i want to show you three borders that
are very peculiar
here they are
one two and three and not just because
they look weird on a map but because of
how they look in real life
us map nerds love looking at things that
look weird on a map like this town that
is cut up by a bunch of dutch and
belgian enclaves looks really weird on a
map but in reality the people living
here aren't deeply affected right now by
these strange borders i'm interested in
borders that look interesting on a map
and that are connected to real world
things real people there are a lot of
these out there trust me but there are
three in particular that i want to talk
about today
three borders that blow my mind and that
help us learn about how far countries
will go to control land and water so
let's do this
isis continues to lose ground in syria
artificial islands under construction
could become military bases
makes the u.s the only western country
to recognize moroccan sovereignty over
western sahara
the first border is the moroccan berm
wall morocco is this country in northern
africa that claims all of this land but
if you look at google maps you'll see
this dashed line and that there's
another country underneath it that isn't
morocco it's western sahara this dashed
line is not the border i want to talk
about but let me explain the line is
dashed because morocco doesn't want all
of this to be a country doesn't want
these people to have independence
morocco thinks it's theirs so since 1975
when spain left this land morocco has
been fighting to keep the people down
here from controlling the land they took
this pretty far in the 1980s when they
got out the bulldozers and started
building a wall and after a decade of
digging they created the border that i
want to talk about this is what it looks
like on a map you know morocco's morocco
build a wall it's a 1700 mile berm and
occupied western sahara it is a nearly 3
000 kilometer wall of sand and dirt i
mean that's a huge huge wall this wall
is meant to keep the local people who
want western sahara to be a free and
independent country on this side of the
line and allows morocco to occupy the
other 80 percent of what would be
western sahara and that 80 percent by
the way is the more resource-rich part
of the country and it is not just a wall
it is a bunch of moroccan troops who
loaded up with weaponry radar and
underground bunkers
oh and land mines tons and tons of land
mines
this is widely accepted as the longest
land mine field on earth
when i was in morocco i learned that it
is literally illegal to show a map that
contains this border
or anything that is not this many
countries don't recognize morocco's
claim to all of this land in fact the
united states didn't recognize the claim
until last year when the trump
administration said that they would
recognize it in exchange for morocco
becoming friends with israel again sort
of a weird love triangle it's just it's
so weird how this stuff works it's like
you're not real but if you like my
friend you're real now meanwhile the
people who live here in this little
strip they run their own country but
it's under the militant eye of the
moroccan military who patrol this wall
to keep them out of the rest of their
country these locals have been in a
decades-long struggle to fight for the
day when they can break down this sand
barrier and actually build their own
country but the powers that be aren't
letting that happen anytime soon
okay okay so that is the moroccan berm
wall 3 000 kilometers of sand and dirt
crazy next up
let's go over to syria
sometimes borders can embody history
religion energy dictators and modern day
guerrilla warfare all in one and that's
what's happening over here in syria
okay wait before we get into this we
need to pause and i need to thank
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to do this work we are now ready to get
back to the maps let's go to syria
okay so we're in this part of the world
the middle east we have syria and up
here you have turkey there's this one
really famous guy in turkey he was like
the grandpa of the guy who started
turkey's big empire the ottoman empire
anyway this guy may or may not have died
by drowning in the euphrates river like
right here and so to honor him they
decided to bury him right on the banks
of the euphrates river right here on
this like really famous hill sort of
seems like an interesting decision to
bury the person like right on the banks
of the river that killed them anyway not
my decision they buried him on this
famous hill and this again was like a
long time ago this is back when this
region was just one big empire's
turkey's big ottoman empire but of
course the europeans wouldn't let this
last for long so they showed up in the
early 1900s and they cut this region up
like they literally like divvy it up
it's like you britain you get this part
france you get this part russia you get
this little bit up here italy you get
this bit over here like they just like
cut the lines up it's just it's madness
and eventually france took their little
plot of the middle east and like these
are now two countries we have turkey up
here and we have syria down here and
they drew this line separating these two
countries wait wait said the new turkey
the tomb of our really important guy is
like now in the new syria and france was
like we're not going to redraw the line
so like
turkey you can control this little
circle of land where the tomb is that
little bit of land is officially turkey
but we're not gonna redraw the whole
line turkey was like sweet that works so
it's the 1920s and turkey looks like
this plus this little tiny dot in syria
where the tomb of suleimani is and like
turkish guards could be there and guard
the tomb and it was fine fast forward 50
years and things are going fine at the
tomb
syria is now run by this dictator and
he's like hey we want to build a dam
right here on the euphrates you know
hydroelectricity but then turkey freaks
out because all they see in all of this
is a dam that is going to fill this
whole valley full of water this valley
where the hill is where their guy is
buried is going to be under water soon
and their special grave could soon be
totally destroyed so what do they do
they move the grave meaning they move
their little bit of sovereignty from
right here all the way up here 85
kilometers north still inside syria why
didn't they just move it into turkey so
this border this little enclave of
turkey just moved up okay so now it has
a new location it doesn't stop there so
the dam is built the tomb is safe there
is now a lake called lake assad after
the dictator fast forward another half
century and now the dictator's son is in
power and guess what's happening in
syria the islamic state now controls
more than half of syrian territory this
morning that includes some of the most
