Still, this situations causes some problems. A few years ago, one of the residents tried to cross the border, as he did every day, but forgot that he had his rifle in his truck. He was arrested by American border guards and as he had a previous (very old and minor) criminal conviction, he was detained for several months in an American prison. He was eventually released, but I think he’s now barred from entry into the United States, which would definitely be a problem given where he lives.
A case which one might think would count easily is Cern, where the main site straddles the French-Swiss border, as does the LHC tunnel. However, looking at the current layout, it appears that none of the above surface buildings are actually across the border. Never having thought about the matter before, I’d now guess that someone at some point long ago did take a deliberate decision to lay out the roads on-site such that the border follows some of them for most of it’s length within the site.
In practice, the main site is functionally within Switzerland. Anyone can walk onto it via the main gate on the Swiss side of the border and all the gates into France from there are controlled. The main everyday oddity used to be the road tunnel into France and the main secondary site, but a) the last time I went through it was pre-implementation of Schengen and b) I can’t remember the procedure involved even then.
I’ve never seen how they handle the border inside the LHC tunnel. I believe it’s a set of special gates. I’d imagine that emergency access for the fire services - a nightmare inside the tunnel at the best of times - is the main practical issue.
Living and working at Cern does produce a odd perception of international borders. You routinely keep your passport with you at all times on the odd chance that you’re crossing over outside to St-Genis or whereever, yet at the same time you can technically cross the border without noticing en route to lunch.
There are a series of negotiation huts straddling the border at Panmunjom. The arrangement is that the two sides maintain different ones and that gives them the right of access to all of the interior of those they have responsibility for. Having taken the UN tour of the site, I have thus technically entered North Korea inside one of the huts they look after.
This is something I’ve wondered about for a while. I know the site has a low dividing wall marking the international border. If each country maintains specific buildings, and the buildings lie on the border, is that whole building considered part of the country that maintains it, or is it still considered to be in both countries? If so, that would mean South Korea was maintaining a small bit of real estate in North Korea, and vice-versa.
It no longer spans two countries any more, but according to this page (http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/error.shtml) the part of the facade of the Reichstag was in East Berlin, and the rest was in West Berlin. Just happened to be reading that page before opening this thread, actually - there’s probably a better cite elsewhere. There were probably a fair number in Berlin back in the day, I’d guess.
This thread got me wondering about my adoptive country and its neighbors. Norway shares a loooooong and very open border with Sweden; moreover, from 1814 until 1905 the two nations functioned as a single country. Based on that, it would be reasonable for there to be buildings straddling the border. But much of the border runs through wilderness, often high in the mountains, and only a few towns of any size are anywhere near the border. In the most populated border area, Svinesund, between Halden in Norway and Strömstad in Sweden, the border lies in a sound at the bottom of a ravine - no buildings in the middle of the water!
Googling and asking around has led me to this conclusion: there are, surprisingly to me, no buildings of any renown that straddle the border between Norway and Sweden.
There’d be nothing anomalous about that, though. Most governments maintain “small bits of real estate” in lots of other countries - their embassies and consulates, and not infrequently other government offices that have business to do outside the home country.
Doesn’t this picture show a building straddling the border at Morokulien? I think it’s the Morokulien Infocenter.
Google Maps shows the border slightly displaced to the south, but you can see from the cleared vista line in the trees where it actually runs.
From the same website, which is full of border oddities, this garage belonging to a house in Estonia has a few square feet in Latvia. The border line is painted on the side. Now that both Estonia and Latvia are part of the Schengen area, there are no border patrols any more.
Why would anyone build something that crosses a border? Wouldn’t that just cause problems?
Perhaps the buildings were they before the present borders were drawn up? This might well be the case in the Estonia/Latvia example above. That part of the world has had shifting borders for decades. Just look at a 1914 map compared to one from the present day.
The photograph says it all - “This building was erected about 1981 when both towns were united by the Soviet Union.”
It’s the latter. The border is defined by the Military Demarcation Line agreed in 1953. The Armistice Agreement singles out Panmunjom, where it was signed, as the location of future discussions. For convenience, they then agreed that a small area on it be set aside where the negotiators could move freely, the Joint Security Area. This agreement didn’t supercede the Armistice Agreement and hence the Demarcation Line - it was simply an agreement by both sides to grant access by the other side into a small part of their territory.
