Indo-Bangladesh enclaves, Border territories in Cooch Behar, India and Bangladesh.
The Indo-Bangladesh enclaves formed 162 separate territories where sections of one country were completely surrounded by the borders of the other. These patches were scattered across the Cooch Behar district on the Indian side and several districts in Bangladesh, with some measuring just a few meters and others covering several square kilometers.
These territories emerged from land-swap agreements between local rulers in the 18th century, when the Kingdom of Cooch Behar negotiated territories with the Mughal Empire. After the partition of British India in 1947, these complex border demarcations remained unresolved until both nations finally completed a territory exchange in 2015.
Residents often spoke both Bengali and Hindi and practiced customs from both countries, having held neither Indian nor Bangladeshi passports for decades. Many families built their homes along the invisible border and changed countries simply by walking from one room to another.
These territories no longer exist as separate areas after the 2015 Land Boundary Agreement allowed all residents to adopt citizenship of the country surrounding them. Visitors can reach former enclave sites in the Cooch Behar district and meet local residents who remember life before the exchange.
Dahala Khagrabari was a patch of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh, making it the only third-order enclave in the world. This tiny area remained uninhabited until 2015 because no one could reach it without crossing international borders three times.
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