An island that switches countries every six months | Hacker News Reader

An island that switches countries every six months

bbc.com

149 pointsappwiz29 comments

> This sort of joint sovereignty is called a condominium, and Faisans Island is one of the oldest in existence.

I don't think this strictly counts as condominium. In a true condominium, France and Spain would exercise joint sovereignty 100% of the time. But in this case, they never exercise joint sovereignty, it is just they have agreed to transfer the single sovereignty of the territory back and forth on a regular basis.

New Hebrides (now known as Vanuatu) was a true condominium in that 100% of the territory was under joint British-French sovereignty 100% of the time (until independence in 1980).

Google Maps currently shows it on the Spanish side of the border for me (despite that fact that it's France's "turn" for a few more days). I suspect this sort of detail isn't worth bothering with, but it is interesting...

This is a pretty tame example, but Google is definitely active in delivering maps based on the viewers location in some more tumultuous parts of the world, for example the disputed borders of China/India/Pakistan in the kashmir region.

https://www.google.nl/amp/s/www.gislounge.com/the-politics-o...

Link without AMP crap: https://www.gislounge.com/the-politics-of-googles-mapping/

Screenshot 'without AMP crap' : https://imgur.com/a/6i7ae

Screenshot with AMP : https://imgur.com/a/3IsGe

I hope you understand why people might prefer AMP.

That's actually why I prefer adblockers.

That is just digging your head in the sand. If everyone starts using adblockers, ads will no longer be blockable (say, just a dumb image).

Accept it or not, ad revenue is how the internet runs at today's scale.

This could be one of the "Falsehoods programmers believe about" series. Imagine how this complicates maps, geography data etc. Obviously, unless you ignore the reality.

Good point. This sort of thing serves to remind me that "Country" is an arbitrary label we humans put on geographical locations. The land doesn't care what country it belongs to.

I do believe it's mentioned, either in the article or in the discussion:

https://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/?p=15187

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14891185

> For six months of the year, from February 1 to 31 July, it's under Spanish rule - and for the following six months it's French

If I'm counting right, France has it 184 days per year (185 in leap years), and Spain has it 181 days.

I wonder why they didn't balance that better? April 1 to Sept 30 for France and Aug 1 to March 31 for Spain would have given 183 for France and 182 for Spain (183 in leap years).

The same balance would also arise from June 1 to November 30 for France and December 1 to May 31 for Spain.

It would hardly be fair if one country got to enjoy the island in the nice warm summer months, while the other only got it for the cold winter, would it?

Given that it's uninhabited, I don't think anyone enjoys it as such.

It's located in what, either side of the river, was the medieval kingdom of Navarre, subsequently ruled by distant monarchs in Paris and Madrid.

Its because the French are sneaky[0]; See also the island of St Martin/Sint Maarten in the caribbean which is partitioned but the French got the bigger half because apparently the split was arranged whereby two men would walk around the coast in opposite directions and the border would be arranged from where they started to where they met. The French guy allegedly substituted the Dutch guys water with wine, meaning he laid down to sleep after lunch and the French guy was able to travel further.

[0] not really, but its a great story; /me shoots cannon southwards

> Next week, France will hand over 3,000 sq m (3,200 sq ft) of its territory to Spain without a single shot being fired.

Those numbers don't add up.

> The island is tiny - just over 200m long and 40m wide.

Assuming the island is roughly an ellipse, it's area should be ~6,280 m^2 or ~67,400 ft^2. Wikipedia reports the island's area as 0.00682 km^2 (6,820 m^2) and 0.00263 mi^2 (73,300 ft^2) [1].

So the reported area is half of the actual area, and the U.S. conversion to feet is off by an order of magnitude. BBC should have someone double check the numbers.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheasant_Island

It does say "over 3000 sq m." 6280 > 3000 ;)

(The article also says that it's eroded and diminished recently)

Cool and weird! You'd think by now, they would have made some sort of agreement for one country to take it full-time, and the other to pay a modest price or give some other sort of diplomatic consideration. Guess nobody cares enough because it's so small and nobody lives there.

I like to think that rather there is no reason for either country to want the island full time, except to say they have it and the other does not, and plenty of reasons to keep a quirky tradition that serves as occasional reminder of an old treaty.

It’s too small to be valuable, it’s actually more useful in the larger diplomatic game as a proof of goodwill on both sides. If it went to one country, inevitably someone wouldn’t agree with the decision and it could become a divisive symbol. I think both governments are actually happy that they get to share costs to maintain a slip of land nobody cares about anymore.

My father‘s neighbor‘s garden covers more area than that. Isn’t the administrative cost within, say, 10 years, not higher than the asking price?

You talk like a buyer...

With the housing shortage, I'm surprised that no one has built condominiums on this condominium.

Pun aside, allowing people to actually live there would open an interesting question. Would people be tax residents of France only just because it's 184 days under French rule vs. 181 days under Spanish?

That problem would probably be solved by a bilateral agreement between France and Spain :)

Should you only pay tax where you live, or where you earn the money too?

In the EU this is a common issue in some areas where you can commute across a border each day. The rules are well established, albeit varying depending on which border is involved.[1]

[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/taxes/double-taxa...

No taxation without representation!

Don't know about Spain, but in France the population concentrate in a few big cities, which are experiencing housing shortages, but the countryside is full of small towns getting abandoned due to lack of people living there.

I was actually joking about the California housing shortage, but the situation in France sounds similar to much of the developed world. Walt Disney made Main Street U.S.A. an attraction at his park because by the 1950s, the hearts of small towns were already disappearing. The same goes in Japan, where Tokyo is still growing, as are other cities near high speed rail, but small towns are mainly inhabited by the elderly.

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