Exclave - Definition and Overview

D is B's exclave, but is not an enclave.

C is B's exclave, and A's enclave.

An exclave is a territory that belongs to a political entity but is not connected to it by land (islands are not counted) and is surrounded by other political entities. A good example is the region around the Russian city Kaliningrad. It belongs to the Russian Federation, but is separated from the rest of that country by territory belonging to Lithuania and Poland.

Although both meanings are close, an exclave may not necessarily be an enclave. Kaliningrad is surrounded not by one state only, but by two: Lithuania and Poland and it also borders the Baltic Sea. On the other hand, the Spanish exclave of Llívia is an enclave in France.

Other examples

• Baarle-Hertog, a Belgian exclave within the Dutch province of North Brabant.
• The cities of Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish exclaves on the north African Moroccan coast.
• Cabinda, an Angolan exclave and province between Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) and the Republic of Congo.
• The Dubrovnik region of Croatia.
• East Prussia, a German exclave during the Weimar Republic: it was separated from Germany after World War I, when Poland regained access to the sea. East Prussia later became part of Poland and Russia (see Kaliningrad above).
• Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan.
• Alaska, an exclave of the United States of America. (Hawaii doesn't count because it is made up of islands.)
• Point Roberts, Washington is another American exclave attached to a Canadian peninsula of British Columbia.
• In Massachusetts, Norfolk County is not fully contiguous; the towns of Brookline and Cohasset are part of Norfolk County but are surrounded on all sides by other counties.
• The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is attached by land to Wisconsin. It can be reached from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan by the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge.
• The Eastern Shore of Virginia, comprised of Accomack County and Northampton County, is located at the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula. It can be reached by the Virginia mainland via the 23 mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
• more examples at the entry for enclave

Examples of exclaves in subnational units include the traditional counties of Flintshire, Wales and Cromartyshire, Scotland, in the United Kingdom.

External links

• Enclaves of the world (http://vwww.abo.fi/users/rpalmber/enclaves.htm)
• Jan S. Krogh's Geosite (http://geosite.jankrogh.com/exclaves.htm)
• exclave.info (http://exclave.info/territory_list.html)