In political geography, an enclave is a piece of land which is totally surrounded by a foreign territory. An exclave is a piece of land which is politically attached to a larger piece but not physically conterminous with it because of surrounding foreign territory. Many entities are both enclaves and exclaves.
Some enclaves are sovereign states, completely surrounded by another one, and therefore not exclaves. Three such sovereign countries exist:
To be a true exclave, all potential paths of travel from the exclave to the main region must cross over the territory only of a different region or regions having the equivalent governmental administrative level.
Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border, would otherwise be enclaves or exclaves. Semi-enclaves can exist as independent states that border only one other state. Vinokurov (2007) declares, "Technically, Portugal, Denmark, and Canada also border only one foreign state, but they are not enclosed in the geographical, political, or economic sense. They have vast access to international waters. At the same time, there are states that, although in possession of sea access, are still enclosed by the territories of a foreign state." Therefore, Vinokurov applies a quantitative principle: the land boundary must be longer than the coastline. Thus he classifies a state as a sovereign semi-enclave if it borders on just one state, and its land boundary is longer than its sea coastline. Vinokurov affirms that "no similar quantitative criterion is needed to define the scope of non-sovereign semi-enclaves/exclaves."
A pene-exclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be approached conveniently — in particular by wheeled traffic — only through the territory of another country. Such areas are enclaves or exclaves for practical purposes, without meeting the strict definition; hence they are also called functional enclaves or practical enclaves. Many pene-exclaves partially border their own territorial waters (i.e., they are not surrounded by other nations' territorial waters). A pene-enclave can also exist entirely on land, such as when intervening mountains render a territory inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. Thus, a pene-exclave has land borders with other territory but is not completely surrounded by the other's land or territorial waters. They can exhibit continuity of state territory across territorial waters but, nevertheless, a discontinuity on land, such as in the case of Point Roberts. Along rivers that change course, pene-enclaves can be observed as complexes comprising many small pene-enclaves. Attribution of a pene-enclave status to a territory can sometimes be disputed, depending on whether the territory is considered to be practically inaccessible from the mainland or not.