(Fig. 1) C is A's enclave and B's exclave
(Fig. 2) D is an exclave of B, but not an enclave of A since it also shares a border with C
In
political geography, an
enclave is a territory whose geographical boundaries lie entirely within the boundaries of another territory.
An
exclave, on the other hand, is a territory legally attached to another territory with which it is not physically contiguous.
These are two distinct concepts, although many entities fit both definitions.
In Fig. 1 at right, C is an exclave of B, and is also an enclave within A. If C were independent it would be an enclave but not an exclave.
In Fig. 2 at right, D is again an exclave of B, but is not an enclave, because it has boundaries with more than one country.
Origin and usage
The word
enclave crept into the
jargon of
diplomacy rather late in
English, in 1868, coming from
French, the
lingua franca of
diplomacy, with a sense inherited from
Late Latin inclavatus meaning 'shut in, locked up" (with a key, Latin
clavis). The word
exclave is a logical extension created three decades later.
Although the meanings of both words are close, an exclave may not necessarily be an enclave or vice versa. For example,
Kaliningrad, an exclave of
Russia, is not an enclave because it is surrounded not by one state, but by two:
Lithuania and
Poland; it also borders the
Baltic Sea. On the other hand,
Lesotho is an enclave in
South Africa, but it is not politically attached to anything else, meaning that it is not an exclave.
In
British administrative history, subnational enclaves were usually called
detachments. In
English ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as
peculiars (see also
Royal Peculiar).
A country surrounded by another but having access to the sea is not considered to be an enclave, regardless of size. For this reason, in the same way that
Portugal is not an enclave of
Spain,
The Gambia is not an enclave of
Senegal.
Usage in other fields
In medicine, an
exclave is a detached part of an organ, as of the pancreas, thyroid, or other gland.
Characteristics
Enclaves may be created for a variety of
historical,
political or
geographical reasons. Some areas have been left as enclaves by changes in the course of a river.
Since living in an enclave can be very inconvenient and many agreements have to be found by both countries over mail addresses, power supply or passage rights, enclaves tend to be eliminated and many cases that existed before have now been removed.
Many exclaves today have an
independence movement, especially if the exclave is far away from the mainland.
True enclaves
This refers to those territories where a country is sovereign, but which cannot be reached without entering one particular other country. One example was
West Berlin, before the reunification of
Germany, which was
de facto a
West German exclave within
East Germany, and thus an East German enclave (many small West Berlin land areas, such as
Steinstücken, were in turn separated from the main one, some by only a few meters).
De jure all of Berlin was ruled by the four Allied powers; this meant that West Berlin could not send voting members to the German Parliament, and that its citizens were exempt from
conscription; however, this was not accepted by the East German government or the
Soviet Union, which treated East Berlin as an integral part of East Germany. Most of the enclaves now existing are to be found in Asia, with a handful in Africa and Europe. While administrative enclaves are found frequently elsewhere, there are no nation-level enclaves in Australia or the Americas.
Enclaved countries
Position of Lesotho within South Africa
Some enclaves are countries in their own right, completely surrounded by another one, and therefore not exclaves. Three such sovereign countries exist:
See also
List of countries that border only one other country.
Temporary enclaves
The
Scottish Court in the Netherlands, at Camp Zeist near
Utrecht, was temporarily declared as sovereign territory of the
United Kingdom under
Scottish law for the duration of the trial and subsequent appeal of those accused in the
Lockerbie bombing, and was therefore an exclave of the United Kingdom, specifically
Scotland, and an enclave within the Netherlands. The court was first convened in 1999, and the land returned to the Netherlands in 2002.
Related constructs and terms
"Practical" enclaves and exclaves and inaccessible districts
Some territories, attached to the motherland by a thin slice of land or territorial water, are more easily accessible by traveling through a foreign country. These territories may be called "practical exclaves" or "pene-exclaves" (example: the
Northwest Angle between US and Canada.)
Conversely, a territory that is an exclave but does not function as one (instead functioning as a contiguous part of the main nation) is deemed a "quasi-exclave".
