A Town in Two Countries - The Baarle Problem
With a combined population of less than 8000 - Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau are off the beaten tourist path. I will admit that not many people would crave to go there. Between getting high in Amsterdam and the beers of Belgium - it is not very uncommon for tourists to completely skip this little gem of International Co-operation. It is a situation that arose out of a land swap deal during the monarch days of Belgium and the Netherlands. Today, it is one of only few places in the world that has a complicated border. We aren’t talking about town lines or city lines or state lines - this is an international boundary. A mutually respected and internationally enforced border. And it looks something like this. ...