This is the story of territories in geographical discontinuity to their state of belonging, of enclaves in foreign countries, and of their inhabitants often forgotten by both their authorities and their fellow citizens. The author looks at these geographical oddities, consequences of historical accidents, these geopolitical "in-betweens", through an unprecedented fieldwork. These enclaves, endearing and vulnerable territories, all represent, to varying degrees, territories full of symbols, historical heritage, economic gains or strategic assets, territories with multiple influences. They thus embody the hybridity and complexity of our world. In political geography, enclaves are a part of the territory of a state located inside another belonging , to a given country but located geographically in another, usually neighbouring, country. An enclave can be separated from its main territory by one or more states. The term exclave is then sometimes used to describe it. This term is also used for enclaves with a seafront. But an enclave can also be considered as such by the country which surrounds it and as an exclave by the country to which it is attached: for example, the German enclave of Busingen-am-Hohrhein is considered by Switzerland as an enclave (in its national territory) and by Germany as an exclave (outside its national territories). These pieces of territory constitute both unknown places, fractures of our globalized world and places cut off from "their" world and their country. The people who live there are cut off from their motherland by foreign countries; they are citizens of a state that is far away. This book is in line with the previous ones (Walls Between Peoples, 2015, La Documentation francaise; Bridges Between Peoples, 2017, CNRS Editions / Presses des Ponts) focusing on the fractures of the world and its forgotten strategic regions and the trilogy known as "Geopolitics of Borderlands". This book uses the same configuration: 9 cases of enclaves and a general introduction that will revisit the theory of enclaves and try to find common features that connect that diversity of world's enclaves. A few books exist on specific enclaves (Kaliningrad, Baarle-Hertog), a few Master's thesis have been written (Temburong, Oecussi), and some theoretical work has been carried out (notably that of Yevgeniy Vinokurov in 2007). But no book deals with all the enclaves existing in the world and their populations. The addition of photographs also makes the topic accessible to a greater number of readers, and will make this book of a unique format. Nine cases of enclaves are analyzed : - The ancestral enclaves of Baerle in the Netherlands - The Bruneian exclave of Temburong on the island of Borneo - Melilla, Ceuta and Gibraltar, enclave cities in the Mediterranean - The Timorese exclave of Oecussi-Ambeno in the Indonesian island of T - The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania - The Omani enclaves of Madha and the Musandam in the United Arab Emirates and the Emirati counter-enclave of Nahwa in Oman - Nakhitchevan, an Azerbaijani exclave in the South Caucasus - The Angolan exclave of Cabinda between two Congos - The American exclave of Alaska BOOK CONTENTS I. - FOREWORD II - INTRODUCTION This introduction focuses in particular on the typology of enclaves (enclave/exclave, true enclave, counter-enclave, etc.). It includes an atlas and a table of the world enclaves, as well as two text boxes, one on the enclaves and fragments of Central Asia, the other on the enclaves of Cooch Behar between India and Bangladesh. III. - ENCLAVES AU QUOTIDIEN 25 pages of story-reporting-photos describing the enclave, its history, the daily life in the enclaves and the geostrategic challenges of the territory. Each chapter will be accompanied by the characteristics of the enclave, a map of the enclave in its geographical space and some chronological markers. 1- The ancestral enclaves of Baarle in the Netherlands (Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau) Europe has an eventful history which has created, over the centuries, here and there, a rugged geography. As a result, there are about twenty enclaves in Europe, which are largely unknown. They all come from a historical legacy of long shifting borders and land exchanges between rulers. And these are among the oldest international enclaves in the world; the Italian enclave in Switzerland of Campione d'Italia dates from the year 777. The majority of them are in the same place, in the north of Belgium (in the province of Antwerp), or in the south of the Netherlands (in the province of North Brabant): in the village of Baarle. Baerle-Duc is a Dutch-speaking municipality in Belgium located in the Flemish region of the province of Antwerp and partially located in the Dutch province of North Brabant. It is characterised by the unique fact that part of its territory is enclosed in Dutch territory, entangled in discontinuous plots in the Dutch municipality of Baerle-Nassau. Baerle is a village which alone comprises a total of 30 enclaves (48% of all enclaves in the world) and seven of the eight existing counter-enclaves on the planet. This peculiarity, now unique in the world, the Baerle tourist office makes it an asset and a tool for promoting tourism. This chapter will deal with this little-known situation at the heart of Europe, and whose origins date back to the Middle Ages. 2- The Bruneian exclave of Temburong: A bridge linked up by a bridge on the island of Borneo Temburong is an exclave, separated from the rest of Brunei by Malaysia, but which has been linked since March 17, 2020 by a 30-kilometer bridge. The territory is also accessible by the canals of a delta which cross the Bay of Brunei. This chapter will deal with the particular regime that is the Sultanate of Brunei and its regional role in a strategic region where the Chinese influence is growing. 3- The enclave cities of Melilla, Ceuta and Gibraltar in the Mediterranean: Historical legacies, economic lungs of their region Ceuta and Melilla are parts of Spanish and European territories on the African continent, in Morocco. They are places of entry into Europe and at the same time dead ends for sub-Saharans who aspire to a better life. They are territories whose population is half of Spanish origin and the other half of Moroccan origin. How is the coexistence between these two populations going? What is the future of these enclaves? Gibraltar is a piece of British territory south of Spain. How does its population experience this remoteness? What is the situation of illegal immigrants in and around this enclave? What are the consequences of Brexit on a territory far from the British Crown? This chapter will include a text box on the Spanish enclave of Llivia in France. 