Why Nobody Wants This Part of Europe

Select video clips courtesy of Getty Images

Special thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3

[LanternOfLiberty]

"- There's a place where you can just build a new country"
"- Cool, where is it?"
"- Between Serbia and Croatia"
"- Yeah, I'm good"

[sackofclams]

Defending an area and preventing people from entering its borders is literally the definition of ruling/ claiming that land. Seems to me Croatia has claimed it whether they acknowledge it or not.

[antoniopavlovic]

I actually live in Osijek, Croatia, a town really close to this piece of land, like 30km southwest. I actually never knew of this!

[twentytwo]

The dispute in a nutshell:

Serbia: ''Take this part!''
Croatia: ''I don't want just this part!''
Serbia: ''Take this part!''
Croatia: ''I don't want just this part!''
Serbia: ''Take this part!''
Croatia: ''I don't want just this part!''
Czech: ''Can i take it?''
Serbia: ''NO!''
Croatia: ''NO!''
Serbia: ''Take this part!''
Croatia: ''I don't want just this part!''
Serbia: ''Take this part!''
Croatia: ''I don't want just this part!''

[ShortHax]

“There we are, learn to live with it”
- A mustachioed British man drawing a straight line on a map

[richardaubrecht]

2:48 Serbia was NOT part of Austria-Hungary as is shown in the map. This area lies on the border of Bačka, small region that was in 1918 split between Hungary and Serbia. Because of this now it's one side of the river Croatian and the other Serbian.
Edit: on the map, there is a complete Serbia in its current borders shown as being part of A-U. Simply nonsense.

[bartoszstepien]

2:15 Ah yes, starting a new country in the Balkans. What could go wrong!

[Fatalfaktum]

There are only two fair options: 
1. Just cut it in half 
2. Like any river boarder in any other country: make the borders based on the current state of the river and measure it every year

[matra]

Someone mentioned it here in the comments, that the territories on the eastern side of the Danube are de facto controlled by Serbia, and similarly, the territories on the western side are in fact controlled by Croatia.
I can confirm this is true as a foreigner, because I was lucky enough to spend a few weeks in Kupusina, Serbia. While there, we used a small backroad a few times to go from Kupusina to Apatin, which is the neighbouring city on the shore of the Danube (really nice city btw). This small backroad cuts right across one of those weirdly shaped bits of land, that Croatia claims on the eastern side of the Danube. (I can give you the coordinates: 45°42'37.3"N 18°55'00.0"E
).
I went there knowing about this situation and was surprised that there was no official indication or whatever to tell us that we entered Croatia. I even remember seeing some farmers on their tractors doing their thing on what is supposed to be some Croatian land, but I highly doubt that they would pay their taxes to Croatia... Then, I asked the locals about the situation and they didn't really know what I was on about, until I showed them on Google Maps, what I meant. Then they went on to explain how much of a sh*tfest there was during the yugoslav wars in the 90s, and especially how horrendous it was for the people of Apatin.
Oh and one more thing. We also went on a little walk starting from Kupusina and we wandered into some forest and got to a place called Štuka čarda. If you look closely on the map, it's supposed to be in Croatia, but as you can guess, there was no border control in the middle of the forest or whatever. So yeah, I can confidently say that the de facto border between the two countries is the main stream of the Danube.
The only thing indicating that we were near Croatia, is that sometimes my phone would switch to the croatian network, but that's it.

[dimitrijepesic]

Whole Serbia was not in Austria-Hungary, only Vojvodina (northern part of the Serbia).

[petarmalovic]

2:35 Austria never fully controled Serbia, they only controled Vojvodina.

[TheSykoRC]

the map shown at 3:06 shows a part of the modern Landkreis Dillingen, Schwaben (Germany). The city Dilingen is located at the danube river, but has nothing to do with croatia or serbia. My first appartment when I moved out of my mothers flat was in Dillingen. I worked for 6 years in the local court house (Landratsamt) there.

[historywithhilbert]

You'd have to be mad to willing go and live on top of a mountain ~ a Dutchman.

[smartsthemiddlename]

RLL is honestly one of the only channels who delivers a lot of information in a short amount of time and makes us understand everything, and my little geo nerd inside me always loves his vids

[MartinMizner]

Croatia: *"We want original borders"*
Serbia: *"We want Danube as border"*
Serbian land not claimed by Serbia: *Exists*
Vit Jedlicka: *"So can I take it?"*
Serbia and Croatia:

[justaregulardude]

"which means the British are for once not to blame" As a brit I am very relived.

[tehlaser]

I’m not sure “unclaimed” is very enlightening here. That word usually implies that nobody thinks it belongs to anyone. Here, two countries each claim the land belongs to the other. That, plus the whole thing. It’s hard to say a bit of land is unclaimed when there’s an army keeping people out of it.

[zomfgwtfpwnage]

I also live 30km away from this location and I'm really surprised how this hasn't happened anywhere else on the planet. Rivers make up a LOT of international borders and they meander as well, it's weird that a dispute didn't happen anywhere else

[allenpradhan]

As a citizen of liberland is thank you for showing your support to our small nation and highlighting this issue to people outside our country

[animatrnic]

The title: You can claim this land!
The content: You can't claim this land!