What are the two closest countries that do not share a border?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 25 Jul, 2023
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Sealand to UK: 13 kilometers
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Spain to Morocco: 14.3 kilometers
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Saudi Arabia to Bahrain: 27 kilometers
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Bahrain to Qatar: 101 Kilometers
How about Laos and Myanmar, which are separated by the Mekong River?
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The U.S and Russia are 2.5 miles away from each other at it’s closest point.
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Since nobody has found a shorter distance, it seems that Namibia and Zimbabwe are the closest pair
- around 200 meters of Botswana territory lies between Namibia and Zimbabwe
The easternmost tip of Sughd Province, Tajikistan, east of the town of Isfara, has a panhandle squeezed between Uzbekistan to the north and Kyrgyzstan to the south. Using the Maps Labs Distance Measurement Tool on Google Maps, its skinniest part is only around 2.2 km wide.
The national borders in the whole Fergana Valley region are generally just ridiculous thanks to Stalin, but this was the thinnest three-country sandwich I could find.
…and I just realized I missed the qualification “that do not share a border”, since Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan do. Oh well, it’s still an interesting oddity of geography.
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Tajikistan and Pakistan are 16 km from each other, separated by the Wakhan Corridor which belongs to Afghanistan.
Bangladesh and Nepal come within about 25 km of each other, with India in between.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia come within about 30 km overland through Israel and Jordan (closer straight-line distance over water).
Mongolia and Kazakhstan are separated by about 35 km of rather mountainous terrain.
Germany and Italy are separated by about 45 km through Austria.
I’m trying to find countries with a tight corridor to sea, so that the countries on both sides are close to each other. Bosnia’s corridor is only a few km, but both sides of it are Croatia, so that doesn’t count.
Israel’s Red Sea corridor is about 10km wide I think, with neighbouring Egypt and Jordan being that close to each other. This is probably the closest of the ones I’ve looked at.
I think Iraq’s connection to the Gulf (bringing Iran and Kuwait close to each other) is slightly larger, but all these “measurements” were made by on zooming on Google Maps and squinting.
Slovenia’s corridor between Italy and Croatia is similar.
Armenia and Iran get within a few km of each other, with Turkey in between, here. But that is spoiled by the fact that they share an actual border on the other side of Azerbaijan’s exclave to the right.
I want to finish this by mentioning Baarle-Nassau-Hertog, which doesn’t qualify (it’s all either Netherlands or Belgium) but it’s fun.
There are also six Dutch exclaves located within the largest Belgian exclave, one within the second-largest, and an eighth within Zondereigen.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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