A quadripoint is a point on Earth where four distinct political territories meet. The territories can be of different types, such as national and provincial. In North America, several such places are commonly known as Four Corners. Several examples exist throughout the world that use other names.
Usage The word quadripoint does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster Online, though it has been used since 1964 by the Office of the Geographer of the United States Department of State, and appears in the Encyclopædia Britannica, as well as in the World Factbook articles on Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, dating as far back as 1990.
History
An early instance of four political divisions meeting at a point is the Four Shire Stone in Moreton-in-Marsh, England (attested in the Domesday Book, 1086, and mentioned since 969 if not 772); until 1931, it was the meeting point of the English counties of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire. Between 1839 and 1920, there was a quadripoint at the convergence of Belgium, Prussia/Germany, the Netherlands, and Moresnet at Vaalserberg. Moresnet was never truly a country but rather only a neutral territory or condominium of the Netherlands and Prussia (originally), and of Belgium and Germany (ultimately). Subsequent political changes have restored its quadripartition along municipal lines (Kelmis, Plombieres within Belgium) since 1976 (though it has also enjoyed fivefold partition along municipal lines at times).
Four-nation quadripoints
Botswana–Namibia–Zambia–Zimbabwe
Some older sources claimed that a quadripoint existed in Africa, where the borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe come together at the confluence of the Cuando (also called Chobe) and Zambezi rivers. In the absence of legal clarity, it is now widely believed that instead, two separate tripoints exist about 100 to 150 metres (330–490 ft) apart (but see below regarding due diligence preceding bridge construction). The causes of this unusual border configuration lie in the Scramble for Africa. By the 1880s, the British Empire and the British South Africa Company occupied much of Southern Africa, including the Cape Colony, Rhodesia and Bechuanaland. The German Empire also began occupying African territories in the 1880s, namely German South West Africa and German East Africa. Seeking a more efficient route between these two colonies via the Zambezi River, Germany signed the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty with Britain in 1890, thereby gaining control of a narrow salient called the Caprivi Strip. Following the South West Africa campaign in World War I, the Union of South Africa captured and administered South West Africa, including the Caprivi Strip. In the 1960s, with the decolonisation of Africa, the remaining British colonies in Southern Africa declared their independence, including Zambia in 1964, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1965, and Botswana in 1966. By the time of Rhodesia's declaration of independence in 1965, there were four independent sovereign states whose territorial boundaries came very close to a quadripoint: the Republic of South Africa (occupying the Caprivi Strip) to the west, the newly independent Republic of Zambia to the north; the newly independent Rhodesia to the east; and the British Bechuanaland Protectorate to the south. In 1970, South Africa (which at the time occupied Namibia) informed Botswana that there was no common border between Botswana and Zambia, claiming that a quadripoint existed. As a result, South Africa claimed that the Kazungula Ferry, which links Botswana and Zambia at the quadripoint, was illegal. Botswana firmly rejected both claims. There was a confrontation and shots were fired at the ferry; some years later, the Rhodesian Army attacked and sank the ferry, maintaining that it was serving military purposes. Ian Brownlie, who studied the case, wrote in 1979 that the possibility of a quadripoint could not be definitively ruled out at that time. In August 2007, the governments of Zambia and Botswana announced a deal to construct a bridge at the site to replace the ferry. The existence of a short boundary of about 150 metres (490 ft) between Zambia and Botswana was agreed by all four states in the 2006–10 period, and is shown in the African Development Fund project map. This matches the data kept by the Office of the Geographer under the U.S. Department of State. However, the Anglo-German agreement of 1890 stipulates that the thalweg junction of the Chobe and Zambezi, which today falls within the demarcated limits of Zimbabwe, is the eastward limit of the Caprivi Strip (in today's Namibia). Moreover, it was reported in 2014 that Namibia actually granted Botswana and Zambia an easement to build their bridge across what all three parties concurred was Namibian territory. The Kazungula Bridge opened for traffic in May 2021.
Cameroon–Chad–Nigeria–United Kingdom A true four-country point did formerly exist in Africa for a period of eight months during 1960 and 1961, in southern Lake Chad, at the location of the present Cameroon–Chad–Nigeria tripoint. Upon the 1 October 1960 independence of Nigeria, that borderpoint became common to the latter three countries and the territory of Northern Cameroons, which was still governed under United Nations mandate by the United Kingdom, until it was finally integrated into Nigeria on 1 June 1961. This is the only known quadricountry borderpoint not involving condominial territories.
Quadripoints within and between nations
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