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The colonization of Africa has created many seemingly arbitrary (and sometimes problematic) borders. One of these African borders is so complicated that it is the only one of its kind in the world. Driaan takes a closer look at how the world's only quadripoint was drawn onto the map, and how its future affects Africans, travelers, and anyone using a smartphone.
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When you're traveling overland, crossing borders in Africa can get pretty interesting
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You never know what you're going to get. But there's one border in particular that is unique
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Not only in Africa, but in the entire world. The story about how this border came to be is pretty crazy
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And it's still unfolding. So let's take a look. This is the great Mosi-Oaitunya
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a 1700 meter long wall of water on the great Zambesi river
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on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe In 1855, the famous British explorer David Livingston
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became the first European to lay eyes on it He dubbed it Victoria Falls after his beloved queen
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and since then it's captured the imagination of travelers around the world
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This place is insane It pumps water so hard that it creates a mist plume
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that you can see from kilometers away This is why it has the name Mosi Uratunia
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which means the smoke that thunders. So there's a tiny bridge here that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe
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and it's a great place to see the falls. Probably one of the best border crossings in the world
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but it's not the border crossing we're talking about today. One hour's drive west lies the tiny town of Kazangula
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Here lies the border crossing between Botswana and Zambia. I have this footage of me and my friends crossing this border in 2018
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We're killing on the barge. Great Zambi's there. At the time, the only way to cross this border was by taking a sketchy pontoon ferry
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While crossing a border by ferry is an experience in and of itself, what's really special is that when you get to the middle of the river
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you find yourself in a geographical novelty, the only place where you can be between four countries at the same time
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This is a four-nation quadrupoint, and at the moment, it's the only one in the world
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A quadrupoint is a spot on the map where four borders meet. You get many different types of quadra points that separate municipalities or states or provinces or parishes
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But there's only one quadra point that separates four nations. So let's go back to that footage that I took in 2018
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Right now, we're in Botswana. Beyond that bridge is Namibia. On the other side of the river lies Zambia
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And that little island over there belongs to Zimbabwe. When you zoom out on the map trying to figure out just what is going on here you notice something seems a little bit off Especially with Namibia It kind of looks like Namibia is trying to do the reach and yawn with Botswana
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At first I was like, oh okay cool, Namibia wants to get in on that Mosi Ouatunya action
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You know, have a giant tourist attraction within its borders. But then when you zoom back in, you'll see that Namibia misses the waterfall by less than 100 kilometers
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So what is going on here? Why does this border exist? So I went on to a little bit of a deep dive and unfortunately the answer has to do with colonization
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A little piece of history called the scramble for Africa. In the 1870s, a bunch of European countries were trying really hard to become colonial superpowers
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They were all going at it so ruthlessly that people were afraid that a war would break out
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if someone accidentally claimed a territory that belonged to someone else. So in came Othi van Bismarck
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He was chancellor of the German Empire, which means he was the second highest authority besides the German Emperor at the time
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This guy saw the potential for catastrophe, so he organized what was called the Conference of Berlin
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He invited 13 European nations plus the USA to his fancy hall in Germany
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where they could discuss how they would divide the continent up amongst themselves without having to shed unnecessary European blood
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And so this handful of powerful, deluded men proceeded to play trading games with the map of Africa
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Yes, I will invade Africa. Come in. You go. Me too. Africa
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Africa. Africa. After about a year of this, they ended up with a map that looks like this
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The problem was that none of the colonial powers were satisfied with this
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Most of them wanted territories that stretched from one side of the continent to the other
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that would give them faster trade routes across the globe and more geographical power
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Britain was by far the most ambitious. They wanted to claim a stupid big piece of land that connected Cape Town to Cairo
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so that they could dominate from north to south. Most of the other countries like France, Portugal and Germany
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wanted territories that connected the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean to create an alternative to having to sail around the entire continent
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Suffice to say, nobody got what they wanted. Everyone kept having wars and trying to make treaties so that they could try and get better territories for themselves
