Transcript:
This person’s house lies directly on the border between two different countries. But to understand why, we have to zoom out a little bit. This town, called Baarle-Nassau, is divided extremely weirdly.

You see, this entire town should be part of the Netherlands. However, these 19 pieces of land are actually part of Belgium. But, it gets even more confusing when you realize that inside these Belgian parts, there are 7 more pieces of the Netherlands.

The origins of these strange borders can be traced all the way back to the late 1100s, when the Royal families of two different towns had a little too much fun trading land with each other, creating this mess of a border situation.

And you might be thinking that living here would be a complete nightmare, just imagine how many border crossings you would need to get through just to reach the other side of the town.

However, since both the Netherlands and Belgium are in the EU, borders here are just marked by lines with crosses on the ground, with free travel in between the two different countries.

If the borders end up splitting your house in two, then you officially belong to whatever country your front door lies in. If the borders split your front door in half, then you basically just get to choose which of the two countries you want to be a part of.

#shorts #geography

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