What constitutes an oddity is primarily subjective and I could easily include things that others would disagree with. For me it’s the curious, the strange and the interesting. Examples that spring to mind initially would include:

Natural Borders

1. A massive natural border. The North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet in Thingvellir, Iceland where they’re visible to visitors walking through the National Park. The western side of the Eurasian and eastern side of the North American tectonic plates form the northernmost part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which Iceland is located on. In a sense, it can be said that Iceland is a kind of bridge between continents due to this unique location on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This results in volcanic and geothermal activity.

2) Other natural borders are rivers.

Divided Towns & Villages

Political borders often create unintended consequences. Borders are often artificial unlike the above example. Although likely to be untrue (in terms of it’s true origin) the “Stalin’s Pipe” appendage has a small part of Lithuania jutting in neighbouring Belarus. This initially had little consequence when both countries were part of the Soviet Union. With it’s collapse however, this border became the external border of both the EU and Nato and led to barriers and razor wire often going through small villages such as Sakalinė dividing neighbours and relatives.

There are other examples of divided towns and cities and I include some below. Clink on the photos for more details.

Geographical Extremities

Other oddities

Sometimes it is difficult to neatly classify why a place is odd – here are a few that I have come across: