Gregory's Server2/ Located in the center of Europe, the area we today refer to as Germany π©πͺ is a natural crossroads, and the borders and political geography has changed A LOT over the centuries. Material enough for many threads, but today we'll focus on modern bits of #geoweirdness
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 4/ Germany π©πͺ has one exclave, the city of BΓΌsingen am Hochrhein is entirely surrounded by Switzerlandπ¨π For time zone nerds: tiny BΓΌsingen (pop. ~1,500) has it's own entry in the IANA timezone database: 5/ Germany π©πͺ contains one "pene-exclave" (practical exclave). Due to mountains the Austrian π¦πΉ village of Jungholz can only practically be reached via German roads. The village has both German and Austrian postal codes. 6/ Today Germany π©πͺ is in political union with its EU πͺπΊneighbors (except Switzerlandπ¨π, of course), but there is still one border dispute with the Netherlands π³π± about the course of the border at the mouth of the Ems river, as covered in our thread on border disputes. 7/ This year will mark 33 years since reunification, when East joined West. Much less well known is the "mini-reunification" when the Saar protectorate rejoined Germany. Following WWII it was a separate legal entity until 1957 (with own Olympics team) 8/ In 2016 it was discovered that Germany's borders had changed. Due to the shift of a river, Germany gained about 500 sqm in a remote forest from the Czech Republic π¨πΏ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/germany-just-got-a-bit-bigger/ 9/ You may be surprised to learn of the part of Germany π©πͺ that was once British π¬π§. The North Sea island of Helgoland belonged to Britain until 1890 when it was traded for Zanzibar (Now Tanzania πΉπΏ, then part of German East Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heligoland%E2%80%93Zanzibar_Treaty 10/ That's it for our look at the #geoweirdness of Germany π©πͺ We have more threads about specific countries, geocoding, etc on our blog. 11/ Bonus #geoweirdness tweet - post reunification Germany π©πͺ has 16 BundeslΓ€nder (states). Occasionally though you will hear of the "17th Bundesland", a reference to favorite German tourism destination: the πͺπΈ Spanish island of Mallorca 12/ Final bonus #geoweirdness tweet - here's a map of Germany π©πͺ if the place names were given English naming equivalents.  |
3/ First up, the Germany π©πͺ / Belgium π§πͺ border is probably the strangest in all of Europe.
Belgium owns a former railway line (now cycle path) that cuts through Germany - as we covered in our Belgium #geoweirdness thread a few
months ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vennbahn
https://en.osm.town/@opencage/110048771253841054