Enclave - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

ENCLAVE (a French word from enclaver, to enclose), a term signifying a country or, more commonly, an outlying portion of a country, entirely surrounded by the territories of a foreign or other power, such as the detached portions of Prussia, Saxony, &c., enclosed in the Thuringian States. (From the point of view of the states possessing such detached portions of territory these become "exclaves.") "Enclave" is, however, generally used in a looser sense to describe a colony or other territory of a state, which, while possessing a seaboard, is entirely surrounded landward by the possession of some other power; or, if inland territory, nearly though not entirely so enclosed, e.g. the Lado Enclave in equatorial Africa.