Borders

Elsa TLC · 25 Apr 2026

How where borders decided between countries and continents?

SPLINE · 25 Apr 2026

Physically and/or politically.

Elsa TLC · 25 Apr 2026

SPLINE said:
Physically and/or politically.

Both really. How are there decided. Why are they not straight lines.

Elsa TLC · 25 Apr 2026

I get conflicts, rivers, mountains

forests.

Istanbul interests me most. Why not all part of Asia?

King Billy · 26 Apr 2026

Elsa TLC said:
Both really. How are there decided. Why are they not straight lines.

The ones that emerged

SPLINE said:
Physically

are not straight lines and followed

Elsa TLC said:
rivers, mountains forests.

They are easily understood. A classic example was the Welsh - English border known as Offa's Dyke.
Another example is the River Tweed separating Scotland and England.

Whereas the ones decided

SPLINE said:
politically.

are frequently straight lines, and give rise to several issues:
never-ending territorial arguments
schisms in ethnic populations,
and differences in perception of history.

There are several examples:

the straight-line border that divided ethnic populations is the Durand Line, established in 1893 to separate British-controlled India from Afghanistan.
It separated Pashtun tribes on the North-West Frontier (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) from their counterparts in Afghanistan, creating lasting cultural, tribal, and political divisions.
The line is still a source of tension, as Afghanistan does not recognize the border as legitimate, and it continues to affect the safety and community structure of the tribes.

The Sykes-Picot Lines (Middle East): Drawn during World War I, these straight lines divided the Ottoman-controlled Levant into British (Iraq, Palestine) and French (Syria, Lebanon) zones of influence, often cutting across religious and tribal lines.

The Radcliffe Line (India/Pakistan): Though not perfectly straight, this 1947 partition line was drawn rapidly to separate Punjab and Bengal into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, cutting through millions of families and leading to mass displacement.

And others.

Borders

Elsa TLC

SPLINE

Elsa TLC

Elsa TLC

King Billy

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