Geographical quirks
Last night I was doing a Google Street View route and 'discovered' the city of Bristol in Virginia... or Tennessee... actually it's in both, it straddles both with the state border slap bang in the middle of town. One side of the street is Virginia, the other side of the same street is Tennessee.
I know the US has a lot of twin cities with identical names on both sides of a state border, but I didn't realise there was anything like this. Most likely Bristol developed on one side of the border and then sprawled out. But the US being a federal country, what happens logistically as regards laws, policing etc.?
Any other geographical quirks that have amazed or astounded you when you came across them?
Douglas_MacNeill
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Joined: 10 May 2007
Age: 60
Gender: Male
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Location: Edmonton, Alberta
I know there is a few cities in both the US and Canada.
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Istanbul. In both Europe and Asia. I'd quite like to visit it.
I like countries that kind of straddle two continents as well, either culturally or geographically. Like Eqypt, both Asian and African in feel. Also countries like Azerbaijan, that are both Asian and European in influence.
Supposedly one surveyor was drunk when doing his surveying and didn't get things exactly right. The result is a town on the US-Canadian border where the border runs down the middle of the street and sometimes through individual homes and businesses.
Check out Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont
From http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ja10/stanstead-border-town.asp:
...
To get into the front door of the public library, Steve and I walk past a border pylon plunked into the sidewalk. Across the street, a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a pickup watches us with no expression. A few strides, and we turn left through the library entrance into the reading room, past the reference desk. Stepping across a strip of electrical tape on the floor, we walk out of the United States and back into Canada, where most of the books are shelved. It’s surprisingly fun. We’re filled with glee, as if we’ve broken a taboo and gotten clean away with it. The librarians, who have seen all of this many, many times before, watch us with surprising tolerance and good humour. They, too, seem happy with the smallscale anarchy.
In the attached opera house, the performances take place in Canada, while most of the audience sits in the United States. During the Vietnam War, men who had fled to Canada to avoid the draft would come to the library to visit their families. As long as they stayed on the Canadian side of the black line, their sanctuary was intact.
...
Steve knows a guy on the Canadian side who is good friends with an American across the street. They used to cross over all the time to chat or to borrow tools or a lawn mower or to have a beer together. They still do that, says Steve, except that now they do it after dark. They may have to stop, though. There’s word that the Border Patrol is planning to scan the street with night-vision cameras.
Brownsville, Texas--and Matamoros, Mexico--is like that.
Same with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico--and El Paso, Texas.
Bluefield, Virginia--and Bluefield, West Virginia.
Niagara Falls, Ontario--and Niagara Falls, New York
Many others.
In the New York City area, for about 15 blocks, one side of Jericho Turnpike is in Queens, New York City; and the other side is in Nassau County. You cross from Queens into Nassau County when you cross the street!
There's a Bellerose, Queens, New York City; and a Bellerose, Nassau County.
There are two places in the US where you cannot usually drive into the city without driving to it in Canada.
The first is Port Roberts, Washington. It is a small peninsula south of Vancouver. Unless you have an airplane or a boat, for just about any trip in the US, you enter Canada when you leave Port Roberts.
The other is the Northwest Angle in Minnesota. In the winter time, it is possible to drive on the ice of the Lake of the Woods, but the rest of the time, you have to enter Canada and then reenter the US into the Northwest Angle.
Same with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico--and El Paso, Texas.
Bluefield, Virginia--and Bluefield, West Virginia.
Niagara Falls, Ontario--and Niagara Falls, New York
Many others.
In the New York City area, for about 15 blocks, one side of Jericho Turnpike is in Queens, New York City; and the other side is in Nassau County. You cross from Queens into Nassau County when you cross the street!
There's a Bellerose, Queens, New York City; and a Bellerose, Nassau County.
I would draw a distinction between those settlements that essentially expanded into another state and thus became two cities from those where two settlements on different sides of a border both grew until they more or less met at the border and kind of merged.