The shortest border in the world. You see, the sheer size of the US-Canada border
made me very curious as to which border is the absolute shortest in the world. And as it turns out this isn’t very well
known, and the result is quite surprising. This border is probably much shorter than
you think, and the answer is not as clear-cut as you would first assume. It would make sense to think that the smallest
country in the world would also be the one that possesses the shortest border. And this is where it starts to get interesting. You see, The Vatican City is the smallest
country in the world, a country so small that it even has the word “City” in its title. It’s located in the middle of Rome and only
has around 825 inhabitants. It’s therefore the smallest country in both
population size, as well as in geographical size at a mere 0.49 square kilometers or 0.19
square miles.[1] It’s essentially a city within another city that just so happens to
be a country, and because of this it must surely have the shortest border in the world,
right? Well, the Italy-Vatican border has a length
of just 3.4 km, meaning there’s no doubt that it’s extremely short. And the fact that this border takes first
place as the World’s shortest entire boundary, would make it seem like the best bet in our
search for the world’s shortest border. But in actuallity it doesn’t even come. Because in our search for the shortest border
possible, we can’t limit our criteria to only entire boundaries, as that would leave
out the most interesting and obscure short borders. So instead we should look at singular stretches
of borders. You see in that case, we must look at two
much larger countries to find the answer we’re looking for. Alright so, all the way down here in Africa
we find this huge country. Botswana. At first sight, it seems like Botswana only
has three neighboring countries, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, all with thousands
of kilometers of borders separating them. Which might make you wonder why they’re
interesting to us in the search for the Shortest border. But let’s see what happens when we zoom
in. (Zoom in on world map) That’s right. Namibia and Zimbabwe don’t actually share
a border! Instead, we find the Zambezi river that runs
through 4 countries, who share incredibly strange borders. Let’s draw some borders so you can see what
I mean. Alright, so what you’re seeing right now
is a border, with two so-called tripoints on each side. This tiny area between the points, at only
150 meters – or 490 ft - wide is what we – for now at least– can assign the title
of ‘the world’s shortest border”. Now, the history and background of this incredibly
curious border are quite interesting. As the border you see here has a bridge going
through it over the Zambezi River, which turns out to be the only direct passageway for transport
and trade between Botswana and Zambia. But the interesting thing about this bridge
is that instead of being straight, it’s curved. This is because when planning and discussion
of the bridge took place during the early 2000’s, the Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe wasn’t on good terms with the two presidents of Botswana and Zambia, as they
had criticized his political ways. Therefore, he denied them access to build
on his ground out of spite. And in order to circumvent this, Botswana
and Zambia decided to build the bridge, so it curved around the border of Zimbabwe to
avoid interfering with it.[2] Which is honestly pretty hilarious. But going back to the tripoints we find something
quite unique. You see, tripoints are locations where the
borders of three countries meet. In this case the tripoints are formed by Namibia,
Zambia, and Botswana, as well as Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa. Which isn’t especially unique on its own,
since there are 176 tripoints across the globe.[3] However, it begins to get a lot more interesting
when you consider the fact there was a possibility the current shortest border in the world once
didn’t exist! You see, South Africa used to have control
over Namibia in the 20th century. And back in the 1970s, South Africa claimed
there was a quadripoint where Zambia and Botswana share a border today. A quadripoint is, as the name suggests, a
geographical point where four borders meet. Which is something we don’t have in any
other place on earth, meaning this could have been the only quadripoint in the world! But it would also mean the shortest border
would have never existed. And even though the location is now definitively
considered a border and not a quadripoint, it actually still holds the title for something
remarkable – being the only double tripoint among countries in the whole world. So, this is the only place where two international
tripoints can be found right next to each other.[4] It’s honestly pretty incredible
to find a place that holds the title for both the shortest international border and only
double tripoint at the same time! But hold on a minute. What if I told you there might be a possibility
that an even shorter border exists? Let me elaborate. Because if we stretch our criteria for an
