Our village Baarle is ONE village consisting of two different municipalities; the Dutch municipality of Baarle-Nassau and the Belgian municipality of Baarle-Hertog. The Belgian Baarle-Hertog consists of 22 enclaves completely surrounded by the Dutch territory of Baarle-Nassau. Baarle-Hertog is in fact the sum of all the Belgian enclaves in the Netherlands.

Besides the Belgian enclaves, Baarle-Nassau has one (1) (Dutch) exclave in the Belgian mainland within the hamlet of Zondereigen. Furthermore Baarle-Nassau has also seven (7) exclaves (sometimes called sub-enclaves) within the Belgian enclaves. All together Baarle has 30 enclaves. It's the most puzzled village in the world. A colleague-journalist once called it : 'Bordering to the ridiculous'

Enclaves

Baarle counts 30 enclaves, of which 22 enclaves belong to the Belgian community Baarle-Hertog and 8 enclaves belong to the Dutch community Baarle-Nassau.

What's an enclave?
By definition, an enclave is a part of a country that is enclosed and completely surrounded by the territory of another country. One can not reach an enclave from the mainland without trespassing territory of another country.
To Belgium Baarle-Hertog is an exclave in the Netherlands. From the Dutch point of view Baarle-Hertog is a Belgian enclave in the Netherlands. In common talking one uses the word enclave to indicate foreign territories in another country. So we use enclave for convenience.

Of the Baarle enclaves there are 23 of them in or near the center of the village. Of these 16 are Belgian (Baarle-Hertog) enclaves and 7 are Dutch (Baarle-Nassau) enclaves. The Dutch enclaves are embodied in the Belgian Enclaves.

In the outskirts of Baarle there are 6 more Belgian enclaves and 1 Dutch enclave in Zondereigen, within the Belgian mainland. The hamlet Zondereigen is part of the community Baarle-Hertog.
For a clear picture of these enclaves, see following map. The Belgian enclaves are numbered H17 to H22 and the Dutch enclave in Zondereigen is N8.


Unique
The Baarle enclaves are not the only enclaves in the world. Especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall many changes took place in Europe. The result was that more enclaved areas were created. Think about what the balkan war did to formerly Yugoslavia. But also in the former Sovjet Union lot of new enclaves came into being.
But there's one big difference with the Baarle enclaves. The area of Baarle-Hertog is divided over 22 seperate enclaves and the enclaves of Baarle-Nassau are 8 seperate enclaves. The new enclaves in Europe are just one area. The Baarle enclaves are rather unique from that point of view. Sometimes one calls this the world's largest jigsaw puzzle.

Madness
Despite the fact that the situation in Baarle is rather complicated, in other parts of the world the situation is even more complicated. Especially on the border between India and Bangladesh the situation is really complicated. In the former Bengal-province there're hundreds of small enclaves, exclaves and sub-enclaves, sub-sub-enclaves and even sub-sub-sub-enclaves. This area is really the largest jigsaw-puzzle of borders in the world!



Click HERE for an enlargment of this map of the Indian enclaves.