in previous episodes in this series.

Like panhandles that stretch out for

hundreds of kilometers away from

their parent country.

Or islands that change what country

they belong to every 6 months.

But there are still countless other strange borders that exist in the world.

And in this episode,

we're going to talk about a few of those.

To begin with something a little ridiculous,

let's head over to Turkey,

And by that, I mean this rectangle

located inside of Syria

that's 26 kilometers south of the Turkish border.

You see, this rectangle

that is official Turkish territory surrounded by Syria,

is the tomb of a man named

Suleyman Shah,

who is the grandfather of a guy named Osman I,

who is the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

He was buried in Syria

and for various geopolitical reasons,

his tomb has remained as sovereign Turkish territory.

Despite it, well.. being located inside of Syria.

This has gotten particularly awkward lately,

with the Syrian Civil War raging all around the tomb site.

And in 2015, the Turkish government

actually launched a military operation into Syria

to recover the remains of the long dead Suleyman Shah

and rescue the few dozen Turkish soldiers

that were defending the site.

The Turks then moved the burial site

just 180 meters south of the Turkish border

so they could keep a better eye on it.

But the Turkish government insists

that this move is only temporary

and that the original burial site is still

fully sovereign Turkish territory.

Next, we're going to shift over just a little bit

to this weird-looking blob

which is part of the United Arab Emirates.

It's home to a small village of about 40 buildings.

The village however is completely surrounded

by territory that belongs to Oman.

And this Omani territory is home to about 3,000 people.

But even stranger,

this Omani territory is further

completely surrounded

by the rest of the United Arab Emirates.

Looking a bit further to the north,

and we can also see another exclave of Oman

called the Musandam Peninsula.

This strange situation means that

Emirati citizens living in this territory

called Nahwa

have to cross through 2 different border checkpoints

just to enter their own country.

Once when they leave the UAE into Oman and then

once again when they leave Oman back into the UAE

and vice versa.

On the flip side,

it's possible for somebody in mainland Oman

who travels to the other side of Oman

at the Musadan Peninsula

to go from being in Oman

to being in the UAE,

to being back in Oman,

to being back in the UAE,

to being back in Oman again,

to then be back in the UAE once again

and then finally arrive back inside Oman.

Switching back and forth between the countries

a total of 6 times.

But even more of complicated of a situation than this

is surprisingly Cyprus,

which if you ever take a glance at their flag,

you would think everything looks clean and orderly.

But, that's far FAR from the case.

There are actually 4 territorial entities on the island.

The country that almost everybody recognizes

that this not-so-accurate flag belongs to

called The Republic of Cyprus.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north

that is recognized by only one other country,

Turkey.

Two separate fully sovereign British military bases

here and here.

And then finally a United Nations buffer zone

that stretches across most of the island

that is occupied by the UN peacekeeping forces.

This strange situation has a very complicated history

but the very short version of it

is that Cyprus became independent in 1960,

but the British were allowed on to some of the

territory that became their current military bases.

Cyprus almost became annexed by Greece

but Turkey invaded to stop that from happening.

Captured a bunch of territory and then declared

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

as an independent country.

And then the UN built a wall across the entire island

to separate the 2 sides,

and to guarantee an awkward peace.

And awkward it continues to be

as the Turkish Republic has a strange exclave over here

that is completely walled off from the rest of the island.

The eastern British military base

has 3 enclaves of the Republic of Cyrus inside of it.

Which means that Cypriot citizens inside of them,

are totally surrounded by British territory

and have to cross through several kilometers

of an active foreign military base

just to visit the rest of their own country.

Finally, this large chunk of the Republic of Cyprus

is totally cut off from the rest of the country

since it's bordered by the UN buffer zone in the north

and the UK military base to the west

which makes just taking a boat

possibly the easiest way of getting to the other part of the country.

Finally for this video, we move to perhaps,

the most complicated series of borders in the entire world.

This mess in central Asia

between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Upon taking a closer look,

we can see that there are 4 Uzbek enclaves located

entirely inside of Kyrgyzstan,

one Kyrgyz enclave inside of Uzbekistan,

2 Tajik enclaves located inside of Kyrgyzstan,

and one more Tajik enclave located inside of Uzbekistan.

The reason that these exist in 2 words is

Joseph Stalin.

And two of the enclaves are particularly awkward.

The Kyrgyz enclave inside of Uzbekistan

is home to over 1,000 people,

but has no post office,

no government buildings,

no banks,

and the only employment opportunities are at a small general store.

The enclave is totally surrounded by the Uzbek military

and even though many Kyrgyz citizens living inside of it

have petitioned the Kyrgyzstan government to return to the mainland,

the government has rejected allowing anybody inside to return

out of fear of losing the incredibly valuable enclave

to Uzbekistan.

But perhaps the strangest

and most insane border in the entire world

that makes the least amount of sense

is this territory called Sokh.

Which is a fully sovereign territory of Uzbekistan

that is completely surrounded on all sides by Kyrgyzstan,

all the while

99% of the population inside of it are ethnic Tajiks.

The world can be quite a mess in some places.

So, thank you very much for watching this video.

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