What are Enclave and Exclave ? Also would be great if could get more idea on third order enclaves too.

Question

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave\_and\_exclave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave_and_exclave)

this is what wikipedia has to offer, but its so minimal and confusing. it only says that; An enclave is a territory (or a small territory as part of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity.\[1\] Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters.\[2\]: 60  Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory that is only partly surrounded by another state.\[1\] Vatican City and San Marino, both enclaved by Italy, and Lesotho, enclaved by South Africa, are completely enclaved sovereign states.
An exclave is a portion of a state or district geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory (of one or more states or districts etc).\[3\] Many exclaves are also enclaves, but not all: an exclave can be surrounded by the territory of more than one state.\[4\] The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan is an example of an exclave that is not an enclave, as it borders Armenia, Turkey and Iran.

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In: 0

Answer 1

You know how “landlocked” means a country’s borders are all land-borders with other countries; it has “no way out” to the sea except by marching through the lands of it’s neighbors.

Enclaves and exclaves are a similar concepts describing how politically “borderlocked” a territory is by it’s neighbors.

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An “enclave” is a territory (or sub-territory) that is completely “borderlocked” by a single neighbor; there is politically “only one way out” and it requires going through the territory of that one specific neighbor.

If a territory (or sub-territory) is “borderlocked” by multiple neighbors then it is not an “enclave” because there are (potentially) “multiple ways out” politically.

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An exclave is a sub-territory of a country or government that is separated from the main territory in a way that is completely “borderlocked” by it’s neighbors; there may be “multiple ways out” of the sub-territory but none of those ways connect to the main territory without first going through some neighbor’s territory.