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@opencage@en.osm.townRecently a follower who enjoys our #geoweirdness threads challenged us to create such a thread for Luxembourg 
.
Challenge accepted!
Join us for a look at the geographic oddities of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
1/
2/ First up, Luxembourg is a constitutional monarchy headed up by a Grand Duke. It is a last remnant of a time when central Europe was a patchwork of tiny fiefdoms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_duchy
Long-time followers will recall we asked about "non-kingdom monarchies" as our March 2023 #fridaygeotrivia question.
https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/geotrivia-march-2023
3. Luxembourg's capital is ... Luxembourg City, thus also making it a correct answer in our July 2022 #fridaygeotrivia question, where we asked for countries whose capital has the same as the country.
4. Luxembourg has three languages: German, French, and Luxembourgish (a Germanic language with many French loan words), and multilingualism is an every day part of life, with different languages being used in different situations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism_in_Luxembourg
Same topic but in Luxembourgish: https://lb.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9isproochegkeet_zu_L%C3%ABtzebuerg
5. In southeastern Luxembourg at the point where the country borders Germany 
and France 
we find the village of Schengen (pop. 4200) which was the site of the signing of the 1985 "Schengen Agreement" paving the way for free movement within what is today known as "The Schengen Area" (pop. 423M)
6. On a related note Luxembourg is one of four institutional seats of the European Union 
(along with Brussels 
, Strasbourg , and Frankfurt ).
Luxembourg City hosts various EU institutions including the European Court of Justice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_seats_of_the_European_Union
7. Despite the country's motto of "Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sinn" ("We want to stay what we are"), following the Second World War Luxembourg briefly expanded to claim a small part of Germany .
In 1959 it was returned to Germany in exchange for a settlement payment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg_annexation_plans_after_the_Second_World_War
8. In what can only be explained as a deliberate attempt to infuriate the writers of geocoding software, we note that immediately to the west of Luxembourg , Belgium has a province also named "Luxembourg" which is actually larger than the entire country of Luxembourg!
9. Besides being part of the EU and NATO, Luxembourg is a member of the Benelux Union (with 
) and the SaarLorLux "Euroregion" (with regions of )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benelux
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Region_of_SaarLorLux
10. The flag of Luxembourg is very similar to the flag of nearby Netherlands (though with a different shade of blue, and slightly different proportions).
This has lead to a movement to change the flag to the "red lion" flag currently used as the civil ensign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Luxembourg#Flag_change_debate
11. That's it for our look at the #geoweirdness of Luxembourg
Thanks for reading and boosting. What did we overlook?
If this part of the world is of interest to you, you may also enjoy our threads about
• Belgium https://en.osm.town/@opencage/110048771253841054
• Germany https://en.osm.town/@opencage/111153946063870681
• France https://en.osm.town/@opencage/109930044904649272
You can find all our geoweirdness threads over on our blog.
12/ hat tip to @SK53 - who correctly notes that we missed one of the most geoweird facts of all. Germany and Luxembourg together own the rivers between them in condominum (ie joint sovereignty)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condominium_(international_law)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaftliches_deutsch-luxemburgisches_Hoheitsgebiet
@opencage
Luxembourg has (or used to have) the largest Shell petrol station in Europe at Berchem, on the motorway that comes from France due to it being on a main freight route between southern and northern Europe + Luxembourg having very low taxes on petrol compared to neighbouring countries: stopping there could shave 25% off the price of a full tank of petrol.
@opencage 7 of Belgium's 10 provinces (Both Flandres, Limbourg, both Brabants, Luxembourg, Hainaut) share a name with a Dutch Province, French Département, Luxembourg country or, in the case of Flandres or Hainaut, "just" a region (Flandres in both )
@IIVQ who is working on fixing this? and how can we help?
@opencage You mean:
-rename Antwerp to far-east-Flandres,
-get the Germans to rename Euskirchen to Deutsch-Lüttich
-Rename Namur to Ardennes to match the French département?
No need, because the remaining 3 provinces (Antwerp, Namur, Liège) share their name with their largest and capital city, thereby forming another class of #geotrivia
@opencage Better: Cede the Ostkantons to Germany to have them their own Lüttich (in exchange for the small piece of land that is Stadt Aix-la-Chapelle - that's French-sounding name so they're probs happy to join Wallonia!)
@IIVQ umm. you do know that Aix-la-Chapelle doesn't have a French name in German, yes? it's Aachen.
That said, as covered in our Belgium thread, Belgium and Netherlands did recently swap some land to simplify the border:
https://en.osm.town/@opencage/110048808585070092
@opencage I was not aware that Aix had a German name as well 
(Last time I came through there was on a #Thalys with French speaking staff so ...)
Are you suggesting that this small sliver of new Netherlands should henceforth be the 15th Dutch Province of "Luik"? (The 13th and 14th being the just-for-election-of-the-senate-purposes Overseas territories and non-residents)
@opencage becuse Lux lost territories three times during its history.
@opencage looks like they had fun creating these „rules“.
@freyfogle @opencage @grischard I miss the primary aspect of #geoweirdness for : the condominium with over the Moselle & its tributaries https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaftliches_deutsch-luxemburgisches_Hoheitsgebiet
@SK53 @freyfogle @grischard Oh, yes, that was on the list and then somehow got cut. Thank you, adding a toot now