassy or base itself. This exemption from the jurisdiction of the host country is defined as extraterritoriality. Areas of extraterritoriality are not true enclaves as they are still part of the host country. In addition to embassies, some other areas have extraterritoriality.

Examples of this include:

Land owned by a foreign country[edit]

Some areas of land in a country are owned by another country and in some cases it has special privileges, such as being exempt from taxes. These lands are not enclaves and do not have extraterritoriality since, in all cases, there is no transfer of sovereignty.

Examples of this include:

Land for the Captain Cook Monument (above) was deeded outright to the British Government by independent Hawaii.
  • Two cemeteries on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States, one on Ocracoke Island and one on Hatteras Island in the town of Buxton, are owned by the United Kingdom. Both contain the graves of British seamen whose bodies washed ashore after World War II U-Boat attacks that occurred on 10 April (San Delfino – one body) and 11 May 1942 (HMT Bedfordshire – 5 bodies).[12] Four graves are at Ocracoke and two at Buxton; three of the bodies were never identified, one of which could be that of a Canadian seaman.[13] The plot of land at Ocracoke "has been forever ceded to England" and is maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard.[14] The plot was leased to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for as long as the land remained a cemetery.[13] The graves on Hatteras Island are maintained by the U.S. National Park Service.[15]
  • The Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Bay and about 25 square feet (2.3 m2) of land around it in Hawaii, United States, the place where James Cook was killed in 1779, is owned by the United Kingdom.[16][17][18][19] An historian on the occasion of the 50th anniversary recorded in 1928 that the white stone "obelisk monument [was] erected to the memory of Captain Cook, about 1876, and on land deeded outright to the British Government by Princess Likelike, sister of King Kalakaua, about the same year, so that that square is absolute British Territory."[20] Hawaii was a sovereign nation at the time. According to a recent writer, "The land under the monument was deeded to the United Kingdom in 1877 and is considered as sovereign non-embassy land owned by the British Embassy in Washington DC. … the Hawaiian State Parks agency maintained that as sovereign British territory it was the responsibility of the UK to maintain the site."[21]
  • Tihuinza in Peru. Land owned by Ecuador without sovereignty.[citation needed]
  • The land under the John F. Kennedy memorial at Runnymede, United Kingdom, is widely thought to have been granted to the United States of America by the John F. Kennedy Memorial Act 1964[22] (an Act of the UK Parliament). However, the Act grants to the United States "an estate in fee simple absolute", which is a form of title under English law, and the site remains under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.[23]

National railway passing through foreign territory[edit]

Changes in borders can make a railway that was previously located solely within a country traverse the new borders. Since railways are much more expensive than roads to rebuild to avoid this problem, the criss-cross arrangement tends to last a long time. With passenger trains this may mean that doors on carriages are locked and guarded to prevent illicit entry and exit while the train is temporarily in another country.

Borders can also be in the "wrong" place, forcing railways into difficult terrain.

Border changes[edit]

Examples include:

Inconvenient borders[edit]

map of the line
  • Bolivia is landlocked and has no access to the sea, but a rail route runs through Chile from La Paz to the port of Arica on the Pacific Ocean.
  • Due to inability to agree in 1963 on a shorter route through easy terrain, the iron ore railway in Mauritania originally had to use a longer route through a tunnel near Choum to avoid the territory of Spanish Sahara.
  • Senegal is practically and inconveniently divided in two by the sovereign territory of Gambia. The easiest way to travel from northern Senegal to the southern Casamance region is through Gambia via the Trans-Gambia Highway, with a connecting ferry being the only way to cross the Gambia River. The fare for the ferry crossing is a source of contention between the two countries.[26]
  • The shortest and straightest route for a proposed east-west high-speed railway in Austria would pass under some mountains belonging to Germany.[citation needed]

Border shifts[edit]

Borders have occasionally been shifted for the purpose of avoiding an inconvenient arrangement. An example is the Gadsden Purchase, in which the United States bought land from Mexico on which it was planned to build a southern route for the transcontinental railroad. Owing to the topography of the area, acquisition of the land was the only feasible way to construct such a railroad through the southern New Mexico Territory.

Highway of one state passing through another state's territory[edit]

This arrangement is less common as highways are more easily re-aligned, as noted above. Examples include:

Subnational[edit]

  • India, a quasi-federal republic, has numerous such examples:

Border infrastructure[edit]

Several bridges cross the rivers Oder and Neisse between Germany and Poland. To avoid needing to coordinate their efforts on a single bridge, the two riparian states assign each bridge to one or the other; thus Poland is responsible for all maintenance on some of the bridges, including the German side, and vice versa.[30]

The Hallein Salt Mine crosses from Austria into Germany. Under an 1829 treaty Austria can dig under the then-Kingdom of Bavaria. In return some salt has to be given to Bavaria, and up to 99 of its citizens can be hired to work in the Austrian mine.[31]

Neighbourly cooperation[edit]