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By 1890 Otto was over the idea of being a colonial power His plans to connect his territories were not working out Germany had Cameroon and Tanzania The land to connect those two was owned by King Leopold II of Belgium
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who, by the way, claimed it as his own personal property, not as a territory of his home country
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And he was pretty dead set on keeping it for himself. Germany also had this piece of land called Southwest Africa
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but Otto hated it. To him, it was basically a giant stretch of desert
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with few resources and no strategic value. Arta allegedly said that this territory was a burden and an expense
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and he wanted to settle someone else up with it. They tried selling it to Britain who were like, no thanks
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So in an attempt to make southwest Africa worthwhile, Germany entered into the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty
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Like most treaties of its kind, it's horribly complicated and involved. But the biggest things on the agenda was this
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Britain asked Germany to let them take what was then the Sultanate of Zanzibar
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which was right next to Germany's territory in Tanzania. In exchange, Britain would give Germany this little island north of its own coast called Illigaland
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and this little strip of land here. So the reason Germany was keen on this little piece of land was because it borders the Zambezi River
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which connects to the Indian Ocean and maybe, just maybe, would make southwest Africa strategically useful to Germany
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Okay, wait. Remember that giant waterfall, the mighty Morsi-Uatunya? And remember how we said David Livingston saw it in 1855
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Britain knew that this waterfall existed. And they knew that Germany would in fact not be able to sail down the Zambezi River
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Which means Germany got played. Meanwhile, the new German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi is so proud of this new piece of land that he names it after himself
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The Caprivi Strip, which would connect German Africa to the Indian Ocean and pave the way to prosperity
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Eventually, they realized that they made a mistake. They tried to trade the land back to Britain, who were like, no takebacks
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And so the map of German Southwest Africa was stuck with this weird appendage
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After two world wars being owned by South Africa and the people of Namibia gaining independence
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Kaprivi became a permanent part of Namibia. Which leaves us with this crazy border here today
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In the last 50 years there been various border disputes that turned it from being a true quadruple into two tri that meet together here to form a border between Botswana and Zambia But this little line is so tiny that it basically still a quadrupoint It still a quadrupoint While Germany regretted creating this
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border, it's actually super important to Botswana and Zambia. These countries are both landlocked
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and this border is one of the only corridors to send goods up and down the African continent
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This border is also a bottleneck for one of the 21st century's most sought-after resources
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cobalt. Every piece of tech that you own, from your cell phone to your laptop, anything that has a
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lithium battery is reliant on cobalt. And the best place in the world to get this cobalt is here
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in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But because most of these African nations struggled to build
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infrastructure after gaining independence, the fastest way of getting this cobalt out of Africa
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and into the rest of the world is by getting it to this harbor here in Durban, South Africa
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So a lot of this cobalt, as well as a lot of other things that are going in and out of Africa
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has to go through this border. Since the 1880s, the main way of getting across the river has been via ferry
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In the 1960s, the ferry got upgraded to take container trucks, but it still wasn't enough
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So much stuff had to get across this border that truck drivers would wait up to 10 days to get onto the ferry
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To make things worse, this river is teeming with crocs and hippos
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So in 2013, Zambia and Botswana made a deal to build a bridge across this river
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With some help from Japan. Yep, Japan. You know they need their cobalt
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The bridge finally opened in May 2021, which is kind of a big deal
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A major bottleneck on the African continent has been unblocked. And people looking to travel overland don't have to risk their lives on a sketchy ferry anymore
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As for the ferrying, Botswana said they would repurpose theirs for tourism
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So hopefully we'll still be able to experience a ferry crossing on the great Zambesi River in the future
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So that's my story about this crazy border and its sketchy ferry
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I hope you enjoyed learning about it as much as I did. If your curious travel brain needs more to chew on, be sure to check out brighttrip.com
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We have a growing library of skill-based and travel courses that will help you prepare for your next trip
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Or even just learn more about the world around you
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