"They haven't invaded each other for at least 60 years so I could say things are going well." European Politics

Germany: I don't like my borders. They're too weird. Austria and Poland: *nervous sweating*

As a German who lives in a small village next to the border to the Netherlands I feel so awesome that my city was in a youtube video for one second

I live in Germany, study in Basel (Switzerland) and get there by driving through France.

Fun fact about those 7 meters of Belgium separating parts of Germany: the world record long jump, set in 1991, was 8.95 m meters. So the best long jumpers in the world could jump from Germany to Germany, over Belgium, at this spot.

I once visited my sister in Konstanz (german side) and thought it would be fun to take the dog for a walk into switzerland. The swiss border guards let me through under the condition that i come back through the same checkpoint in less than an hour. I had a coffee and my dog a poo in switzerland and we went back. Problem was: the border guards didn't notice my dog when I went into switzerland and now thought i bought it there! It was a real hassle to get my dog back into my country. Schengen rocks.

The weirdest borders in the thumbnail are those long horizontal straight ones.

I am myself actually from Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein and if you really like confusion I recommend you reading up more on the German-Danish nationality/border situation, which is a real historical oddness. The short version being that Schleswig was historically a part of Denmark while Holstein belonged to Germany. Though when the duke of Holstein died without an heir, his next living male relative was the danish king who then proceeded to be the king of Denmark while also ruling over Holstein as a state within the Holy Roman Empire independently. This already caused tensions as the German populations of both Schleswig and Holstein desired to live in a single unified State. With the wave of revolution sweaping over Euope in 1848, Republicans saw their chance to have both Schleswig and Holstein join the German constitiutional state that was in formation then. Thus, Rendsburg, being at the time a danish border fortress to Germany, housing the second largest garrison within of all of Denmark after her capital city of Copenhagen, was taken over by German republican troops, oddly again without a single shot fired as the vast majority of danish soldiers in this region were actually ethnically german and simply ran over to the revolutionary forces leaving their danish officers no chance to intervene what so ever. In the end of the war that ensued between german republican/revolutionary and danish forces, the borders were widely unchanged though. This was'nt for too long, as in 1864, the German-Danish war came about, in which Denmark suffered a rough defeat to the armies of Prussia and Austria-Hungary fighting together. After that, the border between Denmark and Germany was moved some 100 kilometres north with Austria occupying the duchy of Holstein and the duchy of Schleswig now belonging to Prussia. This means that Holstein at that point of time was an austrian exclave, surrounded to quite an extend by Prussia. This though lasted only for roughly two years, as one of the first actions of the German (or Austro-Prussian) War of 1866 was prussian troops overrrunning the numerically very weak Austrian garrison of Holstein. Both duchys then remained prussian/imperial German until after WW1 a referendum in Schleswig moved the border to denmark a good bit back south, the region of Nordschleswig being danish territory eversince. As a sidenote, this also explaines that there is a very strong danish minority in pretty much the entire space between the German-Danish border and the Eider river, which formally marked the border between Schleswig and Holstein. This minority is in fact so strong that the Südschleswigscher Wählerverband (South Schleswig Voters Association) is to my knowledge the only minority party ever having held a seat within the German Bundestag. Do believe me, that was the very short version of this regions history. We actually have a saying that in all of history, only three people have understood Schleswig-Holsteins history; two of them being long dead and the third having gone mad about it. Cheers to anyone who read this far, hope it was a bit interesting/intriguing/funny to anyone. Have a nice one then.

i can tell you why germany has "weird" borders. Theyr not weird, they evolved in time by many wars and people who fought for their land. The "straight line" borders in America and Africa exist because someone invaded that county and said "ok well just split it up like that".

"Germany has the weirdest borders" Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan: *am i a joke to u*

Germay's borders are artificial. Whereas others are drawn in a straight line. Seems legit...

"My country has no land borders" As an Irishman I couldn't agree more

Most German borders are *along the rivers.* Nothing strange about that.

It's like watching "Fun with flags". You get information which you never wanted to know.

There's one more interesting aspect about the German-Luxembourg border: the river Our (German: Sauer) is a so-called "condominium" of both countries. So the border is not in the middle of the river at the deepest trench as it usually is with state lines. Instead, the entire river is a joint dominion of both countries.

"A German Exclave" I dont want that polish corridor incident again....

Also, Lake Constance is the English name for the lake. German speakers call it Bodensee.

In regards to the Danish-German border, it is actually quite interesting because it is one of the only borders in the world that was decided by the people living there voting on whom they wanted to belong to instead of it simply being dictated to them. North Schleswig voted overwhelmingly for Denmark, Middle Schleswig for Germany and South Schleswig was so pro-German that no one even bothered to ask them. In fact, during WWII, the only border change after WWI that Hitler didn't dispute was the Danish-German one.

