The World's Oldest International Borders

when we look at a map of the world today we often take for granted that that's just the way it is a stable set of lines dividing the nations of the world and while that is somewhat true now this was far from the case in the pre-modern world in fact the further back in time you go the more drastically the political map changed on a year-to-year basis but while many borders changed drastically and frequently some didn't some borders have been around for a very very long time so what are some of the world's oldest international borders this question is difficult to answer though because things get complicated when you try to apply a modern concept to a time when such a concept had yet to emerge for example in medieval times clearly defined lines on a map agreed upon between two countries wasn't really a thing more commonly things were arranged in a system known as feudalism with hundreds of different rulers arranged in diverse and complex hierarchies the first border i'm going to look at and it's almost certainly the oldest word in the world is the microstate between france and spain andorra nestled in the mountains of the pyrenees andorra is one of the smallest countries in europe at less than 500 square kilometers in size andorra is believed to have been created as far back as the early 9th century by the first holy roman emperor charlemagne andorra was originally part of the marca hispanica the frankish creation used as a buffer zone between the franks and the mirrors who controlled most of the iberian peninsula at the time andorra was ruled by the count of urgal until 988 when it was given to the bishop of vergel in exchange for land elsewhere thinking that the count might later try to reclaim the andorran valleys however the bishop sought protection a co-sovereignty agreement was declared between the bishop and the lord of cavalet over the years the latter title was passed through various political marriages and was eventually held by the count of fla a military dispute between the coast sovereigns in the 13th century led to the conflict being resolved in 1278 with mediation from the king of aragon in what was known as the parryage of andorra this established andorra as a condominium between two lords both having equal joint sovereignty the country still exists with the same agreement in force ruled by two princes the bishop of urgal still being one of them but the count of flatito would be inherited by henry iv king of france this position has been held by the head of state of france ever since meaning that today one of the princes of andorra is the president of france who of course is democratically elected just not by the population of andorra now who andorra shared its border with has changed over the centuries its southern border used to be with the kingdom of aragon but is now shared with spain still andorra is pretty unambiguously the oldest unchanged and complete border in the world but what if instead of looking at entire borders which focus on sections of borders the spanish portuguese border in its entirety is one of the oldest borders in the world only slightly newer than that of andorra dating all the way back to 1297. that being said portugal's northern border with spain goes back a bit further the county of portugal gained its independence from the kingdom of lyon back in 1139 after a decisive battle against the mirrors when the count of portugal alfonso was declared a king the resulting border between the kingdoms of portugal and lyon today spain remains unchanged to this day over the next few decades portugal began to take its modern shape as they continued the reconquista removing the mirrors from iberia and reestablishing christian rule after reaching the southern coast taking control of the algarve in 1249 the portuguese part of the rikon ki style was completed and portugal's shape started to look a lot like the modern day country in 1295 however portugal had a brief war with castile that had no dominant power on the peninsula the treaty of alcanesis in 1297 established a border that still exists today as castile ceded land to portugal though a minor dispute over the border town of olivenza has persisted ever since but has never created much tension between the two countries of course there are countries whose history goes back much further even if its borders aren't quite as old san marino yet another microstate is often considered the world's oldest republic having been founded in ad-301 after more than a millennium san marino's borders extended beyond just the city of san marino reaching its peak borders in 1463. these borders have been retained until today with san marino currently being an enclave within italy so while its borders are nowhere near as old as the country itself san marino definitely has one of the oldest borders in the world [Music] now moving on to a country that in its current form is actually fairly new the czech republic has some of the oldest borders in the world inherited from its predecessor bohemia and its neighbors the german czech border roughly speaking goes as far back as perhaps a thousand years or maybe more in fact this border is so old it's arguably older than borders themselves what i mean by that is that once we've gone this far back in history the very notion of international borders doesn't really exist at least not as we know them today of course that doesn't mean we can't give a go before bohemia became part of the holy roman empire and even before it became a kingdom the duchy of bohemia's western border looked more or less the same as the modern day country's border with germany of course at the time it was bordering various other imperial german states the german czech divide may go back even further though arguably going back to the migration period following