9/ You may be surprised to learn of the part of Germany 🇩🇪 that was once British 🇬🇧. The North Sea island of Helgoland belonged to Britain until 1890 when it was traded for Zanzibar (Now Tanzania 🇹🇿, then part of German East Africa)
8/ In 2016 it was discovered that Germany's borders had changed. Due to the shift of a river, Germany gained about 500 sqm in a remote forest from the Czech Republic 🇨🇿
7/ This year will mark 33 years since reunification, when East joined West.
Much less well known is the "mini-reunification" when the Saar protectorate rejoined Germany. Following WWII it was a separate legal entity until 1957 (with own Olympics team)
6/ Today Germany 🇩🇪 is in political union with its EU 🇪🇺neighbors (except Switzerland🇨🇭, of course), but there is still one border dispute with the Netherlands 🇳🇱 about the course of the border at the mouth of the Ems river, as covered in our thread on border disputes.
5/ Germany 🇩🇪 contains one "pene-exclave" (practical exclave). Due to mountains the Austrian 🇦🇹 village of Jungholz can only practically be reached via German roads. The village has both German and Austrian postal codes.
2/ Located in the center of Europe, the area we today refer to as Germany 🇩🇪 is a natural crossroads, and the borders and political geography has changed A LOT over the centuries. Material enough for many threads, but today we'll focus on modern bits of #geoweirdness