21:12 my grandma was actually affected by that expelling of Germans and had to leave her home with nothing more then her clothes and one bag

I am fascinated how much and how fast you can talk :D Greetings from Germany

wow that was a totally weird and random video suggestion youtube made to me and I clicked it, wondering what in the world is so weird about our borders... 10 mins in and I already learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about my home country. Fascinating that you, living on an island, developed such an interest in that kind of stuff. Even if it may sound boring to most, you bring it over with a lof of verve and enthusiasm. Well done!

Another interesting thing is that the german word Magermilchjoghurt contains all vowels of the german language in alphabetical order

16:26 In the U.N. Buffer Zone between Cyprus and Northern Cyprus, at one point in Nicosia, there is a 1 metre gap.

India: "The connection to the North West is soo thin-" Netherlands: "To Limburg, it's even thinner-" Germany and Austria: *haltet unser Bier* Manche Grenzen sind echt komisch xD

Russia stepped in and saved poland from germany? Dude russia took the eastern part of poland so they gave poland the eastern part of germany as compensation. That basically moved poland to the west. If russia wanted to "save poland" they wouldn’t have taken a big part of it About the Oder-Neisse line in 1990: As you said, east germany had already recognized the Oder-Neisse line as the german-polish border (1950 in the treaty of Zgorzelec/Görlitz). But west germany had also recognized the Oder-Neisse line in 1970 in the treaty of Moscow. So no, russia didn’t saved poland since both germanys had no plans about regaining parts of poland. Also the 2+4-Treaty which set the borders in 1990 was a treaty between west germany, east germany, russia, USA, UK and France. So at least say that those 4 nations "saved" poland, not just russia.

"Germany has weird borders!" HRE: Hold my beer

I remember watching your minecraft stuff back in like 2013/2014. I'm not into that anymore and got into countries/flags/borders and found you again.

"Switzerland had been around for thousands of years" The Old Swiss Confederacy was created around the year 1300, and went through several iterations until becoming the modern Switzerland.

I live in Aachen and there is actually another weird fact about the Belgian border: Between Roetgen and Monschau (two villages near Aachen), there is the German state road B258 which goes through Belgian territory for three kilometers. (There is a Wikipedia entry explaining all the details)

I love how excited he gets about borders! I wish we could be buds yo, I get that excited as well

really enjoy seeing someone so wholesomely excited about something :)

21:45 poznan was always polish

I live in Germany and never knew about most of these. Thanks for sharing!

Germany has the piece of forest...BECAUSE WE F*CKING LOVE FORESTS

You think that's weird - go look at the border between The Netherlands and Belgium.

This is probably the only KZfaq video about Germany where the comment section hasn't been taken over by Germans

You should do a video about the former microstate of Moresnet. The tri-point between Germany, Netherlands and Belgium was actually a quin-point between the Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Moresnet. After Napolean's defeat at Waterloo, there was a zinc mine on this site that was so valuable for the Dutch and Germans to argue over, so it was made a neutral microstate of it's own between 1816 to 1920. Only 3.5 square kilometres and about 3,000 people. After WW1, with the mine being depleted, it was formally absorbed into Belgium. The last living citizen of Moresnet died in October 2016.

That tripoint is the highest point of the netherlands

Really enjoyed the video! You seem so exited and interested that i instantly get interested as well! I'm from Germany and learned a few new things today! So thank you for the research you did!

just my two cents: I liked this video, the border facts and your great enthusiasm how you xplain those things. Thank you!

Fun fact: The train station “Basel Badischer Bahnhof” lies on Swiss soil but is operated by the German Railway. If you travel from Germany to Germany via “Basel Badischer Bahnhof” you haven't left the German customs area.

You missed an enclave of Germany into Austria, but I think this is really good. Furthermore the Dutch-German border is generally ages old, except in the south of the Netherlands (since 1840 or something). One fun fact is that the in the Wadden Sea and the Dollard there is no agreement at all about how the border runs between NL and D. Solution is "let us agree to disagree".

I live in Germany and didn't know one of these facts. But I saw my homevillage :D

19:34 CZECHIAN ISN'T A DENOMYM. You're supposed to use Czech.

Actually, the Oder-Neisse border was accepted as far back as during the Brandt government as far as West Germany was concerned. But West Germany evidently had no actual border with Poland, so the point was kind of moot and only relevant in case of a future reunification. When that reunification happened, the recognition was formalized again as an official agreement between two neighboring nations.

