Jan S. Krogh's Geosite: Enclave/exclave of Brezovica – a Croatian True Exclave in Slovenia

The village of Brezovica is consisting from a small Croatian part, Brezovica Žumberačka, and a major Slovenian part, Brezovica pri Metliki. The Croatian part of the village is further divided into three fragments whereof one is the exclave.  But in everyday life the village of Brezovica is functioning as one joined village. ⁴⁾

The photo above shows a part of cadastre no. 5990 inside the Croatian enclave in front of a Slovenian property behind the yellow Brezovica road sign. The Slovenian street goes towards west.
Photo © 2011: Fredrik Östman.

At Brezovica Croatia has one true very small exclave completely surrounded by Slovenian territory. The village is located about 4,4 km north of the Slovenian town of Metlika. Both Croatian and Slovenian cadastre maps confirm that there is one small enclave, although the boundary lines slightly differ. The exclave is about 437 m long and about 60 m wide and is populated by four dwellings surrounded by agricultural land. The closest distance to Slovenian mainland is about 100 metres.  The yellow boundary line is Croatian while Slovenian boundary is black lined. 
Location: 45°41'22"N  15°18'12"E. 

Croatian exclave boundary. (Click on the image for a high-resolution picture.)

Slovenian exclave boundary.

Orthophoto of the northern Brezovica border area.  Black boundary lines are according to the Slovenian cadastre map, while yellow lines are according to the Croatian cadastre maps. Both countries border lines coincide in general (maybe the Slovenian map is presented a bit inaccurate), but one property (marked in red ellipse) does according to both the Croatian and Slovenian maps neither belong to Croatia or to Slovenia ³⁾. According to the Croatian position the exclave northeast of this property is a Croatian exclave, but since the property at this house according to the Slovenian cadastre is not claimed by Slovenia the fragment is not surrounded by foreign territory and can therefore not be a True Exclave.

The Slovenian border post at Brezovica.  The roof of the house encircled on the above orthophoto is visible. Photo © 2011: Fredrik Östman.

Brezovica is located in the southeastern part of Slovenia, and about 50 km in air distance from Zagreb. Image: Open Street Map.

Yugoslavian topo map.  According to the map there is a chapel inside the exclave. ⁴⁾   According to Irena Poženel, the head of The Department for the State Border at the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia, explained on 15 April 2009 that the "border line" that connects the exclave with the rest of interstate boundary is a line plotted for only for identification purposes in a computer program that calculates the area of the closed polygon (in this case the entire republic). ^3,5,6

The Brezovica exclave street chapel.  Most likely the chapel is inside the Croatian exclave while the road is outside the enclave and in Slovenia. ³⁾ 
Photo © 2011: Fredrik Östman.

This orthophoto shows the entire boundary area with both areas. Distance from the northern area where Croatia claims a second exclave, to the small exclave is in air distance about 300 metres (air distance).