Baarle-Nassau



Baarle-Nassau is a municipality and town in the southern Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. It had a population of 0 in. The town is the site of a complicated borderline between Belgium and the Netherlands: it encloses 22 small exclaves of the Belgian town Baarle-Hertog, of which the two largest contain seven counter-enclaves of Baarle-Nassau, and the main body of Belgium contains another.

The border with Baarle-Hertog, Belgium
Baarle-Nassau is closely linked, with complicated borders, to the Belgian exclaves of Baarle-Hertog. Baarle-Hertog consists of 26 separate parcels of land. Apart from the main parcel, known as Zondereigen and located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas, there are 22 Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other parcels on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also six Dutch exclaves located within the largest Belgian exclave, one within the second-largest, and an eighth within Zondereigen. The smallest Belgian parcel, H7, locally named De Loversche Akkers, measures 2,469 m2.

The border's complexity results from numerous medieval treaties, agreements, land-swaps and sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant. Generally speaking, predominantly agricultural or built environments became constituents of Brabant, while other parts devolved to Breda. These distributions were ratified and clarified as a part of the borderline settlements arrived at during the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843.

For clarification and the interest of tourists, the border is made visible on all streets with iron pins. This way it is always clear whether one is in Belgium (Baarle-Hertog) or in the Netherlands (Baarle-Nassau). This is also visible on the house numbers: the style of house numbers is different in both countries, and often the Dutch or Belgian flag next to the house number indicates which country it belongs to.

Localities

 * Baarle-Nassau (population: 5,330)
 * Ulicoten (1,110)
 * Castelré (140)

Dutch enclaves
These are all part of Baarle-Nassau municipality.

Belgian enclaves
These are all part of Baarle-Hertog municipality, and are surrounded by Baarle-Nassau municipality (Netherlands).

Education
Baarle-Nassau has two primary schools: Basisschool De Uilenpoortand and Bernardusschool, the latter in the Ulicoten section. There is a single secondary school in Baarle-Nassau, De La Salle, which has Voorbereidend middelbaar beroepsonderwijs, lower Hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs, and Voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs levels.

It shares, with Baarle-Hertog, a joint library with Belgian and Dutch staff.

Notable people

 * Petrus Christus (c. 1410/1420 in Baarle – 1475/1476) an Early Netherlandish painter; was a leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck
 * Jan Hendrikx (born 1944) a former Dutch politician, mayor of Baarle-Nassau 1990–2012