European Exclaves

Podcast Transcript

We have all looked at a map and seen all of the different countries represented by different colors. A country has some sort of border, and everything inside that border is what makes up the country.

However, there are some exceptions. There are exclaves, which are bits of a country that are separated from the main landmass, and enclaves, which are parts of a country totally surrounded by another country.

Why in the world would such odd arrangements ever exist? The reasons are often quite odd.

Learn more about the exclaves of Europe and the odd circumstances that created them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Often in this podcast, I will cover great historical events or important places.

This is not such an episode. The places I’m going to be covering in this episode are rather small and, in the big scheme of things, rather inconsequential.

However, they are very interesting.

I’m going to be covering the backstories of three different exclaves of three different countries. I’ve previously covered the topic of exclaves and enclaves more broadly in a previous episode, but in this episode, I want to focus on their origins.

All three of them are small, none of them has a population of more than about 1,700 people, and while totally surrounded by another country, they are not far from their country’s mainland.

These three are not the only exclaves in Europe. There are others, which are notable in their own way. I’m going to be covering these three simply because they have interesting stories, and because I’ve been to all three of them.

I’ll start with the community of Büsingen am Hochrhein. It is a German community that is completely surrounded by Switzerland and is part of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The town has a population of about 1,500 people and has an area of 7.62 km² or 2.94 mi². It is separated from Germany by a strip of land that is 680 meters or 2,230 feet wide at its narrowest point.

The big question, and the question for every one of the exclaves I’ll be covering, is how did this come to be? Why isn’t it part of Switzerland, or why didn’t Germany take or negotiate a small parcel of land to connect it to the rest of the country?

The village of Büsingen was originally part of the landholdings of the Bishopric of Constance in the Middle Ages. By the 17th century, it had passed into the hands of the Austrian Habsburgs, who controlled much of the region, during the Peace of Westphalia.

Despite its Habsburg ties, Büsingen was geographically cut off from other Austrian or German-ruled lands and sat in the middle of territory dominated by Swiss cantons.

The town’s defining event came in 1693. The village lord, Johann Konrad von Stadion, a Catholic, was kidnapped by his Protestant relatives and taken to the neighboring Swiss city of Schaffhausen.

After a long imprisonment and negotiations, he was released, but this incident hardened the division: the Catholic Habsburg authorities kept the village, while the Protestant Swiss surrounding it had little interest in incorporating it.

From that moment, Büsingen’s odd isolation became entrenched.

In 1805, under the Treaty of Pressburg, the Habsburgs ceded much of their German territory to other German states. Büsingen was transferred to Württemberg, and in 1810 it passed to the Grand Duchy of Baden.

Baden’s territories later became part of the German Empire in 1871. Despite being surrounded entirely by Switzerland, the village was never formally transferred because the Swiss and Badenese authorities could not agree on a territorial exchange.

In the 20th century, especially after World War I and again after World War II, there were discussions of annexing Büsingen to Switzerland to rationalize the border. The people of Büsingen themselves held a referendum in 1918 in which 96% voted to join Switzerland. However, Germany demanded too much compensation for the land, and Switzerland refused.

As a result, the enclave status remained.

Because the village is so entwined with Switzerland geographically, practical compromises have been made. Büsingen is politically German, but economically and socially integrated with Switzerland.

It uses the Swiss franc as its main currency, although the euro is also legal, and it is part of the Swiss customs and postal system. Telephone lines, water, and infrastructure are linked with Switzerland rather than Germany. However, legally and administratively, it remains under German sovereignty.

In short, Büsingen am Hochrhein is an exclave because of an accident of history: a 17th-century political dispute, the piecemeal redistribution of Habsburg lands in the 19th century, and failed attempts to swap the territory in the 20th century.

Neither Switzerland nor Germany has wanted to reopen the matter, since local arrangements now work smoothly. As a result, the village remains a curiosity: a German island inside Switzerland.

The next exclave I want to cover is the Spanish community of Llívia.

Llívia is part of Catalonia and is completely surrounded by France. It has a population of about 1,200 people and has an area of 12.9 km² or 5.0 mi². It is separated from the rest of Sapin by only 1.6 kilometers or 1 mile.

Llívia was once an important settlement in the Cerdanya region of the Pyrenees. In fact, during the Visigothic era, it served as the capital of Cerdanya, which gave it a higher legal status than the surrounding villages.

An important point…

By the Middle Ages, Llívia was firmly within the Crown of Aragon, later part of Spain.

In the 17th century, Spain and France fought each other in the Franco-Spanish War, which was a part of the Thirty Years’ War. The war between Spain and France ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, in which Spain ceded several territories north of the Pyrenees to France, including much of the region of Roussillon and northern Cerdanya.

As an aside, one of the oddities of the Treaty of the Pyrenees was the control of an island called Phesant Island in a river near the Atlantic side of the border. The two countries couldn’t agree on who would get control of the island, so they came to a novel solution. Rather than splitting the island in two, they actually swap sovereignty over the island every six months.