The huts were then built within this area, across the Line. Later events eventually caused the original agreement to break down and both sides to be restricted to their side of the Line. Except in the huts.
Either side could similarly refuse to allow any access across the Line in the huts at any time without violating the Armistice Agreement. Now the agreements about arrangements are insanely closely negotiated, nailed down and monitored, but they are not fundamental to the situation in the way the Armistice Agreement is.
This is the one building I’m not sure of. Some sources, including Wikipedia (please note that this link is in Norwegian), state that the building straddles the border. Google Maps claims that the building is actually on the Norwegian side of the border, though just barely, and your first link doesn’t make things very clear: “It is about 8 metres from the house’s wall to the boundary”, but is the boundary then 8 meters inside the structure or outside of it? Other pages on the site appear to claim the border bissects the building.
If this building does straddle the border, then it seems to be the only structure of note that does. Given the length of the border, I still find that a bit surprising.
To answer ChrisBooth12’s question: this building was built where it is, whether actually on the border or just next to it, to celebrate peaceful coexistance. It also serves as a tourist information center for the nearby communities in both Sweden and Norway, and houses a souvenir shop. I suspect many people who stop there would pass it by if it wasn’t right at the border, so the increased revenue for the little store is worth the hassle of dealing with property in two countries. And as I mentioned above, the border is extremely open, so the hassles aren’t as big as you might think.
It definitely straddles the border. Borders on Google Maps are often misplaced to a lesser or greater degree; in this case, you can clearly see the actual border on the ground (note the swathe cut through the trees, and the monuments on the ground).
The “8 metres” quote in the page I linked to refers to the radio station on the right-hand side of the photo, which is entirely within Norwegian territory:
This map shows the situation clearly. This Street View image was taken almost precisely on the border - you can see the line bisecting the building, and if you turn 180 degrees you can see the markers along the border (and the shed-like radio station on the Norwegian side).
If a railway station can be classed as a building, then the ones in Basel are sure are complicated territory-wise:- Basel
Basel has two train stations straddling three countries. The huge Basel SBB is the main one, most of it in Switzerland, although all trains from France terminate in an area known as Bâle SNCF which is in French territory; you’ll have to go through passport control to reach the station proper. Trams #1 and #8 from outside connect to Barfüsserplatz. Many fast trains from Germany serve Basel SBB, but plenty – including local trains from Freiburg-im-Breisgau – stop short at Basel Badischer Bahnhof (Basel Bad. for short), run by Deutsche Bahn (DB; 061/690 11 11) in an enclave of German territory within Kleinbasel. Again, passport control separates the platforms from the ticket hall. Tram #6 from outside runs to Barfüsserplatz.
One reason would be to enable smuggling. There are many farms that straddle the Irish border, and it would be easy to build a barn or shed that could be accessed from either side, with the purpose of evading excise duty on fuel, alcohol or other products. I read somewhere that this was done on a certain farm on the Louth-Armagh border near Hackballscross.
This is wrong. Both of the stations mentioned are well within Swiss territory. The location of the French and German border formalties - nowadays fairly minimal - at the stations is determined by administrative convenience, not by the location of the border.
Ignorance fought! Thanks for pointing that out to me. So one building, at least, is found on the Swedish-Norwegian border.
Sort of described before, but the airport in Ottawa Canada has a US section. Its for custom purposes but my belief (could be wrong) was that once you crossed into that area you were in US territory. Perhaps the same thing as foreign embassies?
Anyhow I know someone who long ago had a house that straddled the border between New York and Massachusetts. They had to have 2 telephone lines; one in each half. I don’t think it was a regulations thing, so much as the cost of making “long distance” calls to nearby places.
You’re referring to preclearance. The territory remains that of the host nation, but US authorities are granted limited rights to operate there.
I remember they had that at the Vancouver VIA station for passengers about to board the train to Seattle. Then when crossing the actual border the trains get stopped, and the passengers inspected, again, by U.S. Customs. No wonder a journey of less than 150 miles takes nearly four hours.