There’s not much ado in the Swedish ski resort of Storlien off-season. It’s a classic border station where the trains from Trondheim in Norway terminate. Few linger, but we decided to stay and see what Storlien has to ...

The boundaries of ecclesiastical provinces, dioceses and parishes often show scant regard for secular administrative boundaries. We discover a French Roman Catholic diocese where the bishop’s pastoral responsibilities extend to parishes on both ...

Is the Caspian a sea or a lake? Aristotle averred it was certainly a lake. Pliny and Strabo suggested it was a sea. No other trans-boundary body of water throws up quite the same issues as the Caspian. We take a look at international frontiers that ...

Might a Faroese football team one day win the Welsh league? Or could a Cuban cricket team score runs on the English county cricket circuit? We take a look at sports teams which defy national boundaries and play in what might seem to be the "wrong" ...

Kosovo is arguably Europe's newest country. Most nations now recognising the leadership of the territory as being a legitimate national government, though even some European Union members are still withholding recognition. Kosovo still has internal ...

Borders have faded in modern Europe. Most travellers take Schengen freedoms for granted. But there are still rare instances of countries (like the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom) which maintain formalities. Join us a journey across the ...

In the northernmost reaches of the European mainland there are multiple strands of Christianity. In this region, churches are often important markers of identity and religion is part of the soft diplomacy ...

The fall of the Berlin Wall was way back in 1989. But the community of Slemence remained divided until 2005. For sixty years, there was no link between the two halves of the village which lies astride the border between Ukraine and Slovakia. A new ...

The Polish village of Siekierki on the east bank of the River Odra is a good spot to reflect on European borders. We visit the Western Territories, the area ceded by Germany to Poland at the end of the Second World ...

The Holy See and the Italian Republic tussled for years over which country owned one contested section of the Passetto di Borgo. That's the name given to the elevated footpath that links the papal apartments in the Vatican with the Castel ...

Border police at some of Europe’s toughest borders have delegated to them the power to make life-altering decisions about the fate of travellers. We take a look at how visa regimes undermine human ...

The forest reserve at Bialowieski in Poland extends over the border into neighbouring Belarus. This great wilderness is the most important refuge for European bison. So it is no surprise that it is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It's ...

Border regions in Europe are always fascinating. Travel east from the French town of Menton and in no time you reach the Italian frontier. The first place of any size on the Italian side of the border is Latte di Ventimglia. We follow the road to ...

Is it no wonder that citizens of Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad are feeling a little jittery these days? Kaliningrad's inhabitants feel that they are a long way from Moscow, and also increasingly distant from the European Union countries ...

There is a roar in the night as snowmobiles approach from the east. New arrivals from Russia. We look at life at a remote borderpost on Finland's eastern frontier - a place which is literally in the middle of ...

A mountain community in Liguria has exploited a little legal loophole in European history to assert its independence. Welcome to the Principality of ...

the little island that swaps hands: for six months French, then for six months ...

hidden europe recalls the peculiar history of life in some communities along the Ukrainian-Polish ...

there really is a spot where the Republic of France borders onto the Kingdom of the Netherlands. hidden europe sets out from the coastal port of Marigot in search of this unusual ...

The delineation of international borders within shared waters is never easy. In Lough Foyle, where Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland both have territorial interests, the two parties have left the border undefined. hidden europe reader ...

Four times a day the small border village of Kuznica Bialostocka comes alive. hidden europe looks at cross-border trade at the Poland-Belarus ...

hidden europe reports on the ancient, eccentric and probably harmless sport of ...

A little border curiosity from a rocky reef in the Baltic: Märket is a mere speck of land, shared by two countries - Finland and Sweden. Yet it is a household name among many radio ...

With Bulgaria joining the European Union on 1 January 2007, hidden europe drops in one of the countries more unusual communities - the tiny village of Rezovo that lies right on the Turkish ...

World history is daintily decorated with picturesque polities that were nipped in the bid by greater powers. But modern Europe still has some remarkable small territories. San Marino, the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Faroe Islands and the ...

Living on the old military frontier at the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Uskoks made a decent living. They are still there. Nowadays their homeland is where Croatia abuts onto Slovenia. Join us as we visit a few Uskok ...

With the expansion of the Schengen zone to encompass nine more countries, Europe's borders are fading fast. Communities once divided by international frontiers are happily united. But there is a downside, for fading borders within the European ...

The Estonian half of the town is called Valga and the Latvian side Valka. During the days of the Soviet Union, Moscow imposed a civic unity on the dual community. Now, with the extension of the Schengen area to include the Baltic States, that unity ...

We have all heard of Europe's microstates: Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, etc. But who now remembers the microstates of history? The Banat Republic, Carnaro, North Ingria and the Bavarian Soviet ...