I have a strange interest in extremely small countries and colonial dependencies

Interesting stuff, eh?

Starter for ten: Where is the only place where the Netherlands borders France?

Did you know that the Cocos islands are tiny Australian dependenices and were until the late 1970s entirely owned and feudally run by the Clunies-Ross family, descendents of a Scottish seaman Captain John Clunies-Ross, who settled there in 1827?

Yeah I wasn't sure. I'm clearly a novice in these matters compared to you.

ehhh, where Surinam borders French Guyana? do they border each other? is Surinam part of the Netherlands?

But the Netherlands does have some extremely small dependencies, and therefore falls into my remit. Muse upon Aruba, for instance, a small island off the coast of Venezuela and an autonomous member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The inhabitants speak Papiemento, a dialect that mixes Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and English!

While you're thinking about that, perhaps you'd like to hear about Baarle-Hertog. It's a tiny Belgian enclave, completely surrounded by the Netherlands. Even within the village, there are houses that are in Belgian territory and others which are in Dutch territory. It's about five kilometres from the main border. I have actually been to Baarle-Hertog, it was quite a pleasant place to have a beer. Here's a web page with all the strange facts about Baarle-Hertog:

http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/baarle.htm

I seem to remember a group of three Caribbean islands that were granted independence from the U.K. which, after a brief and turbulent period of self-governance, asked to rejoin the U.K.

Another fun micro-country: the Hutt River Province, a principality that seceded from Australia in 1969, ruled over by Prince Leonard!

http://www.huttriver.net/

Well in the meantime, let me tell you about the independent state of Nauru. Only eight square miles of it, most of which is uninhabitable, due to the ravages of guano mining! It was colonised by five different countries! There are no taxes of any kind in Nauru! Frigate birds are trained to regurgitate the fish they catch for the Nauruans! The Nauruan government once invested 2 million pounds in a West End musical about the life of Leonardo da Vinci! It flopped!

Not so. Recently reissued and updated.

Incidently, the Euro banknotes have tiny pictures of the Netherland Antilles printed at the bottom.

Diego Garcia is a good story too. I haven't time to tell it, mind. The Dutch should be thankful to Surinam for producing second generation great footballers. Ruud Gullit, Rijkard etc.

How many former colonies have political parties committed to reversing independence and hooking up with the former colonial power? I know that there is a political party in Gabon committed to reuniting with France, but I'm not sure how much support they get.

Are you sure, Mikey? I got my information from a Telegraph review of the Fodle book and the reissued Winchester book, which didn't give the impression that it had been updated. To properly update it would surely require a return to all the places he visited in 1985?

Strange but true: apparently the missionary who first set down the Kiribati language had a faulty "s" on his typewriter, so he used "ti" instead, by analogy with the central sibilant of "nation". "Kiribas" is the local pronounciation of "Gilberts", since Kiribati used to be the northern half of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

Not so fun fact about Kiribati: it is due to be the first nation to completely disappear due to global warming.

Not so fun fact about Kiribati: it is due to be the first nation to completely disappear due to global warming.

I recently read Mark Lynas's 'High Tide: News from a Warming World'. There's a fascinating, sad chapter about Tavalu, a neighbouring Pacific island nation that is also disappearing.

http://www.simson.net/photos/2000/sealand/sealand1.jpg

I was having an argument with an Argentine guy in a pub in Romford last week about the Falkland Islands. I said the Argentines could have them back. I may have been exceeding my authority here.

I've got a passport stamp with "The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar". Some short lived coup thing.

*Whereas I don't think a massive great thing like Antarctica is.

This is the best thread in ages, btw.

What about the remotest island in the world, Tristan Da Cunha, pop. 300, and 2,000 miles from the nearest land? It was only discovered in 1812 and has been a British dependency since 1816. A volcano erupted there in 1961 and the entire population was evacuated to the UK. Most returned 2 years later. They speak English in a strange Georgian dialect. Fascinating stuff, eh?

Still no takers on the question of where the French and the Dutch share a border?

...but rife with cheap knockoff Chinese goods, so that'll just be eastern consumerism then. My dad was working up near the border monitoring a medicinal herbs development project and kept meeting smugglers coming over with packloads of vacuum flasks and other exciting bits and pieces.

The story is covered by Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux among many others and here is a handy link to more info.

http://www.andinia.com/a00005.html

What about the Aland Islands? Nominally Finnish, inhabitants speak Swedish, they held their own seperate referendum to join the EU.

Strange also that although Denmark is in the EU, the Faroe Islands, which are part of Denmark, are not in the EU. I wonder how this can be.

Good point about Gibraltar. Thje argument was also used by the international press when the Spanish invaded that small island off the Moroccan coast a couple of years back.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/easia_oceania_92.jpg

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/australia/oceania_ref02.jpg

Has anyone ever been to any of them and can explain what they are like?

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia03/pitcairn_sm03.gif

I think I read some millionaire bought Henderson Island and is going to live there with his family, Swiss Family Robinson style.

I read a good travel book recently by Tony Horwitz which has a chapter on his visit to the tiny republic of Niue, an island you can drive around in 20 mins.

apparently the Aland Islanders are ethnic Swedes, unlike Tove Jansson, who was a Swedish speaking ethnic Finn.

The Prime Minister of the Aland Islands explained this laboriously to a friend once.

I find this talk of ethnicity baffling, and worrying. You're all scandos.

I came across an interesting snippet the other day. Apparently Gibraltar is not our sole remaining European toehold. The UK retains full sovereignty over two areas of Cyprus, covering 254 sq kilometres: Akrotini and Dhekelia. This seems strange.

Anyway, Liechtenstein! Maybe not extremely small, but a bit interesting anyway. The Liechtenstein family lived somewhere else entirely, and only bought this land centuries ago because it entitled them to have a seat in the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire.

The rest of this dynasty's property was confiscated after WWII, though, which has been the source for continuing beef between Liechtenstein on one side and the Czech Rep and Slovakia on the other. The latter have been reluctant to recognize Liechtenstein as a sovereign state which was neutral during the war, because this would entail that the family is not German, which in turn would mean that the property was illegally confiscated! Or something.

http://www.hutt-river-province.com/new_page_3.htm

http://www.atlantium.org/

"1985 also witnessed the beginning of His Imperial Majesty's three-year period of attendance at university in Wagga Wagga..."

http://www.arta.com.au/maps/nsw.gif

they are sovereign base areas for the British army. I think the British made the Cypriots let them keep the bases after independence, probably as part of some part of bogus mutual defence treaty, which mysteriously did not lead to Britain actually helping Cyprus when it was invaded by a neighbouring country.

I started reading Cloud Atlas yesterday too, and that starts with a very interesting (fictional, I'm sure) remote-island story.

Any relation to Nick?

Not fictional, the Chatham Islands are off the coast of New Zealnd somewhere. I think I'm right in saying they're the closest inhabited location to the date line and therefore the first place on earth to see in the New Year.