Gregory's Server6/ Today Germany ๐ฉ๐ช is in political union with its EU ๐ช๐บneighbors (except Switzerland๐จ๐ญ, of course), but there is still one border dispute with the Netherlands ๐ณ๐ฑ about the course of the border at the mouth of the Ems river, as covered in our thread on border disputes.
|
7 comments
 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 ๐จ๐ฟ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/germany-just-got-a-bit-bigger/ 9/ You may be surprised to learn of the part of Germany ๐ฉ๐ช that was once British ๐ฌ๐ง. The North Sea island of Helgoland belonged to Britain until 1890 when it was traded for Zanzibar (Now Tanzania ๐น๐ฟ, 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 ๐ฉ๐ช We have more threads about specific countries, geocoding, etc on our blog. 11/ Bonus #geoweirdness tweet - post reunification Germany ๐ฉ๐ช has 16 Bundeslรคnder (states). Occasionally though you will hear of the "17th Bundesland", a reference to favorite German tourism destination: the ๐ช๐ธ Spanish island of Mallorca 12/ Final bonus #geoweirdness tweet - here's a map of Germany ๐ฉ๐ช if the place names were given English naming equivalents.  |
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)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saar_Protectorate
#geoweirdness