Baarle-Nassau is home to over a dozen Belgian enclaves. (Image: Getty) Two lovely towns on the border between Belgium and The Netherlands are built so close together it is incredibly easy to be both countries at once. The Dutch town of Baarle-Nassau is home to several Belgian enclaves as there are over a dozen pieces of land that belong to its neighbour embedded into its territory.
The municipality in The Netherlands shares its fate, and half of its name, with its cross-border twin Baarle-Hertog in Belgium. The situation is the result of hundreds of years of land swaps and regional treaties that have resulted in the peculiar patchwork border arrangement. function loadOvpScript(){let el=document.
createElement('script');el.setAttribute('src','https://live.primis.
tech/live/liveView.php?s=114945&playerApiId=v114945');document.getElementById('ovp-primis').
appendChild(el)}window.top.addEventListener('primisPlayerInit',e=>{try{if(e.
detail&&e.detail.playerApiId==="v114945"){if(window.
document.getElementsByClassName('jwplayer')[0]){e.detail.
float('disable')}}}catch(e){}});window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',()=>{setTimeout(()=>{if(typeof flagTcfLoaded!=='undefined'&&flagTcfLoaded===!0){loadOvpScript()ExpressApp.Log('[Load] OVP flagTcfLoaded',new Date())}else{document.
addEventListener("tcfLoaded",()=>{loadOvpScript()ExpressApp.Log('[Load] OVP tcfLoaded',new Date())})}},1500)}) European Union membership has helped the two countries to simplify border arrangements. Author Frank Jabobs noted the last time the bounds mattered was during World War 1 .
READ MORE: Costa del Sol orders Brits to follow new 'dress code' in major crackdown The border is marked by pavement tiles with white crosses. (Image: Getty) Writing in The New York Times in 2011, Mr Jacobs noted Baarle-Hertog was "the only part" of occupied Belgium that the Germans could not enter because The Netherlands had remained neutral in the war. He wrote: "Baarle-Hertog, out of reach of the Germans, was the only part of the country outside the heavily contested, trench-infested 'Flanders Fields' in the west of Belgium that remained free of occupation, a haven for refugees and a rallying point for resistance, much to the chagrin of the Germans.
" To avoid disruption, the two towns have agreed to define the frontier with a series of pavement tiles marked with white crosses. The division is so well-recorded that it is possible to spot the border designators running through shops, storefronts and even cafès. Businesses have also been known to exploit the bizarre situation to bypass local laws hindering their operations.
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, Dutch law once required restaurants to shut down early. DON'T MISS: ‘I’m a solo traveller - I’ll never go back to these five holiday destinations’ [INSIGHT] 7 spectacular cities across the world you have to visit before you die [LIST] Popular Portuguese seaside town implements new measure targeting UK tourists [PROFILE] Trending The border designators go through businesses and homes as well. (Image: Getty) SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you.
This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our Privacy Policy Instead of asking patrons to end their dinner faster or to just leave, they would simply ask customers to move to the Belgian side of the establishment.
However, the close-knit community has faced its fair share of headaches because of the unusual border situation. The two towns follow different election rules depending on which side of the border their front doors are. House styles also come to the aid of tourists wondering which side of the border they're on, and residents often fly either the Dutch or Belgian flag next to the house numbers to indicate which country they are in.
In addition to several businesses and streets, Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog share a public library with both Dutch and Belgian staff..