  • The new Tijuana International Airport south of San Diego airport is a cooperative affair between California, USA, and Baja California, Mexico. The runway, control tower, emergency services, etc. are shared; however, passengers and freight are handled at separate facilities north and south of the runways.
  • The twin town of TornioHaparanda or HaparandaTornio lies at the mouth of river Tornio, Tornio on the Finnish side and Haparanda on the Swedish side. The two towns have a common public transportation, as well as cultural services, fire brigade, sports facilities etc.
  • The Basel Badischer Bahnhof is a railway station in the Swiss city of Basel. Although situated on Swiss soil, because of the 1852 treaty between the Swiss Confederation and the state of Baden (one of the predecessors of today's Germany), the largest part of the station (the platforms and the parts of the passenger tunnel that lead to the German/Swiss checkpoint) is treated administratively as an inner-German railway station operated by the Deutsche Bahn. The shops in the station hall, however, are Swiss, and the Swiss franc is used as the official currency there (although the euro is universally accepted). The Swiss post office, car rental office, restaurant and a cluster of shops are each separately located wholly within a surrounding station area that is administered by the German railway.[32] The customs controls are located in a tunnel between the platforms and the station hall; international trains which continue to Basel SBB usually have on-board border controls.
  • See Polish-German river bridges, above.

See also[edit]

Lists:

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "6 results for: enclave". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2007-01-09. 
  2. ^ "4 results for: exclave". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2007-01-09. 
  3. ^ List of lingua francas
  4. ^ "Hope for Indo-Bangladesh enclaves". NDTV. 12 September 2011. Retrieved 12 September 2011. 
  5. ^ Instituto Geográfico do Exército: Territory of Santa Maria (Estremoz)
  6. ^ "Can thaw unstick frozen conflict?". BBC News. 2009-05-06. Retrieved 2009-08-26. 
  7. ^ Arocha, Magaly (First Consul of the General Consulate of Venezuela in Naples) (May 1999). "The Order of Malta and Its Legal Nature".  Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  8. ^ "domaines français de Sainte-Hélène". Domfrance.helanta.sh. Retrieved 2012-09-02. 
  9. ^ "Guernesey : Hauteville House". Paris.fr. 2012-08-28. Retrieved 2012-09-02. 
  10. ^ "The American Battle Monuments Commission". Retrieved October 29, 2012 "The site, preserved since the war by the French Committee of the Pointe du Hoc, which erected an impressive granite monument at the edge of the cliff, was transferred to American control by formal agreement between the two governments on 11 January 1979 in Paris, with Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman signing for the United States and Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs Maurice Plantier signing for France". 
  11. ^ "Canada And Vimy Ridge – Background Information – Veterans Affairs Canada". Retrieved 2012-04-09. 
  12. ^ Hickam, Homer H. (1996). Torpedo Junction: U-Boat War Off America's East Coast, 1942. Naval Institute Press. pp. 202–207. ISBN 1-55750-362-1. 
  13. ^ a b "British Cemetery at Ocracoke, North Carolina". Retrieved 2013-02-24. 
  14. ^ "Historic Ocracoke Village – A Walking Tour". Retrieved 2013-02-24. 
  15. ^ "British Cemeteries". Retrieved 2013-02-24. 
  16. ^ Horwitz, Tony. Oct. 2003, Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-6455-8
  17. ^ Erickson, Lt Clayton, RCN (2012). "Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Cleaned and Repaired". Cook's Log 35 (4). p. 38. Retrieved 2013-02-23. 
  18. ^ "Canadian Crew Cleans Cook Monument". 30 August 2012. Retrieved 2013-02-23. 
  19. ^ Harris, Francis (22 Jul 2006). "Don't mention the murder – how Hawaii forgot Capt. Cook". Retrieved 2013-02-23. 
  20. ^ Taylor, Albert P. "HOW HAWAII HONORED CAPTAIN COOK, R.N., IN 1928". p. 29. 
  21. ^ MacFarlane, John M. (2012). "The Captain Cook Memorial at Kealakakua Bay Hawaii". Retrieved 2013-02-23. 
  22. ^ "John F. Kennedy Memorial Act". Google docs [unofficial copy]. Retrieved 2012-06-16. 
  23. ^ Evans, D. M. Emrys (1965). "John F. Kennedy Memorial Act, 1964". The Modern Law Review 28 (6): 703–706. JSTOR 1092388.  (free registration required to read relevant text on page 704)
  24. ^ a b Railway Gazette International April 2008 p 240
  25. ^ "Find the elevation of any place". Altitude.nu. Retrieved 2012-09-02. 
  26. ^ "Senegal may tunnel under Gambia". BBC News. 2005-09-21. 
  27. ^ 2006 Road Atlas Ireland, AA, pp. 36-37
  28. ^ a b Bessert, Christopher J. "Highways 20-29". Wisconsin Highways. Retrieved July 7, 2011. 
  29. ^ Riner, Steve. "Details of Routes 1-25". The Unofficial Minnesota Highways Page. Retrieved July 7, 2011. 
  30. ^ Railway Gazette: Border bridges rebuilt
  31. ^ The log of the Water Lily, p. 84
  32. ^ "Ihr Bahnhof Basel Bad Bf". Retrieved 2013-02-26. 

References[edit]

External links[edit]