Border

In the pre-modern world, the term border was vague and could refer to either side of the boundary, thus it was necessary to specify part of it with borderline or borderland.

[3] In the past, many borders were not clearly defined lines; instead there were often intervening areas often claimed and fought over by both sides, sometimes called marchlands.

William Miles said that Britain and France traced close to 40% of the entire length of the world's international boundaries.

Such a landscape usually differs from the borderland's natural geography and its building requires tremendous human labour and financial investment.

Such political boundaries are often found around the states that developed out of colonial holdings, such as in North America,[7] Africa[citation needed] and the Middle East.

The Canada–United States border follows the 49th parallel for roughly 2,175 miles (3,500 km) from Lake of the Woods (Ontario and Minnesota) west to the Pacific Ocean.

[10] Similar to a cease-fire line, an LoC is typically the result of war, military stalemates and unresolved land ownership conflict.

These can extend inland, as in the United States where the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service has jurisdiction to operate up to 100 miles from any land or sea boundary.

The frontiers were particularly porous for the physical movement of migrants, and people living in borderlands easily maintained transnational cultural and social networks.

Regulated borders have varying degrees of control on the movement of persons and trade between nations and jurisdictions.

[27] An example of Open orders include the Schengen Area where 29 European nations mutually abolished their border control.

A DMZ can act as a war boundary, ceasefire line, wildlife preserve, or a de facto international border.

Smuggling provides a classic case; contrariwise, a border region may flourish on the provision of excise or of import–export services — legal or quasi-legal, corrupt or legitimate.

In a more planned and official context, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) often tend to cluster near borders or ports.

Even if the goods are not perceived to be undesirable, states will still seek to document and regulate the cross-border trade in order to collect tariffs and benefit from foreign currency exchange revenues.

[37] Human economic traffic across borders (apart from kidnapping) may involve mass commuting between workplaces and residential settlements.

The removal of internal barriers to commerce, as in France after the French Revolution or in Europe since the 1940s, de-emphasizes border-based economic activity and fosters free trade.

Moving goods across a border often requires the payment of excise tax, often collected by customs officials.

Animals (and occasionally humans) moving across borders may need to go into quarantine to prevent the spread of exotic infectious diseases.

Moving goods, animals, or people illegally across a border, without declaring them or seeking permission, or deliberately evading official inspection, constitutes smuggling.

In much of Europe, controls on persons were abolished by the 1985 Schengen Agreement and subsequent European Union legislation.

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, the competence to pass laws on crossing internal and external borders within the European Union and the associated Schengen Area states (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein) lies exclusively within the jurisdiction of the European Union, except where states have used a specific right to opt out (United Kingdom and Ireland, which maintain the Common Travel Area amongst themselves).

[38] On the other hand, a border like the Maginot Line was entirely military and was meant to prevent any access in what was to be World War II to France by its neighbor, Germany; Germany ended up going around the Maginot Line through Belgium just as it had done in World War I.

Fencing is used for security reasons, mainly to prevent unauthorised activity between the borders, including the travelling and transport of humans and goods.

The permeability of borders depends on its construction, availability of crossings, regulation and types or scope of activity.

Macro-regional integration initiatives, such as the European Union and NAFTA, have spurred the establishment of cross-border regions.

In Europe, the European Union provides financial support to cross-border regions via its Interreg programme.

There has been a renaissance in the study of borders starting with the end of the 1990s, partially from the creation of a counter-narrative to the discourse about the world becoming a borderless and deterritorialized place, which has accompanied theories about globalization.

Since its conception in the mid-1980s, this artistic practice has assisted in the development of questions surrounding homeland, borders, surveillance, identity, race, ethnicity, and national origin(s).

Borders can include but are not limited to language, culture, social and economic class, religion, and national identity.