Historical Borders

Borders change over time and border enthusiasts are equally excited by historical borders. For the purposes of this website the following categories will be used:

Historical Borders that no longer exists. Examples of this include:

  1. The inner German border (1949-1990) between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) which came to represent in the most clearest terms the iron curtain. Remnants of the border have been preserved in museums. This border now is an internal German border between different federal states.

Historical borders in the sense that historical events occurred at them. Examples of these include:

  1. The Pan European Picnic site near Sopron in 1989 where East Germans for the first time en masse were able to break through the iron curtain and leave for the west.

Historical borders which used to connect different countries to those which they currently do. Examples of these include:

  1. The border that existed between France and the Austrian Netherlands (1714–1794) through the  Treaty of Rastatt (1714), which followed the War of the Spanish Succession. This border is currently between Belgium and France, but the old border markers remain at La Flamengrie in France.

2. The current border between Slovakia and Ukraine at Slemence which previously was the border between Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Soviet Union and Ukraine. A border checkpoint was opened in 2005 after 61 years of division where and the elderly (mainly Hungarian speaking) residents could finally meet each other again.

Site Navigation

In order to find your way around the site, either click on the links (text in red) or use the menus at the top of the page. About leads you to the country pages, with links to individual borders. The European Tripoints menu leads you to my visit reports.