The Unsettling Geopolitical Crises and Intense History of No Man’s Lands

Some dangerous areas between borders come with backstories fueled with atrocities and violations of human rights

Photo by Kazuki Tomoda on Unsplash

When you open up a map of the world on Google or an atlas, the wiggly black lines weave pieces of territories together seamlessly, marking the belonging of each piece of land on Earth to different sovereignties. Staring at this map, we are convinced that all lands are claimed and undisputed.

The truth is there are grey areas between borders. I am talking about the tiny pieces of land between the fences of border control stations and areas called buffer zones, terra nullius, and demilitarized zones. (For ease of communication, I addressed these areas as ‘no man’s land’ in this article.)

From the ghost city of Varosha to the golden triangle in the scorchingly hot Southeast Asia, these geographical oddballs often come with a backstory and rich history between the adjacent nations.

The map does not display the supposed demilitarised zone between North and South Korea.

The origin of these uninhabitable places