A couple of random happenstances have lead me to reading wikipedia articles that I never would have normally stumbled across. This happens a lot, actually.
One tends to think of surveying as a quite precise procedure. But it wasn’t always thus. And sometimes, when maps are made with mistakes, and then treaties or some such are made based on these erroneous maps, and then surveyors are sent out to map new borders based on wrong assumptions, you can end up with weirdness.
See, for example, the Delaware Wedge. Located where Delaware meets both Pennsylvania and Maryland, there exists a tiny piece of land that, technically, belongs to none of the three states.
Part of the famous Mason-Dixon line, the territory in the wedge now belongs to Delaware.
It reminded me of the Northwest Angle, which Manitobans will recognize as that part of Minnesota that’s actually north of the 49th Parallel and the only part of the “contiguous” 48 states that’s actually not contiguous with the rest of them.
I think I’d like to take a road trip there this summer. Not that I anticipate there’s much to see, but apparently you have to do the border crossing by videophone.
I’d be curious to hear about more map weirdness, if people have other examples.
Grant Hamilton
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