Non Continuous Nations

Disregarding small enclaves, which are rather common, are Russia (Konigsburg?) and the United States (Alaska) the only two countries in the world to have sizeable states or provinces (not territories) of theirs seperated by other nations?

Azerbaijan has its Nagorno-Kabarakh enclave, which it disputes with Armenia. Likewise, Oman controls the tip of the Musandam Peninsula, separated from the rest of the country by the UAE.

I’m tempted also to include Malaysia, the continental and island parts of which are separated not only by the South China Sea but by several Indonesian islands.

In the past you could have included Pakistan, and in the future you might be able to include a Palestinian state.

All right, on second thought Nagorno-Kabarakh and the Musandam Peninsula are probably the kinds of small enclaves you wanted to disregard (though I’d say they’re both roughly analogous to Konigsberg/Kaliningrad). My mistake.

Depending on how you choose to define “small,” France and the Netherlands each have regions in the Caribbean.

Netherlands Antilles has control of its own internal affairs, but relies on the Netherlands for defense and all foreign and diplomatic exchanges.

The islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, as well as French Guiana are the clearest examples of what you seek, each being a Department of France with representation in the General Assembly just as Ile-de-France has. In addition, Corsica is not really contiguous with France (based on the ability to draw a line from Sardinia to Northern Italy that would enclose Corsica. (I do not believe that St. Pierre and Miquelon have enough population or size to warrant inclusion–I doubt that they have Department status.)
Beyond that, I am not sure how you would reckon the Azores and the Canaries. (Portugal regards the Azores and Madeira as “autonomous regions.”)

Greenland/Kalaallit Nunaat, while not lending itself to “state” status has more independence than a possession or territory and it is quite removed from Denmark.

China has (unresolved) claims on Taiwan and Okinawa is a Prefecture of Japan. (Okinawa’s staus in regard to this question would be determined by how far the Ryukyu archipelago could stand off the Japanese coast before you considered it non-contiguous.)

Scratch Taiwan and Okinawa/Ryukyus which have only water and no intervening foreign lands between them and the larger nation.

The Musandam is almost a thousand square miles; hardly chickenfeed.

Publius, you may have switched Armenia and Azerbaijan (or maybe I’m reading your words incorrectly). Nagorny Karabach is completely surrounded by Azerbaijan soil, so if it is an enclave, it is an Armenian enclave. map

On the other hand, the Nakhchivan region is completely separated from Azerbaijan by Armenia, so that would be an example. It seems to be roughly 1000-2000 square miles, that should count.

Another example would be the province of Cabinda which belongs to Angola but is separated from that by the Democratic Republic Congo. map It has a size of some 2800 square miles, roughly the size of Delaware ([URL=http://www.unitedworld-usa.com/reports/angola/region.asp] as it says here), so I’d say it counts.

Brunei is in two pieces. There’s Malaysian territory in between.

Cabinda either is or is not a separated part of Angola, depending on whether you’re reading cabinda.net or cabinda.com.

Going back a little way, Algiers was soil of France until 1962, and Bangladesh was unified with Pakistan until 1971. Both were territorially and governmentally unified with the “parent” country.

Because of the old Soviet policy of importing ethnic Russians into areas it otherwise occupied by coercion, it’s not entirely impossible for large chunks of the former Soviet 'Stans to one day attempt to re-reunify with Russia. Kyrgyztan, for example, has an ethnic Russian population of 18 percent. That’s approaching one million Russian Orthodox people in a Muslim country–a recipe for dissent.

You should not trust the information on www.cabinda.net: it is from a separatist movement (FLEC) that is active in Cabinda. That’s the danger of ‘learning’ stuff on the Internet: you need outside information to assess the reliability of websites.

Since I realize you don’t have any reason to trust me anymore than cabinda.net, may I refer you to the CIA Fact Book as well as the U.S. Department of State Report on Human Rights practices? Both explicitly refer to Cabinda as a province and mention the FLEC who fights for the independence of Cabinda.

Oman is in two significant parts, the main body and the Mussandam (think the arch of the big boot of the Saudi peninsula, and the tip of the toes, but not the heel or ball of the big toe).

It also has a few scattered enclaves.

People stole my Oman and Cabinda examples, so let me beat Coldfire to the punch and point out Baarle-Herzog and Baarle-Nassau, two adjacent cities surrounded by North Brabant province of the Netherlands. B-N is part of that province; B-H is a Belgian enclave completely surrounded by North Brabant – which includes within itself a Netherlands enclave. This is kind of a small, picayune example, but intriguing nonetheless.

Dubrovnik, Croatia, is in a rather extensive section of the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic which belongs to Croatia but is separated from the rest of Croatia by a section of Bosnia which extends to the coast.

It’s also probably worth noting that for many years, Oman in addition to the Musandam held the port city of Gwadar, the land boundaries of which were completely Pakistani.

Also a near-miss is the fact that Bangladesh and Nepal come within ten miles of each other, a very narrow strip of West Bengal state, India running between them. Were that strip not there, a significant part of India including northern West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Manipur would be in the exact same boat – cut off from the rest of India by foreign territory. We’re talking over 100,000 square miles and a population in excess of 20 million here.

Thanks; I think I got Nakhchivan and Nagorny-Karabakh confused.

dutchboy: You’ll get no argument from me, but given it’s size relative to the rest of Oman I’m not sure what the OP would think of the Mussandam.

There’s also the Argentine enclave at the tip of Cape Horn, separated from the rest of the country by the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego (and the Strait of Magellan).

Gibraltar is only 6.5 sq. km with a population of 27,000, but it is emphatically British (the most recent referendum on the issue was in 2002) despite being at the southern tip of the Iberian pennisula.

Does it really count as an exclave if it’s on an island and can be reached via territorial waters and international waters?

At any rate, the international boundary on Tierra del Fuego looks like acontinuation of the mainland boundary. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it considered an Argentinan exclave.

I’d consider international waters to be the demarcation - otherwise Bermuda and the Falklands would be considered a ‘continuous’ part of Britain.

Me either, but I’d say it’s probably more important that the area is effectively uninhabited, other than a few fishing villages and the joint military base, when determining its significance.

That said, most of Oman is “effectively uninhabited”, so maybe it should count.

Happy to confirm Tuscalan is absolutely correct - from personal knowledge given I am living here in Angola at present. I understand from the Chevron staff that are based up there that the separtist conflict in Cabinda is now operating at a very low intensity. Cabinda certainly makes it under the terms of the OP, being one of the 18, I think, provinces of the Republic of Angola - and until the discovery of deep water oil was the most economically important province, containing at it did virtually all the countries oil reserves.

Gibraltar is a self-governing British territory though, not a part of the UK.