in our modern world
In our modern world, borders still change. I find this fascinating. Particularly this list of territorial disputes. I mean, there’s even a dispute between Georgia and Tennessee.
One of the most ridiculous things is the territorial claims of the Republic of China (Taiwan, in common terms), illustrated well in this wikipedia graphic:
In many ways the real crazies seem to hang out on this list of active autonomist and secessionist movements.
February 14th, 2008 at 5:51 am
The fact that many borders are defined by the path of a river is problematic, because rivers change course. A good example of this is the Missouri River, which forms much of the boundary between Nebraska and Iowa. I was first exposed to this when I flew into Omaha with my wife to visit family on her father’s side. We flew into the Omaha airport and despite driving west, entered Iowa soon after leaving the airport. To add to my confusion, we left Iowa again in less than 2 minutes. Take a look at the border at this link so see why: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=41.285869,-95.912619&spn=0.046372,0.080338&z=14
The settlement known as Carter Lake is part of Iowa.
Also, if you follow the river north, you’ll find that there are a number of other places where the border doesn’t match the current path of the river.
In any case, the dispute between Nebraska and Iowa over Carter Lake began in 1877 after a large flood in the Missouri river cut off the so-called Saratoga bend and placed what had been part of Iowa west of the Missouri River. This produced an oxbow lake, known as Carter Lake, which became a popular recreation area. The dispute over the area was finally resolved in 1892 by the Supreme Court. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Lake%2C_Iowa for more info)