the decline of the roman empire dividing western slavs from the various germanic tribes this may be due to the dense forests of the region today called the bohemian and bavarian forests on the czech and german sides respectively this divide can actually be seen from satellite photos of earth which the modern border follows very closely in this sense the german czech border has been indirectly yet continuously shaped by the geographical realities of the region and this isn't an isolated case nature itself has had a profound impact on the countries that formed around it these natural borders are actually quite common especially in europe and asia where all the oldest borders are of course forests aren't the only natural borders out there there's also rivers one of the most important rivers in europe the danube flows through 10 different countries and makes up one of the oldest borders in the world albeit between different political entities and not continuously the vast majority of the modern-day border between romania and bulgaria follows the danube only on their east coast does it deviate from the river's path this section of the river was historically the northeastern frontier of the roman empire some two thousand years ago this persisted even after the fall of the western roman empire the river would be the northern border of bulgaria byzantium bulgaria again the ottomans briefly and after a few hundred years of ottoman rule bulgaria again as the balkan states gained their independence in 1878. the border is the same today as it was then even though it was changed after the second balkan war when bulgaria ceded land to romania this change was reversed during world war ii under pressure from nazi germany other common natural borders that have endured even to the modern era are mountain ranges historically the difficulty of moving across mountainous terrain resulted in barriers between civilizations one example of this would be the border between france and spain his border is set at the pyrenees mountain range which divides the iberian peninsula from the rest of europe for the last 1500 years the pyrenees have been a partition between tribes kingdoms and countries whether it be the visigoths from the franks the mirrors from the franks aragon from france or finally spain from france the pyrenees were always there the treaty that created the modern day border was agreed upon in 1689 in the appropriately named treaty of the pyrenees this was the result of a conflict that arose during the thirty years war the spanish kingdom ceded to france all villages north of the pyrenees due to a technicality there does remain one spanish town called yevia north of the mountain range natural borders are a good way of understanding how geography has influenced human politics throughout history and even to this day for example getting out of europe china and india are the two most populous countries in the world they share a 4 000 kilometer border with many many disputed regions the two countries are not culturally nor politically aligned and are two of the most ancient civilizations in history yet despite this they have basically never been at war well except for a one month conflict in 1962 but that's it the reason why is actually fairly straightforward the himalayas this extremely tall and extensive mountain range separates china and india of course china hasn't always extended as far west as the himalayas the people's republic of china annexed tibet in 1950 after they had been de facto independent following the fall of the qing dynasty in 1912 ever since tibet has been of great strategic importance to china as things stand china has a massive natural boundary with india which acts as protection from a potentially hostile neighbor if china didn't control tibet then india might and an indian controlled tibet could expose the chinese heartland in the event of military conflict when we talk about geopolitics we often tend to focus too much on the politics without giving as much thought to the geography a mountain range doesn't care about politics culture or religion it will split peoples without discrimination arguably the oldest borders in the world are the ones that were shaped by nature every country in the world is confined by the geography of its location the importance of geography and how it shaped the world we live in is something i learned about from a fascinating audiobook i listened to called prisoners of geography by tim marshall a new york times bestseller in fact i got the idea to talk about the chinese indian border from there i was able to listen to this audiobook using audible the sponsor of this video and the world's largest selection of audiobooks and audio entertainment if you're as interested in geopolitics as i am then i'm confident you'll love prisoners of geography the audiobook is split up into 10 chapters exploring different regions of the world the author looks at topics such as why russia is so massive and how geography facilitated the united states path to becoming a global superpower you can start listening now with a 30-day audible trial choose one audiobook and two audible originals absolutely free visit audible.com forward slash wonder why or text wonder why to 500 500 audio books are yours to keep even if you cancel and can be exchanged if you don't like what you're listening to unused credits roll over month to month again that's audible.com forward slash wonder why or text wonder why to 500 500 and as always thank you so much for watching and i'll see you next time you

Channel: WonderWhy

Views: 580,007

Keywords: oldest borders, andorra, san marino, czech republic, danube, pyrenees, himalayas, china and india, oldest countries, old borders, oldest international borders

Id: QukqGCzVSW0

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 30 2019