Enclaves and Exclaves

In the spirit of ComingAnarchy’s love of Geography, history and geopolitics, I’d like to introduce the first in a series of posts on a geographical oddity which has led to a great deal of political trouble throughout history, namely, the enclave and exclave. An enclave is a piece of land which is totally surrounded by a foreign territory. If another country has sovereignty over it, it is also called an exclave of that other country. Thus, they have the same meaning, but differ only in the perspective. Sound odd? They are much more common than most people think.

Left side: C is B’s exclave, and A’s enclave.
Right side: D is B’s exclave, but is not an enclave.

Whereas Nargono-Karbagh is an Armenian exclave located inside Azerbaijan, Kaliningrad is an exclave of Russia but not an enclave since it is not totally surrounded by a single country. Additionally, some countries may be enclaved inside another country but not be a true enclave because they have access to open waters. A good example is Gambia, which is prevented from being an enclave by a small strip of ocean. Others would be Brunei and Monaco.

Other versions of enclaves include:

Coastal Fragments: A country that cannot be reached from the country it belongs to except through international waters. Examples: Gibraltar, Dubrovnik, Alaska.

Extraterritoriality:Embassies and military bases are usually exempted from the jurisdiction of the host country, i.e., the laws of the host nation the embassy is in do not typically apply to the land of the embassy or base itself.

Next up in the series:

II. The Caucasus

Enjoy geography fans!