This is a list of countries that have a land border with only one other country. Some on this list have a maritime border with additional countries. Some countries, which are not listed here, have no land border but do have a maritime border with a single other country, such as Sri Lanka.
There are generally three arrangements by which a country would have a single land border:
Territory leased or ceded by one country to another for perpetual use, but not in sovereignty, such as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, or memorials, such as the American Cemetery in France, do not constitute true territorial borders because the land occupied remains a formal part of the host country.
This list is based on the Correlates of War Direct Contiguity data set, with maritime causeways and bridges not being counted. [1]
This section considers only sovereign countries, not constituent countries like Wales and Scotland, which border only England.
Country | Neighbour | Border length | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
km | mi | |||
Lesotho | South Africa | 909 | 565 | Lesotho is an enclave which is entirely surrounded by South Africa. |
San Marino | Italy | 39 | 24 | San Marino is an enclave entirely surrounded by Italy. |
Vatican City | 3.2 | 2.0 | The Vatican City is an enclave entirely surrounded by Rome, Italy. |
Country | Neighbour | Border length | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
km | mi | |||
Brunei | Malaysia | 381 | 237 | Borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. |
Dominican Republic | Haiti | 360 | 220 | On the island of Hispaniola |
The Gambia | Senegal | 740 | 460 | The Republic of the Gambia is bordered to the north, south and east by Senegal. |
Haiti | Dominican Republic | 360 | 220 | On the island of Hispaniola |
Republic of Ireland | United Kingdom | 360 | 220 | The Republic of Ireland borders the United Kingdom's Northern Ireland region on the island of Ireland. |
Monaco | France | 4.4 | 2.7 | |
Papua New Guinea | Indonesia | 820 | 510 | On the island of New Guinea |
Portugal | Spain | 1,214 | 754 | |
Qatar | Saudi Arabia | 60 | 37 | The planned Qatar–Bahrain Causeway would connect Qatar to Bahrain. |
South Korea | North Korea | 238 | 148 | On the Korean Peninsula, at the Demarcation Line. The two countries are separated by a 4 km wide Demilitarized Zone. Both Koreas claim the Korean Peninsula. |
Timor-Leste | Indonesia | 228 | 142 | On the island of Timor. |
United Kingdom | Republic of Ireland | 360 | 220 | On the island of Ireland. The British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri and Dhekelia border Spain and Cyprus respectively, but these territories are not part of the United Kingdom proper (see #Dependent territories section). |
Often called fixed crossings or fixed links, transportation corridors constructed to cross bodies of water without any intermittent connections such as ferries or ships may be between different states. These may be considered artificial "persistent" borderpoints for land vehicles or pedestrians, but are not typically considered land borders given their need for continuous operation and maintenance, as well as their ease of volume control or closure by either state. Two countries are islands and have no land borders, but maintain fixed borderpoints with other nations.
Country | Land neighbour | Borderpoint neighbour | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
United Kingdom | Republic of Ireland | France | In addition to its border with Ireland, has a fixed link with France in the Channel Tunnel. |
Bahrain | None, Since Bahrain is an island. | Saudi Arabia | Although an island nation with no natural land borders, Bahrain maintains persistent connection to Saudi Arabia by the King Fahd Causeway at Passport Island. |
Singapore | None, Since Singapore is cut off by a strait. (Specifically, the Strait of Johor.) | Malaysia | Although an island nation with no natural land borders, Singapore maintains persistent connections to Malaysia by the Johor Causeway and the Malaysia–Singapore Second Link. |
Liechtenstein | Austria | Switzerland | In addition to its land border with Austria, Liechtenstein has five bridges crossing the river Rhine to Switzerland. |
In some cases, a dependent territory of one nation borders another nation.
Territory | Sovereignty | Neighbour | Border length | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
km | ||||
Akrotiri and Dhekelia | United Kingdom | Cyprus | 108 | British sovereign base areas, border the Republic of Cyprus. Dhekelia also borders the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, but the latter is recognised only by Turkey. |
Gibraltar | United Kingdom | Spain | 1.2 | A British overseas territory, occupies a small peninsula and has a 1.2 km (0.75 mi) land border with Spain. Spain claims some of Gibraltar as its own territory. |
Ross Dependency | New Zealand | Australia | New Zealand's (largely unrecognised) territorial claim in Antarctica borders only the Australian Antarctic Territory and the unclaimed Marie Byrd Land. (It also touches other claims at the South Pole.) |
In most cases, an integral part of a larger country shares a border with another nation.