Actually Germany accepted the Oder-Neiße-border in 1970 parallel to a politic of reapproachement with the Soviet block. In 1990 there was only a treaty which was finalising what was policy in the past 20 years anyways.

there is only one thing wrong with those borders: Preussen is cut off

I like how fascinated you are. I grew up going to Mexico regularly and it still fascinates me how once you cross the river, boom cell phone signal was gone (back in the 2000’s, now it’s free across the continent)

Interesting content, but for the love of god... breath once in a while =)

I'm german, but I never "explored" our border that closely. That was unexpectedly interesting wow

Thanks for the interesting video. Nice to see something intelligent and relaxing on YT.

Ibxtoycat is one of the best youtubers because he does some of my two favourite subjects on his two channels; it’s exactly what I need

There is a friendship bridge between Zgorzelec, Poland and Gorlitz, Germany.

All those weird in and out on the borders are actually farmers land of each countries. Is bit hard to be farmer and have part of your farm to be other side of the border. Poland border with Germany drawn by Stalin because he grabbed 1/3 of eastern Poland to Soviet Union. At Yauta in 1944 Roosevelt and Churchill accepted this even Pols protested. And as Poland was occupied by Soviet Union to 1991 did not have anything to say in that mater. Pols from east where relocated by force to new Reclaimed land. Thay rafuse to build new house on new land as they always hope to came back to the old homes. As the hope was on the Germans side too . As they were relocated by force too. Lives of milions afected by decision of 3 men. Sad

I never was a fan of Geography in school but your enthusiastic makes it enjoyable ^^

Fun fact: the Basel airport is swiss, and if u go outside the airport u enter france, so it’s a exclave that is just a airport.

settings -> speed -> 0.75 -> your welcome :)

Fun quote about Schleswig-Holstein. The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business-the Prince Consort, who is dead-a German professor, who has gone mad-and I, who have forgotten all about it."

Interesting Video! I knew about a lot of these border features already, but to my surprise a few new things came up. Thanks :) Btw Kaliningrad used to be Königsberg. One thing you forgot: Usedom is an Island that is shared by Germany and Poland.

There's a German town called Ostritz on the Polish border that ended up with its railway station on the Polish side of the border after 1945; but the station was only served by East German trains with border guards escorting people to/from the trains. Now rather popular with the far right. There is also Bayerische Eisenstein, where the railway station is literally split between Germany and Czechia. The Iron Curtain ran through the station.

Great video! Minor correction: the "weird language" that the natives, especially old people still speak in the french area that once belonged to Germany (Elsass) isn´t some crossover language that no one understands but simply High German spoken in a typical southern german dialect (Elsässisch).

poland lost a lot of territory to the Soviet Union, and then they got German territory instead...

Your channel is awesome! Wish I could meet people who had such passion for geography as you. Subbed:D

Great video. It was fun and interesting to listen. :D

IDEA: Do a video about islands with borders.

I really liked your video. I'm just wondering why you did not mention the village of Leidingen at the German-French border. A street in this village is either called Rue de la Frontiere or Grenzstraße (border street). The border is the middle of the street; French houses on the left, German houses on the right site of the street.

This because of WW2. Rest in peace Prussia. 💚😖

If you want to look at confusing borders - Baarle-Hertog/Nassau is for you!

I had low expectations for this video, but you made this extremely interesting. Thank you for this. (always nice to hear geography nerds talk about maps. One of my friends is the same)

Just a minor correction: The dialect of Alsace is a german dialect with french influences, not the other way around.

This Feeling when you grew up near those weird German-Swiss borders... XD

Actually Poland looks almost the same as it used to look at the beginning (from 966 till 1138), so it is not like that Poland never owned this lands. I agree Prussia ruled this lands for most of time but in fact Danzing was founded by Kingdom of Poland and was in Polish borders for around 500 years

Loved it! Great video and you've really gone into detail, well done. Love history and geography and geopolitics and all, Germany's history -if- is one of, if not _the_ most intriguing in the world when it comes to how it became what it is today geographically.

You have so much passion and talk so quick,that i wasnt bored...I like this guy ! :D Damn i like that passion ! It's like me with languages c: !

almost every land has borders like germany but america... straight lines

One quick addition: None of our borders are seriously discussed anymore, neither the Danish-German border nor the Oder-Neisse line. There are some very tiny minorities of 'Ewiggestrige' (roughly translatable as 'people living in the past') who might have a different feeling about the current borders but most Germans are content with the current situation and we're happy to live peacfully with our neighbors for such a long time now.

Very interessting. I didnt know our borders are that "cool" xD

There are some other cool facts especially within Basel: there is a German train station that is an enclave in Switzerland plus a completely different French train station which is inside the Swiss train station. If you want to go from the Hochrhein area to stuff like Freiburg via train, you need to pass through Switzerland, which is no problem. There is also the village of Laufenburg which has a Swiss part and a German part. On some occasions they work together quite heavily. There is also the hillarious story that when they build a bridge they used different sea levels (both planed their part), so when they hit the middle they realized they were a few meters off each other.

