# Geographic Anomaly: Bit of Kentucky, other places **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 22, 2000, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817 "2000-12-22T04:23:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2000, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/21 "2000-12-22T20:46:44Z")
**Aurora, Colorado** , a suburb of Denver, has several discontiguous yet incorporated city islands scattered throughout unincorporated Adams and Arapahoe County. In the 1980s, the city used a loophole in the state’s annexation laws to incorporate these areas. The most interesting Aurora city island is between Hampden Avenue and I-225. It’s completely surrounded by the City of Denver and the City of Greenwood Village. A topo map of the island can be seen at [http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.asp?S=12&T=2&X=638&Y=5485&Z=13&W=1](http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.asp?S=12&T=2&X=638&Y=5485&Z=13&W=1) . ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2000, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/22 "2000-12-22T23:43:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by malden \* > On the County level: the parish of St. Martin in Louisiana is in two pieces, with Iberia Parish jutting between them. I have no idea why this happened. Norfolk County MA has two exclaves: the city of Brookline and a section of the coast that includes Cohasset. AFAIK, these two counties are the only ones in the US that have exclaves. Internationally, there are several more no one has mentioned: There’s 4 in central Asia involving Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by samclem1300_ > There’s also a bit of Switzerland in Germany IIRC, but I’m too lazy to look it up. I don’t know of any. If you’re thinking of the area around Schaffhausen, Switzerland, then there’s no enclaves there. However, you can’t drive to Büsingen, Germany without going through Swizerland. But you can avoid Swizerland if you hike across country (in theory, anyway, I have no idea if it’s practical). There’s a triangular section of Austria that’s surrounded by Germany except at a single point. The ski resort of Jungholz is in this section. The section meets the main part of Austria at the top of a mountain which has a marker showing this point. There’s a small enclave of Italy surrounded by Switzerland on Lake Lugano. Besides the large enclaves involving Armenia and Azerbaijan already mentioned, there’s at least three more much smaller ones along the border. Also there’s a couple sub-enclaves of Azerbaijan within Nagorno-Karabakh. Of course, you have to understand that Nagorno-Karabakh is disputed. It’s claimed by both countries, although currently occupied by Armenia. I understand there are at least two and maybe more enclaves of India within Bangladesh. Don’t know where they are though. ---
**Author:** ![nebuli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/0ea827/32.png) [@nebuli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nebuli)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/23 "2000-12-23T04:53:06Z")
> [@](#): > > ## quote: > > ## Originally posted by samclem1300 There’s also a bit of Switzerland in Germany IIRC, but I’m too lazy to look it up. > > I don’t know of any. If you’re thinking of the area around Schaffhausen, Switzerland, then there’s no enclaves there. However, you can’t drive to Büsingen, Germany without going through Swizerland. But you can avoid Swizerland if you hike across country (in theory, anyway, I have no idea if it’s practical). According to my Encyclopedia Britannica there are two German enclaves in Schaffhausen, and the Hammond and Rand-McNally atlases confirm at least one of them. ---
**Author:** ![nebuli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/0ea827/32.png) [@nebuli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nebuli)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/24 "2000-12-23T05:08:42Z")
**Polycarp** said: > [@](#): > > A small-scale map of the Holy Roman Empire before Napoleon is also interesting. Several dozen “independent” duchies, principalities, electorates, and such speckled the countryside like international law had come down with the measles. There were even cases of enclaves inside enclaves, where Prussia might hold a town within a county that belonged to Saxony which lay within a piece of Saxe-Coburg-Weneedtocomeupwithanewnameforthispiece. Yeah, I like showing a small-scale map of the HRE to people who tell me about the 4 Color Map Theorem. A minor nitpick: “several dozen” in this case is over 25 dozen- i.e. over 300 “immediate” jurisdictions- units with no higher political entity between them and the Emperor (in theory at least) Another situation which produced a plethora of enclaves was the South African apartheid regime’s attempt to set up “independent bantustans”. See [http://fotw.vexillum.com/flags/za](http://fotw.vexillum.com/flags/za)(old.html for a map (and even that is prob. too large a scale to show all of them) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/25 "2000-12-23T10:07:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by nebuli \* > According to my Encyclopedia Britannica there are two German enclaves in Schaffhausen, and the Hammond and Rand-McNally atlases confirm at least one of them. Yes, EB does say that. But I can’t find either on a map. I have a 1:300,000 Michelin road map of that part of Germany and it doesn’t show them. That’s 1 cm = 3 Km, so the places must be fairly small. Where in the canton is the one shown by Rand McNally and Hammond? Is there a town in it? BTW, Schaffhausen along with several other Swiss cantons have exclaves within Switzerland. If you’re really interested, [here’s](http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/europe/Switzerland_admin_2000.jpg) a map that shows them. ---
**Author:** ![nebuli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/0ea827/32.png) [@nebuli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nebuli)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/26 "2000-12-23T15:49:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Where in the canton is the one shown by Rand McNally and Hammond? Is there a town in it? It appears to be about a km or two to the east of Schaffhausen town- it is shown as a very small area bordered by a heavy black line in the map you linked to (on that map it may not be 100% clear that it is entirely surrounded by Swiss territory but it is clear in the atlases I cited). Rand-McNally shows Busingen within the enclave. Perhaps the statement about not having to go through Swiss territory if one went crosscountry really meant one could avoid border checkpoints by going crosscountry? Further confirmation that Busingen is an enclave can be found at: [http://www.bng.nl/ngw/int/dld/b/busingen.htm](http://www.bng.nl/ngw/int/dld/b/busingen.htm) [http://wings.buffalo.edu/philosophy/faculty/smith/articles/bosnia.html](http://wings.buffalo.edu/philosophy/faculty/smith/articles/bosnia.html) (scroll about 2/3 of the way down the page to the section headed “Switzerland”) [http://www.scottreid.com/part6.htm](http://www.scottreid.com/part6.htm) (scroll about 60% of the way down the page- this site mentions that Busingen and the Italian exclave of Campione d’Italia are covered by Swiss tariffs and Customs, not those of their own nations) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/27 "2000-12-23T18:56:06Z")
Wow! Thanks for all the leads on neat places! I was aware of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau, along with the bit of switzerland only attached to the rest by water, but not about some of the other anomalies mentioned. But back to the original question; Anybody ever visit the Kentucky nipple? What’s there, beyond rural kentucky? The last remnants of the sylvan elves, a Palantir, or just Mississippi river bottomland? ---
**Author:** ![schief2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@schief2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schief2)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/28 "2000-12-23T19:45:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan \* > \*\*Anybody ever visit the Kentucky nipple? What’s there, beyond rural kentucky? The last remnants of the sylvan elves, a Palantir, or just Mississippi river bottomland? > \*\* I’ve not visited it, but I’ve stared at it from across the river in New Madrid, Mo. I didn’t see much…from that vantage point, all that was visible was a forest of scrubby trees and sandy sort-of beaches. If you look at it on Mapquest (posting direct links doesn’t seem to work, but if you search for a map of New Madrid that’ll get you close to it), it appears there’s some rural roads in the central and eastern parts, so presumably there’s a few folks holed up out in those woods. On the Mapquest map, there’s also a few spits of land on the western side that look like they could be docks or something, but I sure don’t remember seeing anything like that, and besides, there’s no roads that go anywhere near them. ---
**Author:** ![scratch1300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@scratch1300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch1300)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/29 "2000-12-23T19:57:17Z")
Hey **Qadgop** , I’ll bet the Entwives are there! And if the local Chamber of Commerce takes up your suggestion and calls it “The Kentucky Nipple”, betcha tourism would increase tenfold! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/30 "2000-12-23T22:19:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by nebuli \* > It appears to be about a km or two to the east of Schaffhausen town- it is shown as a very small area bordered by a heavy black line in the map you linked to (on that map it may not be 100% clear that it is entirely surrounded by Swiss territory but it is clear in the atlases I cited). Rand-McNally shows Busingen within the enclave. Perhaps the statement about not having to go through Swiss territory if one went crosscountry really meant one could avoid border checkpoints by going crosscountry? I’m not surprised that RMcN and Hammond show Büsingen as an enclave. The Times Atlas of the World pretty much does the same (although there it’s a bit ambiguous). But the maps I’m looking at are much more detailed. They show the Büsingen is connected to Germany by a neck less than 1 Km wide. I was mistaken about there being no road along this neck. I have two Michelin road maps that show the area. One is a 1:400,000 scale map of Switzerland and the other is a 1:300,000 scale map of SW Germany. Both maps clearly show that Büsingen is connected to Germany, but the Switzerland map does not show a road along the neck. The German map does. On the other hand, [this map](http://www.hofen.ch/Englisch/Lage.html) shows Büsingen as an enclave. Personally, I’m about to throw my hands up on this question. However, I will note that [this list of ENCLAVES OF THE WORLD by Rolf Palmberg](http://vwww.abo.fi/users/rpalmber/enclaves.htm) includes Büsingen, along with a number of other enclaves I was unaware of and not mentioned in this thread. I think I’ll email Mr Palmberg and see what he thinks of the Michelin maps. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/31 "2000-12-23T23:23:46Z")
