On a map, I noticed that Azerbaijan is split into two separate bits of territory. That is, a part that's accessable by land from the rest of the country (contrast an "island"), but only by leaving the country and traversing foreign land.

Is there a word for such a "separated" part of a country? Are there other situations on the globe like this one?

Pakistan springs to mind immediately

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Pakistan springs to mind immediately

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Well, perhaps it did...

What used to be East Pakistan is now the separate state of Bangladesh.

That's all right, you should see what I think are the names of the current states in Africa!

Er...

how about the USA ?

Alaska ?

I don't know the word for it though.

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life ?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off ?
Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

...and the Hawaiian Islands

Richard English

Funny you should mention the Hawaiian Islands, Richard, while I sit here in the middle of the Pacific trying to think of USA examples.

By the way, the name of the Pacific Ocean in Mandarin is "Tai Ping Yang," Great Peaceful Sea. My Chinese friend's little boy asked his father, "What's in the middle of Tai Ping Yang?"

"Hawaii?"

"No. Ping!"

Might we use the term, "discontiguous?" I suppose Ireland also qualifies, or so some would claim.

The world is my oyster, but I'm allergic to shellfish.

Hawaii doesn't qualify, because it can't be reached over land. If you count it, you'd have to count every island in the world, other than those few islands that constitute an entire country (Australia, Ceylon) or the entirety of two countries (Hispaniola = Haiti + Santo Domingo).

But how could I have missed Alaska!

West Berlin and Danzig in recent German History also spring to mind. The word enclave is used for something like this situation.

I don't really see how Ireland counts.

Quote "...you count it, you'd have to count every island in the world, ..."

Only if they were part of the same country.

Richard English

The west part of the US-Canada border is a long straight-line border that follows a parallel of lattitude. But just above at the very west end of that border, a small peninsula of land dips down from the north. The tip of that penisula is below the parallel, and is US territory, but the base of the penisula (the only land-route to the tip) is above the parallel and is Canadian.

This map shows the location at the red star, and one can zoom in or out to see detail and over-view location

Yes, it seems that Graham could be right about "enclave." Yet, one definition I found of "enclave" is: "an enclosed territory that is culturally distinct from the foreign territory that surrounds it. If that is an accurate definition, how do some of these, like Alaska, work?

I am wondering if Asa may have the correct word: "discontiguous"

Thanks for the enlightenment regarding the Tsawwassen Indians and Point Roberts, Wahsington, Shufitz. Both have a certain "double-dactyliousness" about them, and I never heard of either before.

Kalleh, I agree. I, too, second Asa's nomination of discontiguous for the word we're seeking.

Once Graham gave us the word "enclave," I checked to see how that word is used.

Graham's right: the split-off piece of Azerbaijan is routinely referred to as an enclave. You get over 17,000 google hits for Azerbaijan enclave.

Enclave is also used in another way. It can refer to a country that only has one piece but that is entirely surrounded by a single other country. That is, not merely a landlocked countly surrounded by two or more neighbors (Andorra), but a territory surrounded by a single neighbor. The Vatican City would be an example: it is completely surrounded by Rome, and it often called called an "enclave" (7650 google hits for Azerbaijan enclave.)

Interestingly, though, many the dictionaries' definitions insist in each case that the "surrounding must be done by a single country, not by two or more. Such a definition would not include what is routinely called the Azerbaijan enclave (which is surrounded by two other countries); the definition thus doesn't correctly state the actual usage of the word enclave.¹

Of course, in neither case a detached piece as Alaska would net be an enclave because, havixng ample coastline, it is not entirely surrounded by foreign land. It appears that the word for this is exclave, though I'm not entirely sure. Wikipedia is quite explicit that land with a coastline is not disqualified from being an exclave, though it is disqualified (in Wikipedia's view) from being an enclave.

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¹AHD, Cambridge and Wikipedia all claim an enclave must be surrounded by a foreign territory or by another country; websters-online accurately avoids limiting it to a single surrounder. Cambridge makes the further error of insisting that an enclave must be a "part" of a larger country, not the whole of a country; on that view the Vatican would not be an "enclave".

[This message was edited by wordnerd on Sun Jan 11th, 2004 at 20:06.]

The area around Kaliningrad (ex Koenigsberg) is still part of Russia. In the past, it used to be East Prussia. In fact there were a lot of countries in the old German Empire that would qualify. Enclave seems a perfectly good word. The definition in the A-H is "a country or part of a country lying wholly within the boundaries of another." Though with Wordnerd, I would emend this to read "one or more countries."

I like to look at them etymologically. An enclave is within a country, e.g. Lesotho is an enclave in South Africa. An exclave is outside a country, e.g. Naxcivan is an exclave of Azerbaijan. It seems a useful distinction we could adopt. That said, enclave is the usual term for both.

Wikipedia should never be trusted on language. They're way over-pedantic but no-one really knows the subject there, which is a bad combination.

Welcome to our board, aput! Another Londonite, too! (Is "Londonite" right? Or is it "Londoner?" We must have discussed this here before. ) I love this board because we have such a nice mix of people from the U.S. and the U.K. (though I would like a few more from Canada and Australia!) It is so great to see two new people posting one after the other!

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Is "Londonite" right? Or is it "Londoner?

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Maybe it's Because I'm a Londoner

Londoner, Berliner, New Yorker, ...

Glaswegian, Liverpudlian, Mancunian, Roman, Genevan, Venetian, Melburnian, ...

Genoese, Sienese, ...

Muscovite, Sydneyite, <s>Parisite</s>, ...

