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People seem to like controversy, so for this week's #geoweirdness thread we thought we’d post about a very contentious geo topic we often get asked about: disputed borders.
1/n
2/ More borders around the world than you might think are disputed.
Sometimes between countries, sometimes within countries, for example regions that want independence. Each case is unique with its own history and cultural context.
But how should our geocoding API handle this?
3/ First let’s look at some examples. Some countries take disputes very seriously, and legally you can only show the border they deem to be correct.
A famous “active” case is the border between India 
and Pakistan 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Control
4/ Occasionally disputes lead to violence and escalate into all out war, as sadly seen recently between Armenia 
and Azerbaijan 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia%E2%80%93Azerbaijan_border_crisis_(2021%E2%80%93present)
5/ Happily not all border disputes lead to violence. Often the disputes are small and the parties just “agree to disagree”.
One such example we covered in our #geoweirdness thread about non-state territories of the United States: both the US 
and Haiti 
claim tiny Navassa Island
6/ There are some very creative border dispute solutions - for example the tiny mid-river island that changes country between Spain 
and France 
every 6 months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheasant_Island
See our #geoweirdness thread about France
https://elk.zone/en.osm.town/@opencage/109930121349079578
7/ And sometimes disputes are resolved peacefully, as was the case recently between Canada 
and Denmark 
who settled their disagreement over the ownership of tiny Hans Island - site of the delightful "Whiskey War" which involved trading bottles of alcohol 
to show possession of the island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_War
See our thread about Denmark: https://elk.zone/en.osm.town/@opencage/110165247337780685
@opencage I miss the Whiskey War.