The Earth is big, and while most of it is covered in water, there is still quite a bit of land to go around. With billions of people, however, it often seems like there just isn’t enough land for everyone (this really couldn’t be further from the truth).

When you factor in greed, power-hungry countries, politics, and other factors, it is easy to see that throughout history, laying claims to more and more land was an essential pastime of any ruler.

This is why today all the land in the world is claimed by one country or another, or there is some sort of agreement between multiple countries to oversee it together.

Except for one piece of land that is about half the size of Rhode Island (2060 square kilometers (795 square miles), known as Bir Tawil.

This land is in the middle of the desert and covered with mountains, rocks, and other difficult terrain. It is situated between Egypt and Sudan in the northeastern part of Africa.

With a description like that, you would be forgiven for thinking that it isn’t owned by anyone simply because it is undesirable, but that is not the case. In fact, it has been populated for a very long time. Dean Karalekas is an associate research fellow in the University of Lancashire’s Centre of Austroeasian Studies, and he wrote:

“far from being an unpopulated patch of desert, a people called the Ababda have had a presence there going back at least as far as the Roman Empire. That this people have inhabited the area for millennia is without doubt.”

So, why is this area unowned by any country?

Not surprisingly, the answer to that question goes back millennia, but for the current situation, it isn’t quite as long (though still complex). John Elledge wrote a book about it in 2024 entitled A History of the World in 47 Borders, in which he explained:

“Inaccessible as it is, down the centuries Bir Tawil has been a distant outpost of assorted empires: Egyptian, Nubian, Ottoman, British. It was the latter’s taste for drawing lines across the map of Africa that led to the territory’s unwanted status. Because the British weren’t content with just one line – they insisted on drawing two.”

The first map from the British was in 1899 after the Mahdist War between Sudan and Egypt (which was a ‘secret’ colony of Britain). This line was between Sudan and Egypt, right along the 22nd parallel, nice and neat. Elledge goes on to explain that the second boarder:

“That is the second line created by the British. The ‘administrative boundary’ drawn up in 1902.” It made sense at the time, kind of – after all, cultural ties and traditional settlements rarely comport to a ruler-straight line on a map – but unfortunately, nobody bothered to make it clear which line was now the official border.

For a while, this didn’t matter, because – whatever language was used to half-heartedly disguise the fact – both territories were outposts of the British Empire. By the 1950s, though, both states were independent, and both – not unnaturally – decided they preferred the interpretation which gave them the larger territory.”

Egypt recognized the first border, but Sudan preferred the second, each wanting ownership of the better piece of land. Both countries want the Eastern side and therefore reject the smaller Western side.

Since 2000, Egypt has basically been in charge of Hala’ib (the desirable Eastern side), though not officially. Sudan could easily lay claim to Bir Tawil, but in order to do that, it would have to accept the boundary that gives up control of Hala’ib, and they certainly don’t want to do that.

This is not to say that Bir Tawil is not wanted by anyone. On the contrary, a minimum of nine people have laid claim to the land. Jeremiah Heaton is a farmer from Virginia. He visited the area in 2014 and declared it a new country of North Sudan with himself being the king.

When asked why he would do this, he said that his daughter wanted to be a real princess, and this seemed like the best way to achieve that goal for her. Of course, he didn’t stay in the area to rule over his new country, but he claims that he can rule remotely over the internet.

Many of the other claims are just as tenuous, which is why the UN doesn’t recognize any of them.

For the people who live in this region, its ownership seems to be little more than a formality. The Ababda have been living in the region for thousands of years, and no matter how the current abnormal border resolves itself, they will still be there for whoever claims to own it.

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