Amsterdam? Madrid? Chicago? St Petersburg>

Amsterdam? Madrid? Chicago? St Petersburg?

Amsterdammer, Madrileño, Madrileña, Chicagoan, (in Russian) Peterburzhets m., Peterburzhka f., maybe Peterbourgeois ...

Hmmm, Jheem, I see you're from California. Asa, one of our posters from Oregon (an Oregonian!) has dealt with Californians who come to Oregon in their SUVs and try to drive, unsuccessfully, on their icy roads. Shall we say that he has a rather unique term for Californians who do that....and leave it at that?

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Tue Jan 20th, 2004 at 8:23.]

I mentioned elsewhere that a person from Connecticut may be referred to as a "Nutmegger" but no one took the bait and asked why so allow me to explain here.

In bygone days, long before the arrival of the ubiquitous Wal-Mart, many people did the majority of their shopping from "Yankee peddlers" who went from town to town with general merchandise. One item not readily available was nutmeg which, even when it was available, came whole and not in the powdered form we enjoy today. Some unscrupulous souls would carve fake nutmegs out of various soft woods, sell them to unsuspecting customers, and then hightail it out of town.

The was, apparently, a particularly Connecticut-ish practice since my home state was officially known as "The Nutmeg State" for years even to the point of this name being on our license plates. What a strange thing to identify yourself with! It was only some 20 years ago when we officially changed our nickname to "The Constitution State" though I could name at least three other states who arguably might have a better claim to that nickname.

So what is a person from Connecticut called? I would suggest a better nickname would be "The Suburb State" which would make all of us "Suburbanites." Take the (basically rectangular) state, divide it into thirds from north to south, and almost all of the western third is a suburb of New York City, almost all of the central third is a suburb of the capitol Hartford, and almost all of the eastern third is a suburb of Boston. From 8 am to 4 pm weekdays, it's possible to travel from one end of the state to the other and, assuming you avoid Hartford, almost never encounter another human being. (an exaggeration, yes, but not by much...)

A Berliner is a lightly-fried yeast bun with jam filling and vanilla icing.

Like Hamburgers and Fankfurters the name can be confusing, as JFK found when he made his infamous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech!

Richard English

Apparently there was a recent kerfuffle between Spain and Great Britain over Gibraltar. The article I read referred to Gibraltar as an enclave.

That seems nonsense. If Gibraltar is an enclave, then so is Alaska. In seems to me that "enclave" implys being surrounded, and Alaska, with plenty of access via its coast, is obviously not surrounded. Gibralter, though on a much smaller scale, poses exactly the same situation. So does Kalingrad.

Spain claims, with some justification, that the British colony of Gibraltar (one of the last colonies we have) should by rights be part of Spain.


When Britain dismantled its Empire the criterion for becoming independent was the wishes of the inhabitants. Most decided that they wanted independence and that's why we now have very few colonies. However, Gibraltar, like The Falklands and St Helena decided they wished to remain part of the British Empire and that's the way they still are.

Without doubt the Gibraltarians knew very well that, had they decided to become independent it would be just a matter of time before Spain took them over. But for Spain to try to take over a British colony would be a different matter. I have to assume that the Gibraltarians prefer the British way or life (good beer; unarmed policemen; decent cups of tea) to the Spanish and so that's the way it seems likely to stay.

Of course, the Spaniards don't like it at all - rather as the Americans don't like to have the fiercely independent state of Cuba just off their shores. As has been the case with the USA against Cuba, Spain has imposed sanctions (mainly restrictions on movement across the frontier) at various times but they have been largely ineffective.

good beer; unarmed policemen; decent cups of tea

I've had some rather good beer in the UK.

Last time I was in London, December of 2002, the police seemed quite well-armed to me. A friendly officer helped me find a street in the pouring rain by using the electric torch at the end of his machine gun to read his map of the City, which he retrieved from behind his flak vest. His partner stood off about 10 meters from us, surveilling the area and keeping his gun ready to go.

Also, while in Oxford for a computer conference at the same time, I was shocked to discover that most of the UKers seemed to prefer (not so good institutional) coffee, while I and a few stalwarts continued to drink tea. This was at some of the lunches and dinners provided to us. On the other hand, the beer I had in a local pub or two was excellent.

A word of explanation is in order.

British beat police do not carry firearms and, indeed, are only allowed to do so when a special order has been issued by the Home Secretary. Once the emergency for which the order has been issued has passed then the fireams are withdrawn. Only those officers who have been trained in fireams use are allowed to carry them even when a firearms order is in place.

In the present climate, officers defending certain high profile or high risk areas such as airports or New Scotland Yard (the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police) will carry firearms and it was probably one of those you met. If I were to bet on it, I reckon you actually saw one of those guarding New Scotland Yard since that's very near to the tourist areas of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.

Officers in close protection duties (looking after ministers or Royalty, for instance) will also be armed but you usually don't get to talk to them.

Outside of London, even now, armed police are a rarity.

And our beer is acknowledged by almost everyone to be the finest in the world

In the present climate, officers defending certain high profile or high risk areas such as airports or New Scotland Yard (the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police) will carry firearms and it was probably one of those you met. If I were to bet on it, I reckon you actually saw one of those guarding New Scotland Yard since that's very near to the tourist areas of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.

As a matter of fact, it was, as I later discovered, at the rear of the US embassy. I understand the police force in Northern Ireland is armed.

Yes. Security has always been tight there.

You are right about Northern Ireland. There are only two fully armed police forces in the UK - the Ministry of Defence Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Clearly there are reason for the arming of MODP and certainly there were reasons for the arming of the PSNI. Whether that will change now that the Irish situation is easier I don't know.