A salient, panhandle, or bootheel is an elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state. While similar to a peninsula in shape, a salient is most often not surrounded by water on three sides. Instead, it has a land border on at least two sides and extends from the larger geographical body of the administrative unit. In American English, the term panhandle is often used to describe a relatively long and narrow salient, such as the westernmost extensions of Florida and Oklahoma, or the northernmost portion of Idaho. Another term is bootheel, used for the Missouri Bootheel and New Mexico Bootheel areas.
Origin The term salient is derived from military salients. The term "panhandle" derives from the analogous part of a cooking pan, and its use is generally confined to North America. The salient shape can be the result of arbitrarily drawn international or subnational boundaries, which serve to separate culturally unified peoples. These occurred, for instance, during European colonialisation when colonial powers competed for Africa and the Western Hemisphere, after which post-colonial borders became based on colonial divisions. In many cases these salients correspond to routes of expansion or bases for such expansion, as in Namibia and Mozambique. Other modern salients originally served to provide barriers against other colonial powers, as with Britain against Tsarist Russia in Central Asia. Salients may also arise when a national government shifts territory between subnational entities for internal political reasons, as with West Virginia's eastern panhandle during the Civil War. This also occurred with peripheral Tibetan-inhabited regions in Maoist China, which were split between provinces and from the Tibet Autonomous Region. The location of administrative borders can also take into account other considerations such as economic ties, strategic needs, history or topography. Even in these situations, however, salients frequently fail to follow clear and logical criteria, as seen with the partition of India and the resultant northeastern salient. Upon partition numerous majority-Muslim areas remained within Hindu India, and some non-Muslim-majority areas within the exclave of East Pakistan.
Country-level salients
Africa
Asia
Europe
South America
North America
Subnational salients The following locations are salients in first-level administrative subdivisions of nations.
Africa
South America
North and Central America
Asia
Europe
Oceania
See also
Notes
References
Further reading Robert Reid (4 April 2016). "America's Panhandles, Ranked From 1 to 10". National Geographic. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