This arrangement still exists today.

Under the Treaty of the Pyrenees, Spain was forced to cede the northern part of Catalonia to France. The treaty stipulated that Spain would give up “the villages” of Cerdanya to France.

The operative word being villages.

Llívia had a special status that saved it from this transfer. Unlike the surrounding settlements, Llívia was not classified as a mere “village” or vila in Catalan, but as a “town” or ciutat.

It held the legal status of a city because it had been the historic capital of Cerdanya and the seat of regional government. Since the treaty specifically mentioned only “villages,” Llívia was technically excluded from the territorial transfer.

We don’t know the real reason behind what happened, but this wasn’t necessarily an oversight. It may have been a deliberate diplomatic maneuver by Spanish negotiators who were aware of Llívia’s special status.

The distinction between a “village” and a “town” or “city” carried real legal weight in medieval and early modern Europe, often determining administrative privileges, taxation rights, and political representation.

As a result, when France took control of the surrounding territory in northern Cerdanya, Llívia remained Spanish.

For centuries, Llívia was relatively isolated, and relations between France and Spain over access were sometimes tense. In the Treaty of Bayonne in 1866, the two countries agreed to build a special “neutral road” connecting Llívia to Spain.

France cannot place customs checkpoints on this road, ensuring that the town maintains open access to the rest of Spain.

Unlike Busingen, it isn’t necessary for Llívia to use as many French institutions because both countries are in the European Union.

The final exclave I want to cover is Campione d’Italia. An Italian community surrounded by Switzerland.

Campione d’Italia has the largest of the three populations I’m covering, with a population of a bit under 1,800 people. It is located on the banks of Lake Lugano and has an area of 2.68 km² or 1.03 mi².

At its closest point, it is only one kilometre or 0.6 miles away from the rest of Italy.

Campione’s unique status began in the 8th century with a crucial religious donation. In 777, a Lombard nobleman named Toto d’Campione gave the area around Campione to the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan.

The word “Campione” means “champion” in Italian.

This might seem like a simple religious gift, but it established something legally significant: Campione became ecclesiastical territory under Milanese control, even though it was geographically separated from Milan by mountains and other territories.

This religious connection wasn’t just symbolic. Medieval monasteries were powerful economic and political entities. The monastery of Sant’Ambrogio was particularly influential because it was connected to Milan, which was becoming one of northern Italy’s most important commercial centers. So when Campione became a monastic territory, it gained access to Milanese trade networks, laws, and protection.

As centuries passed, the Swiss Confederation gradually expanded around Lake Lugano. The Swiss gained control of surrounding territories through a combination of military conquest, political alliances, and strategic marriages between ruling families. However, they never conquered or claimed Campione itself.

Why didn’t Switzerland claim it?

Several factors worked together. First, Campione was small and not strategically vital enough to justify the diplomatic complications of seizing territory belonging to powerful Milanese interests. Second, the town sat on a peninsula jutting into the lake, making it somewhat isolated and defensible. Third, and perhaps most importantly, there were often larger political considerations at play. Swiss cantons sometimes had alliances or trade relationships with Milan that made respecting Campione’s special status diplomatically wise.

After Napoleon’s fall, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 restored Lombardy, including Campione, to Austrian rule. Switzerland hoped to annex the little community for territorial coherence, but Austria rejected this, insisting Campione stay with Lombardy.

When Italy unified in the 1860s, the new Italian state inherited all the territories that had historically been part of various Italian kingdoms, duchies, and other political entities. This included Campione because of its ancient connection to Milan and the Lombard region.

Meanwhile, at the same time, Switzerland was consolidating into its modern federal form. The Swiss could have claimed Campione based on geographic logic, as it’s completely surrounded by Swiss territory. But by this point, centuries of precedent had established Campione’s Italian character.

Mussolini added “d’Italia” to the name Campione in 1933 to emphasize its Italian identity. Yet in practice, because it was surrounded by Switzerland, Campione relied heavily on Swiss services: Swiss francs became the daily currency, Swiss telephone networks and postal systems were used, and even the casino, founded in 1917 to generate income, catered largely to Swiss clients.

When European borders were being redrawn after World War II, there were opportunities to “rationalize” these kinds of enclaves. However, both the Italian and Swiss governments, along with Campione’s residents, preferred to maintain the historical arrangement. The town’s special status was formally confirmed in various modern treaties.

I’ve taken the time to visit all three of these exclaves when I happened to be in the region. In all three cases, I had to go out of my way to visit because there was no real reason to visit other than saying you were there.

In every case, other than a sign, you’d be hard pressed to tell when exactly you entered because there isn’t really that much difference between the exclaves and their surroundings.

The important takeaway from these three places isn’t that they are important or strategic. They really aren’t.

It is that seemingly random decisions made centuries ago still affect the borders and geopolitical landscape of Europe today.