--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "djtilque" <dtilque@n...> Dan wrote:

> As far as I can tell, this is purely a North American phenomenon,

but if not, I'm sure someone will tell me so.

Here's the international version.

The phenomenon is international. Many towns in Europe were split by
the iron curtain (with the former E-W German border going right
through houses in a few instances). In these cases, the two towns had
the same name (until changed by one side, but after the border came
into being).

Borders in Europe do run right through a number of municipal areas,
such as at Basel, Switzerland. But these are more the case of a town
expanding in one country to the existing border, to meet a town on the
other side against which another had already developed.

One of the most interesting of these is Herzogenrath, Germany, north
of Aachen (see the map I've put in the Photos archive). If you drive
into town from the south, you are forced at the town limit to the
right side of the road that forms the main street. The east half of
the road is Germany, and to get to the left or west side of the road,
you have to (or formerly had to) pass through Dutch customs. The
border fence, interrupted only by occasional holes big enough for a
person to walk through goes right up the middle of the street. The
west side of the street is Nieuwstr. and the east side is Neustrasse.
This isn't over open land - its right in the middle of town.