The eastern part of the border between Mexico and the USA is defined as the Rio Grande. About 30 years ago, a flood changed the course of the river. The two governments spent millions of dollars to re-dig the channel and put the river back in its previous location. In the 19th Century, the US government decided that the eastern border of New Mexico would run along a particular line of longitude. They sent two teams of surveyors to mark the boundary. One started from the south, the other started from the north. When the two teams met, they realized that one of them was on the wrong meridian. It was too expensive to move all of the boundary markers, so the eastern border of NM now has a slight zigzag in it. I have also heard that the Oklahoma panhandle was originally a piece of desert, so barren that nobody wanted it. Since nobody else claimed it, they attached it to the Indian Territory. A century later, guess where they discovered the oil? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/32 "2000-12-28T18:31:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dtilque \* > However, I will note that [this list of ENCLAVES OF THE WORLD by Rolf Palmberg](http://vwww.abo.fi/users/rpalmber/enclaves.htm) includes Büsingen, along with a number of other enclaves I was unaware of and not mentioned in this thread. I think I’ll email Mr Palmberg and see what he thinks of the Michelin maps. Just in case anyone is interested, I emailed Rolf Palmberg and he was under the impression that Büsingen was indeed an enclave. But he and several other “boundary freaks” (his term) are going to visit Büsingen next September and he’ll check it out then. There’s a small subculture of people sufficiently interested in geographic anomalies that they go visit them. They also visit tripoints, places where three countries or states meet. At most state tripoints that are on land, there’s a marker of some sort, usually plain, but sometimes more elaborate. I don’t know what they are like in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/33 "2000-12-28T19:16:15Z")
Tripoints, etc: We also have a “quadpoint” at four corners in AZ / NM / CO UT. I’m sure there are others. A question - what is the greatest number of political regions meeting at a single point? Any 5 region meetings anybody knows of? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/34 "2000-12-28T20:26:41Z")
I’m not sure that I would call Michigan’s two peninsulas exclaves/enclaves (although that sort of boundary is rare), but the Congressional edict that settled the Toledo War (giving Michigan the U.P.) did create an anomaly by setting the southern boundary of Michigan on a parallel that cuts across the mouths of both the Ottawa River and Shanree Creek as they enter Lake Erie, creating _two_ Michigan peninsulas that are only accessible from Ohio. Had the boundary been set a few hundred yards farther north, Reed Run would also have been included, creating three such peninsulas. (There is a lot of water seeping into Lake Erie at that point.) I have heard that the houses on those peninsulas are served by the Toldeo Fire Department, but that is only hearsay. Originally, only summer cottages were out there, but as Toledo has expanded, they have built new homes “on the water” (pretty much literally). ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/35 "2000-12-28T20:34:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yabob \* > We also have a “quadpoint” at four corners in AZ / NM / CO UT. I’m sure there are others. > > A question - what is the greatest number of political regions meeting at a single point? Any 5 region meetings anybody knows of? Unless, you count the South Pole, where half a dozen or so claims for Antarctic territory meet, there are no places where more than 3 countries meet. At least not on land. There is at least one place where 4 EEZs meet: The Solomons, Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu. There may be one or two more out there, I don’t keep up on the EEZs. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/36 "2000-12-28T21:03:33Z")
yabob, nobody is going to like this particular technicality, but the Four Corners is, I believe, also a joining place of the Ute Mountain and Navajo Indian reservations. So one _might_ be able to argue that a total of _six_ sovereign entities meet at the Four Corners. I’m not even going to try to plumb the legal depths of that argument. Speaking of Navajo, there is an enclave of the Navajo reservation located within the Hopi reservation, which in turn is completely within the borders of the rest of Navajo. That’s caused a few problems. And of course as Fanny May mentioned there is Red Lake, which has a patch of non-Indian Minnesota territory completely surrounded by reservation territory, which is technically still Minnesota territory but which is separated by the lake from MN and on land borders entirely in Canada. I would not be suprised at all if the non-Indian territory within the rez is in fact owned by Canadians. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/37 "2000-12-28T21:06:03Z")
I seem to have confused my en-s and ex-es, but just thinking about this stuff is a little confusing in itself. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/38 "2000-12-28T21:19:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ishmintingas \* > **It was caused by the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812 that seriously diverted the course of the Mississippi.** So, that little part of Missouri that separates Kentucky into two pieces used to be part of Kentucky, until the river moved? And unlike other river diversions, the land got re-assigned, and didn’t stay with its original state? Weird indeed. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/39 "2000-12-28T21:20:38Z")
Looking over the on-line map I used, I’m not sure I named the waterways correctly. I’ll have to wait until I can get to my printed maps to be sure. (I’ve known of the peninsulas for a while, but I never bothered looking up the names of the rivers/streams before.) On the subject of Michigan anomalies, Detroit has two inurbs: Hamtramck and Highland Park are each surrounded by detroit except for a short border between themselves. In the 1950s, Hamtramck was the second largest “Polish” city in the world, right behind Warsaw. (Based on the number of ethnic Poles and speakers of Polish in the cities.) ---
**Author:** ![Phouchg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/41988e/32.png) [@Phouchg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phouchg)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2000, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817/40 "2000-12-28T23:16:42Z")
so then what is the story in the Commonwealth of Virginia? I seee on a map than pretty much any incorporated city is independent of the county that surrounds it (or in some cases it is the whole county like Arlington). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-bit-of-kentucky-other-places/46817.md?page=3)