The Neutral Zone

Zurich, Switzerland - Switzerland is home to a remarkable number of enclaves and exclaves. The mountainous territory has left various peoples stranded from their cultural mainland and these folk are, by nature, independently minded and unwilling to assimilate. Switzerland, to its credit, has accommodated the nationalist and sub-nationalist predilections of these groups by creating various bizarre geographic carve-outs for them. Below are some examples. Büsingen am Hochrhein Büsingen am Hochrhein  (population: 1,450) is a German town surrounded entirely by Switzerland. According to Wikipedia, it has, since the early 19th century, been separated from the rest of Germany by the Swiss village of Dörflingen - at its shortest, a distance of approximately 680 meters. Going back several centuries, the town was historically part of Austria. Austria stubbornly held onto it even after selling the nearby villages of Dörflingen and Ramsen to Zurich in 1770. After the congress of Vi...