On the border between Czechia and Germany lies the city Železná Ruda (Markt Eisenstein), there is railway station right on the state border. During Iron Curtain times, it was abandoned on the Czech side, but in normal use on the German side. There was even a wall right through the station building, right on the border. Nowadays, it's in normal use in both countries.

What you forgot to mention: Büsingen am Hochrhein did not accept Daylight Savings Time when it was introduced in Germany and therefore had it's own timezone. They used the Swiss Time and after Switzerland introduced DST a year later, they became synchronised again. And to this day, modern Operating Systems sometimes still list "Büsingen am Hochrhein" as it's own Timezone at UTC+1

Even as a German I did not know many of those things. I also did not know that the Bodensee (and the two other lakes connected to it) are called Lake Constance in English. For the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament there is actually the law that the danish minority party will always have at least one seat in it if they get votes (I hope I recall this right. I myself am from Lower-Saxony). They do not have to pass the 5% border we usually enforce upon partys in elections. I don't know if Germany really isn't happy with the Oder-Neisse-Border. I never thought about it and I never heard it discussed anywhere. But on the other hand, in my semester abroad in the UK I just took a Post-War Germany module and some outside views surprised me but also gave me a different perspective. Btw I feel so sorry for all the other students of that module who have to learn all these complicated German names and terminology additionally to the facts for the exam in a month, while I can just lean back, learn the facts and touch up what I forgot from school time until now and then just gonna write the shit down. Well, I have to do it in English still but since my lecturer is German I can probably get away with smuggeling a little bit more German in it if I don't know the English terminology than my colleagues without any knowledge of German can. But they have my utter most respect for even taking a seminar on German history. I took one on fashist Italy in my first semester and decided to never take a seminar again that involves terminology that is neither German nor English because it is so much to study.

So Basel has an International, International Airport? haha :)

So fascinating your geographic knowledge. Thx. I'm a fan!

You forgot one crazy situation. It is Dinxperlo: a bordervillage that is half in NL and half in Germany. A road is the border. There is a nursing home that has on both sides of the road buildings, and it is connected with a walkway/bridge. So you can walk inside a nursing home from Netherlands to Germany.

“They turned into French people, but weirdly”

Those exclaves / inclaves are really interesting, didn't know that Germany's borders were so complicated. Also, had to check if the playback speed was set to higher than normal, but it turned out that you talk so fast :D

An European bison called żubr which was living freely in Poland accidentally crossed [swim the Odra river] to Germany. It was instantly killed.

If you like strange borders, have a look at Baarle (Belgium/Netherlands). You will love it; it's epic! (Thanks for the interesting video; was really fun and educating to watch for me as a german)

Little fun fact from someone who grew up near the vennbahn border area: There is now a bike/hiking path along its way that you can take, also when travelling from roetgen to konzen there is this little bit of belgium near the "hohes venn" (where the train got its name from) that sticks out over the main road where my phone always told me I was now using it in belgium, always interrupted any calls, because it was now using a belgian network.

I'm German and as a little kid I was allways irritated bey straight borders

20:13 see the Island all the way north? Yep 1 Island 2 towns, I live on the Polish part and how such a small Island is shared by 2 nations is pretty ridicilious and there are old, german tourists everywhere you go, all the time

Amazing video with plenty of information. You should thoughhave gone into the little islands north of Germany, because their ownership is quite bizarre aswell

The reason why the German-Polish border or Oder-Neise-Grenze is controversial because it was given to poland so that the USSR could take the eastern part of Poland. I for one think that the border is wrong but that is a hot topic.

Talk about countries surrounding countries

Keep it up as always!

At first I thought "Oh nice something to fall asleep to. How interesting could it be?" I WAS SO WRONG! I learned so much and loved how it didn't feel like 25 min because basically everything you said was interesting ☺️ I'm German and nerver thought so much about our borders 😅 Thank you 🙏

Well-strucutred video, also really like that you didn't butcher up the villages/towns you mentioned and actually dared to pronounce them! (You did your research well)

if you could zoom around less, it'd be way more comfortable to watch all those borders and explore a few of those areas on your map while you're talking. Some people here also say that you're talking to fast, but, as someone else also mentioned, I like that you're getting straight to the topic without doing to much nonsense talk. Talking might be too fast for some non-native english speakers (I'm german - so no native-speaker) but IMO your pronounciation is pretty clear and well understandable.

8:24 The Moselle River is actually shared between Germany and Luxembourg. You can stand on a bridge (or be in a boat or swim ...) and be in both countries at the same time.

I live in the lesser known Frankfurt :D Cool video, didn't know about some of the weird border hick ups of Germany