Quote:
Originally Posted by 10023
Using a river as a boundary is actually arbitrary as well, in the absence of any longstanding cultural divide along said river. Human civilizations generally developed along rivers, on both sides. It would make more sense to have a state around a river than to use one to delineate a boundary.
And the borders of the original colonies were often quite arbitrary in some places as well. Lines of latitude, etc.
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All borders are arbitrary. For instance, the United Kingdom arbitrarily claimed a tiny portion of the island of Ireland to be its sovereign territory, even though most of the United Kingdom is on the island of Great Britain. That minor detail is keeping the United Kingdom from exiting the European Union according to the results of a referendum from 2016...