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You know what would make a bad video?
One on, “what’s the longest border in the world,” because it’s this one—the
US-Canada border.
Done.
You know what would make a slightly less bad video?
One on “what’s the shortest border in the world” since the answer’s a bit more
complicated.
Alright let’s beat that bush… or around it or something.
There are plenty of small countries with short borders such as Monaco which shares a 2.7
mile, 4.4 kilometer long border with France and the Vatican which shares 2 mile, 3.2 kilometer
border with Italy but there are bigger countries that share shorter borders such as the UK
and Spain.
Of course the British Isles are nowhere near Spain but the British territory on the Iberian
Peninsula is.
Despite how it may look I’m not talking about Malaga, I’m talking about Gibraltar.
This British overseas territory shares a 0.8 mile, 1.2 kilometer border with Spain which
is not the shortest international border in the world.
Down in Africa, there exists a pretty unique border where Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and
Namibia come close to forming the only place on earth where four countries meet at one
point.
In the past it was thought that this was maybe a quadripoint but nobody was really sure.
Many of the post-colonial era borders were not super well defined.
Right here, at this point, Namibia, which was controlled by South Africa at the time,
said that the border was a quadripoint with four countries meeting at one point while
Botswana said that the border looked like this with them having a tiny little border
in the Zambezi River with Zambia which was important to them since there was a ferry
across the river which served as the only direct connection between the two countries.
If the border did indeed look like this as South Africa said it did, every ferry trip
would illegally be entering into their territory.
So, South Africa/Namibia shot some guns and everyone lived unhappily ever after, until
around 2007 when the four countries sat down, did some diplomacy, and decided that Botswana
did indeed share this tiny, 500 foot, 150 meter border with Zambia which made everyone
happy, except for this guy.
What’s more, they decided to build a bridge to link the two countries which will be done
in 2019 and will take this big old curve in order to very decisively stay out of Namibia
and Zimbabwe’s territory.
Now, this tiny border does qualify as the shortest overall border between two countries,
as in, the total border distance two countries share, but as I’m sure you can tell by us
being only halfway through this video, there are shorter single portions of borders between
two countries.
Exclaves, territories of a country surrounded by that of another, are the key to shorter
border portions.
You can look at a place like Baarle-Nassau.
The easiest way to describe this town is like this—this is Belgium, this is the Netherlands.
It’s just a messy puzzle of exclaves the smallest of which is this one.
This strange Belgian portion of an empty field has a border length of 800 feet or 250 meters
making it a very short border, but still longer than that Botswana-Zambia border.
But, remember that time back at the end of the 19th century when Europe decided it’d
be cool to just take all of Africa?
Then, do you remember that time 50 years later when Europe decided it’d be cool to just
leave all of Africa?
See, look Spain is doing a great job at leaving.
Nice job Spain!
There you go!
Almost done!
Oh wait, Spain, you forgot a bit.
Spain?
Spain what about these bits?
Spain?
Half a century later, in two-thousand-now Spain still holds these territories in Africa.
Ceuta and Melilla are fairly well known as they’re decently sized cities but there
are more Spanish territories in North Africa.
Six islands just off the coast of Morocco are controlled by Spain.
It’s worth noting, all of the Spanish Territories in North Africa are disputed territory with
Morocco but each of them is controlled by Spain.
In addition to those six islands Spain has another bit of territory in mainland Africa—Peñón
de Vélez de la Gomera.
This tiny rock was once an island but a huge storm in the 30s formed this thin strip of
sand that connected it with mainland Africa.
The Spanish territory is only inhabited by a few dozen Spanish soldiers who’s whole
purpose is to sit around and make sure the Moroccans don’t take it.
It’s not that this peninsula is strategically important at all anymore—it’s just that
the Spanish believe that giving this territory to Morocco would open the political floodgates
for them returning Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco.
The Spanish soldiers can’t cross into Morocco and Moroccans can’t cross into this bit
of Spain so all supplies and personnel are flown in by helicopter to this heliport.
Because this was formally an island, the border just spans over the sand strip which makes
it exceptionally short.
The distance from here to here is just 278 feet or 85 meters and this is therefore, almost
certainly, the shortest international border in the world.
You probably don’t need an advanced understanding of geometry to figure out how long this border
is but you probably do to answer this: how many times greater is the green area than
the blue area in this image?
If you think you know the answer leave it in a comment but if you don’t, you should
take Brilliant’s geometry course.
It teaches you the intuitive concepts behind geometry so you don’t just learn how to
answer questions, you understand it.
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