4- The Timorese exclave of Oecussi-Ambeno: A destiny to be consolidated between Asia and the Pacific A "beloved country", as its inhabitants call it and a long-ignored enclave, inserted in an island cut in two. An island whose name, Timor, means "Orient" in the Austronesian languages and which was used to designate all the islands south-east of Java that are part of the Sunda archipelago. An island with a four-thousand-year-old history that brings together a human mosaic, with multiple languages and influences, colonized several times, and located at a strategic crossroads between Asia and the Pacific. There would have been more than 80 distinct chiefdoms or kingdoms on this island, coexisting peacefully until the 19th century, when the European presence (Dutch in the west and Portuguese in the east) was limited to a few missionaries, traders and soldiers. An island bruised by the 20th century and where a new state, Timor-Leste (also called in tetum Timor Lorosa'e), the first of the 21st century, emerged in May 2002 after a struggle for independence of more than 25 years. 5- The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania: A strategic enclave along the Baltic Sea rediscovering its past The Kaliningrad Oblast (former Koenigsberg), also called "Baltic Russia", or the "Land of Amber", is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, surrounded to the north and east by Lithuania and to the south by Poland. The Kaliningrad Oblast is the westernmost and smallest region of the Russian Federation. It is separated from the rest of Russia by three international borders. This chapter will be an opportunity to talk about the history of this territory unlike any other (former East Prussia), to deal with the economic sanctions weighing on Russia, the tensions between Russia, the Baltic countries and Poland, and the role of NATO in that part of the world. 6- Exclave, enclave and counter-enclave of the Arabo-Persian Gulf: Emirati and Omani places, witnesses of a bygone era Musandam is the peninsula that forms the northeastern tip of the Arabian Gulf. It is located 45 kilometers from the Iranian coast, from which it is separated by the Strait of Hormuz, making it one of the most important strategic places in the world. The peninsula is an exclave of the Sultanate of Oman, and forms the governorate of Musandam, separated by the United Arab Emirates with which it has a land border. Nahwa is part of the emirate of Fujairah and Sharjah, but is completely landlocked within Madha which is an enclave of Oman within the same emirate of Sharjah. This situation makes Nahwa a "counter-enclave". This chapter will deal with the tensions of the Arabian Peninsula, notably through the role of the Strait of Hormuz, the consequences of the war in Yemen on these states and the geostrategic and religious rivalries with Iran. 7- The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan: A strategic territory of the South Caucasus Nakhichevan is a region of the Caucasus which today constitutes an autonomous republic of Azerbaijan, whose main city and county seat bears the same name. Nakhichevan has direct borders with Iran, Armenia and Turkey, but it has no territorial continuity with the rest of Azerbaijan. Persistent tensions with Armenia hamper direct communication between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan, further compounding the latter's isolation. But this region is spared from war between these two neighbors, in part thanks to Turkey, which enjoys guarantor status under the terms of the Kars treaty signed between the Kemalists and the Soviets in 1921. 8- The Angolan exclave of Cabinda: A forgotten oil territory in Central Africa Cabinda is one of the eighteen provinces of Angola, located in the far north of the country. An slave between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo, it is separated from the main territory by a coastal strip of about 60 kilometers dependent on the DRC (constituting its only maritime access, on the Atlantic Ocean). The capital, Cabinda (locally called Tchiowa), populated by 598,210 inhabitants in 2014, is located on the coast to the southwest of the territory, on the right bank of the Bele River. This chapter will deal with the important regional role played by Angola in this part of Africa, the oil issue on the continent and the reality of the Cabindan separatist movement in the Maiombe forest. 9- The American exclave of Alaska: The Arctic immensity as a horizon Alaska is the 49th state of the United States, separated from its country by Canada. Bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north and the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean to the south, this territory is separated from Asia by the Bering Strait. Alaska means "big Earth" or "continent" in Aleutic language. This region, which in the 19th century was called "Russian America", takes its name from a long peninsula, in the northwest of the American continent, about 1,000 kilometers south of the Bering Strait, and which binds, towards the south, to the Aleutian Islands. Alaska's nickname is "the last frontier" or "the land of the midnight sun." Populated by Aleuts, Inuits and perhaps other Amerindians for several millennia, the territory was colonized by Russian trappers at the end of the 18th century. The resources of Alaska then come mainly from the timber trade and the fur trade. On March 30, 1867, the United States bought it from Russia for the sum of 7.2 million dollars (about 120 million current dollars), and it joined the Union on January 3, 1959. economic activities today are fishing, tourism, and especially the production of hydrocarbons since the discovery of deposits at Prudhoe Bay in the 1970s. This chapter presents and the daily life of these Americans far from everything in an increasingly strategic region for the planet, the Arctic. It offers therefore an opportunity to discover Alaska through a geopolitical lense.