Subnational enclaves and exclaves
Sometimes, administrative divisions of a country, for historical or practical reasons, caused some areas to belong to a division while being attached to another one.
Ethnic enclaves
An
ethnic enclave is a community of an ethnic group inside an area in which another ethnic group predominates.
Ghettos,
Little Italys,
barrios and
Chinatowns are examples. These areas may have a separate language, culture and economic system.
Nagorno-Karabakh is arguably an ethnic enclave. It is a predominantly ethnic Armenia area inside Azerbaijan. The
Nagorno-Karabakh War which lasted from 1988 to 1994 resulted in the area self-proclaiming its independence, but this has never been recognized by the international community, which tends to describe the current situation as a
frozen conflict.
Extraterritoriality
Embassies and military bases are usually exempted from the jurisdiction of the host country, i.e., the laws of the host nation in which an embassy is located do not typically apply to the land of the embassy or base itself. This exemption from the jurisdiction of the host country is defined as
extraterritoriality. Areas of extraterritoriality are not true enclaves as they are still part of the host country. In addition to embassies some other areas have extraterritoriality.
Examples of this include:
- Saimaa Canal, the part in Russia is leased by Finland. Russian law is in principle valid, but in Reality Finland maintains the area.
Land ceded to a foreign country
Some areas of land in a country are owned by another country and in some cases it has special privileges, such as being exempt from taxes. These lands are not enclaves and do not have extraterritoriality.
Examples of this include:
- The Vimy Memorial in France, which commemorates the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The French government permanently ceded a land area of about 1 km² to Canada as a war memorial in 1922 in recognition of Canada's military contributions in World War I in general and at Vimy Ridge in particular.
- Numerous Commonwealth WW I cemeteries in Belgium, of which the territory is ceded to the respective country.
- The Jaber Castle also known as "Türk's Tomb" (Turkish: Türk Mezarı) in Syria is the grave of Suleyman Shah (Turkish: Süleyman Şah). He was father of Ertuğrul, who was in turn, the father of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire. The land is ceded to Turkey by the Treaty of Ankara signed between Turkey and France on 20 October 1921. Turkey has the right to have a squad/section of the army and to hoist the Turkish flag.
- A portion of the CERN campus in France along the French-Swiss border, administered by Switzerland.
National railway passing through foreign territory
Changes in borders can make a railway that was previously located solely within a country traverse the new borders. Since railways are much more expensive than roads to rebuild to avoid this problem, the criss-cross arrangement tends to last a long time. With passenger trains this may mean that doors on carriages are locked and guarded to prevent illicit entry and exit while the train is momentarily in another country.
Examples include:
- During the era of the Iron Curtain, local trains between the north and south of Burgenland in Austria operated as "corridor trains" (Korridorzüge) along the border with Hungary – they had their doors locked as they traversed Hungarian territory (Győr-Sopron County [as it was then]).
- The Belgian Vennbahn (now closed) lies on a narrow strip of Belgian territory running through Germany, creating five German exclaves.
- The railway between France and Monaco briefly leaves France to enter Monaco before entering France once more. This takes place underground for around 150 metres.
- The former Soviet Central Asian Republics have numerous examples.
Also, borders have occasionally been shifted for the purpose of avoiding this sort of arrangement. The best-known example is the
Gadsden Purchase, in which the
United States bought land from
Mexico on which it was planned to build a southern route for the
transcontinental railroad. Owing to the topography of the area, acquisition of the land was the only feasible way to construct such a railroad through the southern
New Mexico Territory.
National highway passing through foreign territory
This arrangement is less common as highways are more easily re-aligned as noted above. Examples include:
- Between 1963 and 2002 the N274 road from Roermond to Heerlen, part of Dutch territory, passed through the German Selfkant, which had been annexed by the Netherlands after the Second World War but returned to Germany in 1963.
Border infrastructure
Several bridges cross the rivers
Oder and
Neisse between Germany and Poland. To avoid needing to coordinate their efforts on a single bridge, the two states assign each bridge to one or the other; thus Poland is responsible for
all maintenance on some of the bridges, including the German side, and vice versa.
