About this season
Enclaves, loaned territories, disputed areas and microstates: This is the series that looks at places with absurd borders.
Episodes (10)
1. Cooch Behar - An Enclave Labyrinth
Aired 19 September 2024 • 10 min
Along the India–Bangladesh border, a once-impossibly complex mosaic of enclaves created a geopolitical puzzle where territories nested inside each other like Russian dolls.
2. Rockall - The Disputed Atlantic Rock
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
A remote rock in the North Atlantic became the subject of competing territorial claims, symbolizing how even uninhabitable land can trigger geopolitical tension.
3. Neutral Moresnet - A Tiny Shared State
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
Once jointly administered by Prussia and Belgium, this zinc-rich micro-territory existed for over a century in a legal grey zone shaped by economic interests and diplomacy.
4. Birobidzhan - The Soviet Jewish Experiment
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
In the Russian Far East, a region was once created as a Jewish homeland within the USSR. Today, it remains a rare cultural and historical experiment still visible in architecture and language.
5. Steinstücken - Not Quite in West Berlin
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
During the Cold War, this small West Berlin exclave was physically isolated inside East Germany. Access was so restricted that residents once depended on allied helicopters, highlighting the absurd realities of divided Germany.
6. Madha & Nahwa - A Double Enclave Puzzle
Aired 19 September 2024 • 10 min
Between Oman and the United Arab Emirates lies a rare enclave-within-an-enclave structure, where borders interlock in one of the world’s most intricate territorial arrangements.
7. Principality of Arbézie - A Border Made for Stories
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
A hotel straddling the Franco-Swiss border became an unlikely diplomatic landmark, blending hospitality, wartime history and self-styled local monarchy in one surreal location.
8. French National Domain in the Holy Land - Under Protection
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
In Jerusalem, several religious sites are still tied to France through an extraterritorial legal status. The episode explores how historical agreements and diplomacy continue to shape access and control in one of the world’s most sensitive cities.
9. Vennbahn - A Railway That Drew Borders
Aired 19 September 2024 • 10 min
A former Prussian railway line turned Belgian territory carved narrow corridors through Germany, creating multiple enclaves and one of Europe’s strangest modern borders.
10. Martín García & Timoteo Domínguez - One Island, Two Nations
Aired 19 September 2024 • 11 min
At the confluence of Argentina and Uruguay, shifting river borders turned two connected islands into a symbolic shared space shaped by treaties and geography.