Eli5: How do they decide the boundaries between nations?

Question

Eli5: How do they decide the boundaries between nations?

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Answer 1

War, usually. Borders are fairly fixed now because most of the earth’s landmass has been claimed, and people dont really want to die to change arbitrary borders anymore, for the most part. There are some exceptions, like russia trying to take over Ukraine. But that’s extremely rare nowadays, whereas before say, 1900, that was really common. Even sometimes after 1900. World War 2 was a good example.

Sometimes land was bought, like the US bought Alaska and the Lousiana Purchase. But even then, there were people in those territories that fought back. So again, war, for the most part.