Islands & Beaches

One Island, Three Nations: Is It Possible?

In this week's Maphead column, Ken Jennings looks at the island of Borneo, which is technically divided between three different countries, as well as its small-but-divided brethern.
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It's easy to think of cases where two different nations share an island: Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Hispaniola, for example, or the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. But, as the popular trivia question has it, there's only one island on Earth divided between threenations. Or is there?

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Everyone wants a piece of Borneo.

Borneo is the largest island in Asia. At 287,000 miles, it would be a bigger country than vast Asian nations like Myanmar or Afghanistan—if it were a country. But Borneo has never, in its modern history, been a united country. Between the clashing sultanates, British and Dutch colonial wrangling, a claim by the Philippines, and a Japanese invasion, it's been a turbulent seven hundred years on Borneo. Even the Austro-Hungarian Empire claimed a colony there briefly in the 1870s. Since 1984, the island has been divided among three independent countries: the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak in the north, the Indonesia region of Kalimantan in the south, and the tiny sultanate of Brunei on the northern coast.

Most three-country islands are a thing of the past.

Britain is the most obvious example, since it was divided between the rival kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Wales until England conquered Wales in the 13th century. Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, was divided among three different Italian principalities until 1800. But nearby Sardinia may have the record: it was made up of fiveseparate kingdoms during the 10th and 11 centuries.

One rival to Borneo is just a pile of Scandinavian rocks.

Are there any other three-country islands today, besides Borneo? Sort of! One possibility is Cyprus, which, in addition to the Republic of Cyprus, contains a tiny British crown territory called Akrotiri and Dhekelia as well as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which controls a third of the country. The only catch: Turkey is the only world power that currently recognizes the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." Another possible three-nation island is Treriksröset, the cairn of stones in Lake Goldajärvi that marks the tripoint where Sweden, Norway, and Finland meet. But up close, you'll find that Treriksröset is just a manmade concrete cone about ten feet in diameter, connected to the Finnish shore by a boardwalk. Not much of an island.

Borneo's best competition doesn't even have a name.

This unnamed island sits in the Moselle River southeast of the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. As Strange Mapsblogger Frank Jacobs pointed out in The New York Timesin 2012, most of this island is French territory, but the northernmost tip—just 200 feet or so—is actually on the border between Germany and Luxembourg. And according to an 1815 treaty, Germany and Luxembourg share sovereignty of the Moselle River and everything in it. So most of this island is French, but a few trees are both German and Luxembourgish. It's not quite as big as Borneo, but it's almost as confusing.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.