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Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#91
post #67

This made me wonder...are (most) of the (undisputed) borders of the world actually stored somewhere? Or are some stones and posts still the "official" borders?

In the UK (technically Great Britain in this context) at least, there is an open dataset available from the national mapping authority (Ordnance Survey), which is called boundary lines. It contains all of the different boundary lines and borders of local authorities, parliamentary constituencies, regions, nations etc. This is all geo referenced against the OSGB coordinate system. I could see interesting challenges in…

The OS maps the borders of local authorities. However, it doesn't hold the authoritative map of the borders of the counties. I don't mean the modern local authorities that call themselves counties - I mean the traditional counties, which haven't been abolished or changed for centuries. The exact location of these is defined almost tautologically - a place is part of a certain county because it has always been. The exact location of the border is more a matter of folklore than anything else.

Likewise, the exact location of borders between properties is usually ill-defined. Only borders that have gone through a painstaking process of surveying and registering (usually after a dispute or on a new build) are exactly defined. Usually, when you move into a new house, you have a fence around your property, and the boundary is generally assumed to be inside the fence (with conventions for whose land the fence sits on that aren't always followed).

Adverse possession makes it more complicated. A neighbour decided to put up a new fence, and weren't nice about it. I stipulated (in line with the law) that no part of the new fence could be placed on my property (except parts under the ground surface). They decided to put the fence in the "wrong" way round, with the vertical posts on their property, and the fence attached on their side of the posts, effectively giving me sole access to the area of land in-between their fence posts. If I were to sell my house, the new owner would be quite reasonable in assuming that that land was theirs. After the requisite time, I could apply to have the land legally registered as mine, although the new laws mean that the neighbour would be informed and given a chance to "evict" me from the land - they would have to tear down their fence and rebuild it the right way round so that I don't have sole access to it any more. In this way, adverse possession effectively resets the boundary to where the actual fence is in practice every now and again, which means that the land registry doesn't need to store exact boundary locations.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

Sometimes it’s collectively referred to as Benelux, so a name that would fit in the Netherlands does not surprise me.

It does throw me when some documentary interviews a Frenchman with a very German last name. Until I find out he lives in Alsace. That area traded hands so many times. There are some French names on the other side of the border too, I’m told.

And isn’t “Austria” just a mistranslation of the German for “The outer lands”? But we don’t talk about that any more. Not since The War.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#93
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

Those combinations are indeed quite common in Belgium. Another example: myself :-p (Sébastien Doeraene).

If I may ask, what is the story behind your name? For example, is one of your parents francophone and the other one Dutch? Do you speak both languages natively?

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#94

Borders are shifting all the time based on how the water flows: [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_border_r... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_river_borders_of_U.S._...

Rivers are an incredibly convenient border and also incredibly flexible over time. "Go west until you hit the river" is easy to understand and convey, and when things are measured in square miles or local it doesn't really matter, but over time that river moves and the exactitude of the boundaries matter more and more.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#95
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

Sometimes it’s collectively referred to as Benelux, so a name that would fit in the Netherlands does not surprise me. It does throw me when some documentary interviews a Frenchman with a very German last name. Until I find out he lives in Alsace. That area traded hands so many times. There are some French names on the other side of the border too, I’m told. And isn’t “Austria” just a mistranslation of the German for…

"Eastern realm", actually. Wikipedia has some details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria#Etymology

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#96
post #14

This is so ironic. There is already a movie (Rien a Declarer / Nothing to declare) whose main premise is a guy spending his nights slightly moving the border between France and Belgium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6MljTh0kws (This extract is French only unfortunately :( ) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQPaxlZWu4 (With English subtitles) But, as someone who grew up less than 100 meters from this borde…

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

Searching the web immediately turns up:

> Man Bites Dog is an intensely disturbing movie that, despite having frequent moments of dark humor, is shockingly violent and very difficult to watch.

With 74% on RT, which is pretty good. I already have conflicting emotions from this. The descriptions evoke the spirit of Bret Easton Ellis' stuff.

What I've seen of French film violence tends to be cinematic in an off-putting way, but perhaps that's only post-2000s explosion of movie tricks.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#97
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

Sometimes it’s collectively referred to as Benelux, so a name that would fit in the Netherlands does not surprise me. It does throw me when some documentary interviews a Frenchman with a very German last name. Until I find out he lives in Alsace. That area traded hands so many times. There are some French names on the other side of the border too, I’m told. And isn’t “Austria” just a mistranslation of the German for…

Österreich - The Eastern Empire (my limited german)

Ost - East

Öster - To the east, easter - relative to something

Reich - Empire

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#98

Must be nice to have neighbours that aren't threatening to go to war if your borders change.

Are there many border wars in the developed world? I can think of Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan but admittedly am not familiar on the subject

For sea borders, sometimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars#Third_Cod_War

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#99

I cant' help but rejoice that europe's borders (at least within the eu) are a mere stone. Not too long ago moving that stone might have led to war, now it leads to jokes.

A related story is the border between Belgium and the Netherlands that was recently moved[1].

Not because some war was imminent, but because of very practical reasons: Belgian police could only reach that piece of Belgium by boat; so "exchanging it with NL" was the easiest, because the Dutch police could just drive there.

It makes me happy to see that we're down to "practical exchanges of land" from centuries of war over the most silly pole, church or "slight".

[1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2112869-nederland-krijgt-belgisch-sch... Dutch only, sorry.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#100
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

Searching the web immediately turns up: > Man Bites Dog is an intensely disturbing movie that, despite having frequent moments of dark humor, is shockingly violent and very difficult to watch. With 74% on RT, which is pretty good. I already have conflicting emotions from this. The descriptions evoke the spirit of Bret Easton Ellis' stuff. What I've seen of French film violence tends to be cinematic in an off-putting…

Man bites dog is amazing, a noir mockumentary american psycho.
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