CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Baarle-Nassau

municipality in the Netherlands

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ9811 ↗
Source-derived summary

Baarle-Nassau (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌbaːrlə ˈnɑsʌu] ) is a municipality and town in the southern Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. It had a population of 6,899 in 2019. The town is the site of a complicated borderline between Belgium and the Netherlands: it encloses 22 small exclaves of the Belgian town Baarle-Hertog, of which the two largest contain seven counter-enclaves of Baarle-Nassau, and the main body of Belgium contains another.

Geography

The border with Baarle-Hertog, Belgium

Baarle-Nassau is closely linked, with complicated borders, to the Belgian exclaves of Baarle-Hertog. Baarle-Hertog consists of 26 separate parcels of land. Apart from the main parcel, known as Zondereigen and located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas, there are 22 Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other parcels on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also six Dutch exclaves located within the largest Belgian exclave, one within the second-largest, and an eighth within Zondereigen. The smallest Belgian parcel, H7, locally named De Loversche Akkers, measures 2,469 square metres (26,580 sq ft).

The border's complexity results from numerous medieval treaties, agreements, land-swaps and sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant. Generally speaking, predominantly agricultural or built environments became constituents of Brabant, while other parts devolved to Breda.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Baarle-Nassau” as municipality in the Netherlands. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2019—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Baarle-Nassau, municipality and Netherlands can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as municipality in the Netherlands. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9811. VIAF identifies the subject as 243558815. Authority coordinates are 51.450, 4.933. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2019.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Baarle-Nassau”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Baarle-Nassau primary sources, Baarle-Nassau archive and Baarle-Nassau research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Baarle-Nassau”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Baarle-Nassau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.