List of countries that only border one other country
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This is a list of countries that only have a land border with one other country. The list does not include dependent territories and some de facto independent disputed or occupied areas and unrecognised countries.
Nations that only share a land border with one other country often have concerns about domination by the other state if it is larger. These can be fears of an outright take-over as has happened historically to such states as Timor Leste, which was part of Indonesia until very recently, and Ireland, which was part of the United Kingdom until 1921. Today concerns are often about economic domination such as between Canada and the United States or between Denmark and Germany. Because much trade goes over land these countries are often heavily reliant on their single neighbour.
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Landlocked and completely surrounded (Enclaves)
- Lesotho - by South Africa
- San Marino - by Italy
- Vatican City - by Italy
Peninsulas/isthmuses
- Denmark - with Schleswig-Holstein, Germany - (the island of Zealand is now connected to Sweden by the Øresund Bridge)
- Gibraltar - with Spain
- Qatar - with Saudi Arabia
- South Korea - with North Korea (across the Demilitarized Zone)
- Singapore is connected to Johore, Malaysia through a causeway and a bridge.
With transport by sea being cheaper than transport by land, these countries may be said to have several neighbours "by sea". E.g., while Denmark has in some ways and some periods been dominated by its largest neighbour, Germany, it has also been a prospering trade nation, e.g. trading with close-by Sweden as well as with Germany.
Partly surrounded, with sea access
Sharing a long border
- Canada - with the United States (partly along 49th parallel and with Alaska)
Sharing an island
- Borneo - Brunei and Malaysia and Indonesia (only island in the world shared by three countries)
- Hispaniola - Dominican Republic and Haiti
- Ireland - Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
- Märket - Åland has some 10-metre border with Sweden on that island.
- New Guinea - Papua New Guinea and Indonesia
- Sint Maarten/Saint-Martin - Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles and Guadeloupe (an overseas department of France) This example is included here because these two dependent territories each belongs to two different countries.
- Timor - East Timor and West Timor, Indonesia
The United States has an enclave under lease from Cuba, Guantanamo Bay, which consists of a military base.
Former countries
- Biafra: initally bordered Cameroon and Nigeria after its declaration of independence in early 1967, but territorial gains by Nigeria during the Biafra War left it only bordering Nigeria by later that year, and loss of coastal territories later left it an enclave. See this map (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/images/biafra2.gif)
- Ciskei, one of the South African "independent" homelands, reincorporated on April 27, 1994
- Dominion of Newfoundland, with Canada, now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador of Canada
Anomalies
- Dhekelia (part of the sovereign base areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia) is on UN buffer zone between Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, bordering both of them. Technically Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus do not border each other immediately, as separated by the UN buffer zone.
- South Korea not only shares one border with North Korea at the Demarcation Line, but it is separated from North Korea by a 4-km wide Demilitarized Zone.
- Gibraltar is separated from Spain technically by a neutral territory. Stipulated in 1729 by the Treaty of Seville, a strip of land of width "600 toises, being more than 2 cannon shots distance between the British guns and the Spanish guns" would be considered the "neutral ground".