important cultural trends isis fighters
have now entered the archaeological
ruins we're talking the capital of isis
isis took over a lot of syria in 2014
and 2015 including
where the new turkish tomb was where
this little speck of turkey was and if
you don't know anything about isis you
should know that in addition to being
awful in every way they also love to
destroy sacred old things this morning
isis claims to have destroyed priceless
pieces of history what they didn't blow
up with explosives they literally tore
apart by hand
so turkey is freaking out now they're
like dude isis is gonna destroy the tomb
so they moved it again this time right
up to the turkish border still in syria
though but like within a few hundred
meters of the border so now you have
turkey syria and a little bit of turkey
in syria there's this clip of the prime
minister of turkey visiting the newly
moved tomb he prays to it and then as he
walks out you get a little reminder that
this dot on the map is still a border it
still has borders these fences separate
this prime minister from turkish
sovereign territory on one side and then
a fence and then
syria where all these kids are no but
seriously like why didn't they just move
it into turkey like if you're gonna move
it all that way
for the second time like just move the
thing into turkey where it's not
surrounded by a country that is
devolving into a civil war you know what
i think it is i think it's that turkey
is like one of the few big powerful
countries that doesn't have an exclave
meaning a little island of themselves in
a different country i think they
literally just want to be like oh yeah
we have one of those like we've got one
of those weird things on the map it's
200 meters off our border but like we
have it we can move whenever we want but
whatever that is how this
sacred sight
exclave border thing moved around and
eventually it's supposed to move back to
its second location but the details are
fuzzy on how that's gonna happen okay so
that's turkey in syria let's go to our
final border which has to do
with the ocean
china's military buildup has angered the
obama administration so we're over here
in southeast asia just under china this
body of water the south china sea this
place is home to vital trade routes tons
of oil and gas
tons of fish strategic military posts i
mean this sea has it all which is why
everybody wants it
look at all of these lines these are the
claims from all of these different
countries on the south china sea it's
like a total nightmare right okay okay
hold on let's unpack all of these first
let's remember that every country that
borders an ocean gets 200 nautical miles
into the ocean to be their economic
waters where they can fish and mine and
whatever that's their economic waters so
that's how you get a lot of these
borders so like vietnam
by default can have all of this water
it's their exclusive economic zone
they're easy malaysia's looks like this
and if you're going to claim any more
water than this default eez you sort of
have to like justify yourself you have
to be like we claim more than our easy
because x y and z so yeah it's looking a
little bit messy but then wait till
china the big dog in the neighborhood
swoops in and says the u.n schmuen i'm
not into the u.n and whatever we've been
here for like 5 000 years on these
waters our claim to this ocean is this
like they literally didn't do any sort
of scientific claim here it was
literally guy with map draws a dashed
line through 90 of the south china sea
and it's like this is china's and
everyone's like wha how how does that
make sense and they're like because
we're freaking china and everyone's like
okay and that is how you get this a
total mess of lines and it's not just in
the water there are islands down here
like this set of islands down here is
claimed by like five countries so yeah
there's international law for this stuff
but in reality it's a total free-for-all
and guess who's winning in the
free-for-all you guessed it
china's not waiting for a diplomatic
solution here what they do instead is
just like show up to these islands and
build military bases and landing strips
but then there's big parts of this body
of water that have no islands so what
does china do they show up and dig up a
bunch of sand from under the ocean and
build islands and then build military
bases and landing strips like look at
these boats these boats are making
islands they've created 1300 acres worth
of new land in the south china sea
overall china is adding to its islands
at the rate of at least three and a half
acres a day and they populate it with
military assets okay so that's what it
looks like on a map it's wild so as
always we have the lines on the map that
look a certain way but then the facts on
the ground often say something totally
different this whole sea is controlled
by china in addition to building islands
they also will chase down fishermen from
like the philippines and vietnam who are
fishing in their own waters totally
legal and they will show up and just
attack them they'll capture them they'll
intimidate them and they'll make sure
that they know who's boss and no one can
really do anything about it so all these
lines can look all complicated but in
reality it's pretty simple what it
should look like
okay those are my three borders there
are so many of these examples these are
the ones that are most peculiar and
strange to me right now so thank you for
watching
it is the end of the year end of 2021
it's been a fun intense year i've made a
lot of videos and um i
also made a bunch of
luts and presets which you don't know
what that is it's how i color my videos
without a lut on me right now
this video would look like this but with
a lut it looks like this me and is
collaborated on this and found a
professional colorist with a
professional colorist to find a set of
luts
for video and presets for photos that
really reflect the color that we love to
put on our photos and video literally
years in the making and they finally
exist so that that's a thing i also made
a storytelling course with nathaniel
drew that is live on bright trip right
now it is everything nathaniel drew and
i
know about storytelling packed into one
jam-packed course that again i've been
working on for years so that is also in
the description um
what else do i plug in these moments uh
oh i have an orange jacket pinned that's
kind of fun is he's doing a house series
someday
you sound really sad
you sound really fast izzy's doing a
house series on our new house that we're
building that's taken a year and a half
so far okay i should probably wrap this
up thank you all for being here um happy
new year and uh i will see you in 2021
uh
i will see you in 2022 with a set of
really really cool videos that i'm
working on so
bye everyone
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you