Unusual towns and cities

[Kyng]

Over the course of humans history, people have lived in hundreds of thousands of different villages, towns, and cities. Naturally, a number of these settlements are unusual in some way: it might be something interesting about their geography, or something odd about their history, or maybe their economy is driven by a weird industry. But, this is the place for all towns and cities that have something unusual about them - whatever it is .

I'll start with one of the most famous and most extreme examples - which is Baarle. It's split between the Netherlands and Belgium - and the international border looks like this:



As you can see, it's a bit ridiculous . There are restaurants where different tables are in different countries; car parks with spaces in different countries; and shops where you pick up your items in one country and pay for them in another. House numbers show which country the house is in (Dutch ones look like this, and Belgian ones look like this) - and there's one house with two numbers, because the border runs right through the middle of it . (In fact, there are a lot of houses that are partially in one country and partially in another - and, in these cases, the country you live in is the country where your front door is. It turns out that this is open to exploitation: if somebody in one of these houses wants to switch countries, then they can do this by moving their front door !!!)

So, has anybody here ever been there? Or do you know of any other unusual towns and cities that you think are worth a mention?

[Jarkko]

The closest thing to the above I can think of is Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont. For historical reasons, there are certain buildings straddling the Canada-USA border, including a number of single-family homes, and one, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, was deliberately constructed that way.

There are also a couple of American villages and towns that are completely isolated from the rest of the USA by geographical features. One particularly noteworthy example these days is Point Roberts, Washington, which is suffering economically because of its isolation by land from the rest of Washington State - citizens are required to drive through Metro Vancouver to get back into the USA and have as such taken a huge economic hit during COVID. The Canadian government only finally lessened crossing restrictions for inhabitants last month, but some fear the damage has already been done. I have heard rumours of Point Roberts being sold to Canada, but at the moment, that's all they are.

A village with its own issues is the census designated place of Hyder, Alaska. It is inaccessible by water and only accessible by land from Stewart, BC, and since it is surrounded by mountains is only otherwise accessible by air from the rest of Alaska. Its connection to BC is such that the village uses the BC telephone area code 250, and there is no border patrol. But the biggest issue is that its average household income is just $11K - lower than the lowest incorporated settlement in Alaska and one of the bottom 25 lowest in the entire United States.

Finally, there is the Northwest Angle, almost completely occupied by Angle Township, which is more similar to Point Roberts - separated from the rest of the contiguous United States by Lake of the Woods. Although it is directly south of Ontario, it can actually only be accessed by road via Manitoba... during the warmer months! In the wintertime there is sometimes an ice road over Lake of the Woods to the Angle. You can blame an old cartographic error for the existence of this anomaly, as Ben Franklin and British representatives got the erroneous idea that LotW was the source of the Mississippi, which is actually farther south, a bit southwest of Bemidji. Had they realised that, the probability is that the Angle would be Canadian.

[Kyng]

Interesting ones . I'd heard of Point Roberts and Northwest Angle before, but not the other three.

I particularly love Northwest Angle. It's an excellent example of how legal wording can produce bizarre or anomalous results in the real world if you're not careful .

Sad to hear Point Roberts is suffering, though . Do you happen to know how Campobello Island is managing the situation? (For anybody who doesn't know, that has the opposite situation to Point Roberts: Canadian territory, but accessible by road only via the USA)

[Jarkko]

FWIH, Campobello Island has a ferry service going.

Also, really not surprised you haven't heard of Hyder. At last census it only had 87 people. Not that Stewart's that big either, but it's roughly five and a half times the size of its Alaskan neighbour!

[Kyng]

FWIH, Campobello Island has a ferry service going.

Seems it did - although, it's unable to run in winter, for safety reasons .

It'll be interesting to see whether this leads to the installation of some kind permanent link to the rest of Canada (I imagine a bridge would be way too expensive, but the article does suggest an upgraded ferry that can operate safely in winter. There was a desire for that anyway before the pandemic - since US Customs and Border guards had been going through mail destined for Campobello Island - but this will certainly have compounded the desire for something like that)

[Kyng]

Here's a bit of an odd one: Stamford, in Connecticut, is directly north, south, east, and west of New York State.

You can see why by looking at the following map. It's in a little bit of Connecticut that juts out from the south-west of the rest of the state:


(Source: GreenwichMeanTime.com)

[Kyng]

Here's Yanjin County, in Zhaotong City, in China. It's sometimes known as "China's narrowest county":



Not a lot of space to work with - but, they've made the best of what little they had !