international border between sovereign states just a tiny bit, well, in that case, there
may in fact be an even shorter border than the one we just covered. You see, when discussing borders, we also
need to consider exclaves. Exclaves are parts of a certain country that
are separated from the home country and surrounded by another country geographically. An example of this is the American state of
Alaska, that isn’t connected to the US but is instead surrounded by Canada as well as
the Russian Bering Strait.[5] Now, Alaska definitely doesn’t have the smallest border
in the world, but if we take a look at the Mediterranean Sea instead, we find something
interesting. Because here you’ll find Morocco. And along the North-Eastern coast of Morocco,
you can see small pieces of land sticking into the sea. But these pieces of land are not owned by
Morocco. The two most notable of which are Melilla
and Ceuta. You see, Spain conquered Melilla and Ceuta
during the 15th and 17th centuries.[6] Which wasn’t uncommon back then, but as time progressed
and Morocco became independent in 1956, they wished to reclaim the land from Spain. However, Spain has denied these requests and
still holds on to this land today. Which means this may be the last case of ongoing
European colonialism in Africa. And oh boy do the Spanish government not wish
to back out, considering they’ve literally sent national guards to protect the borders.[7]
But Ceuta and Melilla aren’t actually what’s interesting here, but rather what lies in
between them. You see, in between Ceuta and Melilla is another
small territory called Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. A long name for a small place. This Spanish piece of land used to be an island
right off the coast of Morocco, but in 1934 an incredible thunderstorm blew so much sand
into the channel between mainland Morocco and the island that a permanent peninsula
was formed.[8] This obviously meant that an official border had to be set up between Peñón
de Vélez de la Gomera and Morocco. And with our current criteria for a border,
this tiny bit of beach, stretching no further than 85 meters, or 279 ft, is officially the
shortest border in the world between two countries. Now, tou may be wondering what the white circle
in the sand is. Well, this place is so small that the inhabitants
of the peninsula must be flown to and from the territory by helicopter, which has to
land on a little makeshift landing pad on the sand. But with all this discussion over who the
small peninsula really belongs to, you may be wondering why Morocco hasn’t simply lifted
the border and reclaimed what is rightfully theirs? And well, the answer is pretty surprising. The reason why Morocco hasn’t done this
is that the only inhabitants on the peninsula are Spanish military personnel, specifically
stationed there to prevent the Moroccans from reclaiming the land. Which begs another important question. Because if the only inhabitants on the island
are soldiers trying to protect it, and there aren’t even any civilians living there or
strategic point in controlling it, why then spend all these resources? Well, the reasoning behind this is rather
interesting. You see, the Spanish government is afraid
that if it leaves Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, the Moroccans will instantly reclaim
it. And they fear that if this happens, it may
tempt the Moroccans to also reclaim the aforementioned territories of Ceuta and Melilla![9] Which
would be a huge loss for Spain, since especially Ceuta has become a significant tourist destination,
and it houses many important industries including fishing and metallurgy.[10] This is why we
probably won’t see Spain giving up its otherwise seemingly insignificant peninsula any time
soon. But while the Spanish and Moroccan governments
battle in what seems like a never-ending feud over this tiny border, let’s instead discuss
some international borders that, on the contrary, are meant to connect the world and maintain
peace. I am of course talking about embassies. Most countries have embassies, that are located
in other countries of the world. And interestingly, the ground upon which these
embassies stand is regarded as part of the home country. This means if an American embassy is located
in say, Mexico, the land on which the embassy is built, is considered American. And because of this there are tiny exclaves
of a large number of countries in completely different countries separated by some kind
of diplomatic border. And since embassies are rather small, typically
just a single building it begs a very important question. Could one of these embassy borders technically
be considered the shortest border in the world? Well surprisingly, while researching this
topic, the information about these embassies was very scarce. In fact, there is so little information on
these embassies that I simply can’t conclude whether any of them have a shorter border
than the one Spain and Morocco share. So we’ll have to leave this up to speculation. As always though, thank you for watching and
I’ll see you in the next one.
