The facts on the ground say that the Netherlands just grew by a bit under two metres yesterday, taking over Belgian territory in the town of Essen. However, despite a historical connection, the border hasn’t shifted at all.
If that seems a bit puzzling, imagine the picture above with a narrow street at the left, and a canal occupying the wider part of the street, and you’d be looking at the scene in 1849 with Essen (Belgium) on the right and Roosendaal (Netherlands) on the left.
Because there was no way to put a border marker in the middle of the canal, the line was marked along the Dutch bank of the canal, 1.8 metres inside Dutch territory. The canal is long-gone, but the markers remained until Roosendaal recently asked to have the border rectified.
The work has now been done, with one odd effect: a Belgian customs post is now clearly sticking into the Netherlands, where it had previously appeared to be on its own side of the line.
Now, if we can get us US people to say Netherlands instead of Holland we can make another breakthrough.