This is the world map.
We can draw lines to demarcate borders, and label it with countries and capital cities.
For the most part, these things are pretty constant.
But from time to time, lines and labels on our world map change.
This is a non-exhaustive summary of geopolitical changes to the world map that occurred in
2018, as well as one thing at the end of the video that didn’t change, although it could
have.
Let’s get into it.
On January 1st of 2018, Belgium and the Netherlands peacefully enacted a deal that swapped tiny
pockets of land along their border on the Meuse River.
Before the trade, exclaves of land were present on either side of the border, and only accessible
by the other country’s land, or by water.
Following the trade, the border has straightened out, and definitely makes more sense from
a geographical point of view, but it did mean that Belgium shrank slightly, and the Netherlands
gained in area.
A continent away, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had a long-running border dispute settled
by the International Court of Justice along their Caribbean border.
The border of these two countries had previously been defined as the east bank of the San Juan
river.
Immediately, this poses a challenge as rivers change course over time – and in fact other
landmarks that were previously part of the border 100 years ago have now been eroded
into the sea.
Presently, both parties agree that the east bank of the San Juan river is the border,
and that Nicaragua also has sovereignty over the Harbour head Lagoon.
However, Nicaragua had been arguing that a small channel of the San Juan river ran behind
a section of coastline, effectively carving them off a nice little slice of the Caribbean
coast.
In 2018, the International Court of Justice ruled that there is no branch of the San Juan
river that continuously runs from the main mouth eastward to the lagoon, and that any
channels that may have existed in the past were further north, and have long been washed
into the sea.
This gives the disputed section on land to Costa Rica.
The current ruling resolves the dispute for now, but it may be only decades before the
river naturally changes course again, which could set off the disputes afresh.
For our final border change of the video we head to eastern Africa, where in 2018 Ethiopia
decided to honour a 16-year-old ruling by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission in
The Hague, which unequivocally ruled on the disputed boundary between these two Horn of
Africa countries.
This ruling from 2002 had put the town of Badme within Eritrean territory, but conflict
continued to boil there as Ethiopia, until 2018, had refused to cede the town.
Other than changes to border lines, the world map also had some name changes in 2018.
The kingdom of Swaziland, a country completely landlocked by Mozambique and South Africa
in southern Africa officially changed its name to Eswatini.
The king of Eswatini decided to eschew the vestiges of former British colonial rule,
by changing the name from English, to the country’s native language, but the king
was also very concerned about people mixing up Swaziland, with Switzerland.
A mistake which, at least in English, does happen along with a couple of others.
From southern Africa we head to southern Europe where in 2018 there was a major kerfuffle
regarding the name of the Republic of Macedonia.
While much of the drama of this country changing its name to North Macedonia happened in 2018
– the official name change did not come into effect until early 2019.
Greece had been blocking the Republic of Macedonia from joining NATO and the EU, because according
to Greece, the real Macedonia is here, not here.
Greece took issue with the Republic of Macedonia being named in such a way that it may imply
a claim over Greek Macedonia.
In 2018 a referendum was held on an agreement between the two countries that would, among
other things, see the Republic of Macedonia renamed as North Macedonia (again, this came
into effect in 2019), as well as North Macedonia refraining from using the Vergina Sun, which
Greece found to be appropriative.
Despite a non-binding referendum with low voter turnout, the referendum was overwhelmingly
agreed to, and was ratified by the Macedonian parliament.
Likewise in the small African nation of Burundi, during 2018 the government announced the official
capital would be moved from the city of Bujumbura to Gitega, however this was not passed by
the parliament until 2019.
Gitega was previously the capital of the country during the 20th century, but until now, that
status had been given to Bujumbura.
To round-out the list of geopolitical changes to the world map in 2018, there’s a part
of the world map that didn’t change, although it could have.
New Caledonia, a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean which is a French overseas territory,
held a referendum to decide to whether to become an independent country or remain a
part of France.
The people voted in favour staying part of France, 56.4 to 43.6 percent, otherwise the
world would have had a brand new sovereign country.
However there may still be fresh referenda in 2020, and 2022 if the legislature of New
Caledonia agrees.
There are lots of other geopolitical things that happened in 2018, and some that didn’t.
Let me know in the comments what I’ve missed and which you think are the most important!
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Thanks for watching.