Territory | Sovereignty | Neighbour | Border length | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Åland | Finland | Sweden | 528,60 m | Autonomous region of Finland. Åland had a dispute in Market Island. |
French Southern and Antarctic Lands | France | Australia | 5.533.470,05 m | Adélie Land, France's (largely unrecognised) claim in Antarctica borders only the Australian Antarctic Territory. (It also touches other claims at the South Pole.) |
Greenland | Kingdom of Denmark | Canada | 1,280 m | A constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland had a border dispute with Canada regarding uninhabited Hans Island. The island is located in the centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait (between Canada's Ellesmere Island and northern Greenland), which constitutes the agreed maritime border. On June 11, 2022, both countries signed an agreement to split the island, which will come into effect as soon as the parliaments of Canada, Denmark, Greenland, and Nunavut ratify it. [2] |
Saint Martin | France | Kingdom of the Netherlands | 16 | The island is split between two island territories: the northern half, Saint-Martin, is a French overseas collectivity; the southern half, Sint Maarten, is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. |
Sint Maarten | Kingdom of the Netherlands | France |
Many countries historically had only one neighbour. Some no longer exist while others now have either no land borders or borders with more than one nation due to border changes.
A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, the rule remains separate to the original country of the colonizers, the metropolitan state, which together have often been organized as colonial empires, particularly with the development of modern imperialism and its colonialism. This coloniality and possibly colonial administrative separation, while often blurred, makes colonies neither annexed or integrated territories nor client states. Colonies contemporarily are identified and organized as not sufficiently self-governed dependent territories. Other past colonies have become either sufficiently incorporated and self-governed, or independent, with some to a varying degree dominated by remaining colonial settler societies or neocolonialism.
Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North America—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Province of Canada —united to form a federation, becoming a fully independent country over the next century. Over its history, Canada's international borders have changed several times as it has added territories and provinces, making it the world's second-largest country by area.
Bophuthatswana, officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana, and colloquially referred to as the Bop, was a Bantustan that was declared (nominally) independent by the apartheid regime of South Africa in 1977. However, like the other Bantustans of Ciskei, Transkei and Venda, its independence was not recognized by any country other than South Africa.
A Bantustan was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa, as a part of its policy of apartheid.
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.
Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it [regardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity]." The term is often politically, economically and/or demographically more significant than politically associated remote territories, such as exclaves or oceanic islands situated outside the continental shelf.
An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has exclusive rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
A colonial empire is a collective of territories, either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state.
An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory that is only partly surrounded by another state. Enclaves that are not part of a larger territory are not exclaves, for example Vatican City and San Marino and Lesotho are enclaved sovereign states.
The Vhembe District Municipality is one of the 5 districts of the Limpopo province of South Africa. It is the northernmost district of the country and shares its northern border with the Beitbridge District in Zimbabwe and on the east with the Gaza Province in Mozambique. Vhembe consists of all the territories that were part of the former Venda Bantustan; however, two large densely populated districts of the former Tsonga homeland of Gazankulu, in particular, Hlanganani and Malamulele, were also incorporated into the municipality, hence the ethnic diversity of the district. The seat is Thohoyandou, the capital of the former Venda Bantustan. According to the 2011 census, the majority of the municipality's 800,000 inhabitants spoke TshiVenda as their mother language, while 400,000 spoke Xitsonga as their home language. However, the Tsonga people form the majority south of the Levubu River, while the Venda are the minority south of Levubu at 15%. The Sepedi speakers number 27,000. The district code is DC34.
The history of post-confederation Canada began on July 1, 1867, when the British North American colonies of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were united to form a single Dominion within the British Empire. Upon Confederation, the United Province of Canada was immediately split into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The colonies of Prince Edward Island and British Columbia joined shortly after, and Canada acquired the vast expanse of the continent controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company, which was eventually divided into new territories and provinces. Canada evolved into a fully sovereign state by 1982.
A number of states and polities formerly claimed colonies and territories in Canada prior to the evolution of the current provinces and territories under the federal system. North America prior to colonization was occupied by a variety of indigenous groups consisting of band societies typical of the sparsely populated North, to loose confederacies made up of numerous hunting bands from a variety of ethnic groups, to more structured confederacies of sedentary farming villages, to stratified hereditary structures centred on a fishing economy. The colonization of Canada by Europeans began in the 10th century, when Norsemen explored and, ultimately unsuccessfully, attempted to settle areas of the northeastern fringes of North America. Early permanent European settlements in what is now Canada included the late 16th and 17th century French colonies of Acadia and Canada, the English colonies of Newfoundland (island) and Rupert's Land, the Scottish colonies of Nova Scotia and Port Royal.
The exclusive economic zone of North Korea stretches 200 nautical miles from its basepoints in both the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) was declared in 1977 after North Korea had contested the validity of the Northern Limit Lines (NLL) set up after the Korean War as maritime borders. The EEZ has not been codified in law and North Korea has never specified its coordinates, making it difficult to determine its specific scope.
The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of unsuccessful U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black homelands created in apartheid-era South Africa, and are thus referred to as bantustans. They have been referred to figuratively as the Palestinian archipelago, among other terms. The de facto status in 2024 is that Israel controls all area outside these enclaves.