Miscellaneous Forum

What are the only nations (that I know of) entirely enclosed within another one. Ocean borders don't count.

San Marino, Lesotho and the Vatican are the first ones to spring to my mind.

Lesotho ?

Its a shame one of the borders of Kaliningrad is the sea, its also a shame that Kaliningrad is part of Russia so actually none of it matches the criteria. I just wanted to say Kaliningrad - look it up, its unusual.

There are two in just Italy with San Marino and the Vatican if that counts.

Swaziland ? Depending on your point of view, Kosovo ?

San Marino, Vatican
Lesotho, Swaziland
these are internationally recognized soverign nations.
Kosovo is recognized by over one hundred other countries.
American Indian Nations consider themselves soveregin nations and there are hundreds of them, surrounded entirely by the USA.
If you think of breakaway regions such as ossetia, abkhazia, transdenister( spelling?) which have not been recognized. abkhazia has a lake frontier, even though it is called a sea, ossetia south is entirely within georgia , transdienstar is not entirely within moldavia but shares a border with Ukraine.
am i right, just writing from memory.
Andorra shares its border with spain and france.
many more?

Is Andorra totally surrounded by Spain, or does France surround it too?

Many disputed "nations". Chechnya ? Kurdestan ? Somaliland ? Spanish Sahara ? Then there are non disputed nations like England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland within the UK.

Andorra is bordered by Spain and France

San Marino, Vatican City, and Monaco. san Marino is the only city state that did not choose to join a united Italy in 1867. Vatican City can thank Mussolini for soverein status.

Hundenberg may secede from the union if the political climate in the US gets much worse.

I was going to guess Monaco, also.

Lesotho, Swaziland........

There is a Belgian enclave in The Netherlands. But of course, that's not the whole country. Just part of it.

I'm 90% sure San Marino and Andorra ...

Andorra definitely no because it borders both France and Spain.
San Marino and Vatican yes.
Lesotho yes, Swaziland no (borders South Africa and Mozambique).

Principality of Hutt River in Australia;-) (not recognized, though, what a shame)

Monaco is not surrounded totally by France, it borders the Mediterranean.

Can we use historical borders?
A map of Germany before 1803 would provide a nice long list.

LAOS!

Others:
Nepal
Tibet
Mongolia

OH. Just re-read the question and I feel so dumb.
I thought you meant "land-locked" countries. Sorry

If we can go back to the year 1800, there was the country of Salzburg, which only bordered big bad Austria.

I guess I was thinking of the Mediterranean as French water. ;)

Methinks Mr. giampiero left us hanging here, is that all of them?

He is still dumbfounded from looking at a map of Central Europe before 1800.

:) I don't know all of them...but I think Lesotho is the only non-principality or city state nation like that...Gambia comes close

I wouldn't count Monaco because of its border on the sea, as I couldn't imagine France being able to claim the sea bordering another country. Hutt River is mainly a tourist gimmick that has worked to save a sheep property on the brink.

I included Monaco based on G's condition that ocean and sea borders don't count.

G said "Ocean borders don't count", nothing about seas. Monaco borders on a sea, not an ocean ;O)