The Municipal Borders That Make Mt. Etna a Decipoint

What's a decipoint? It's the place where ten different geographical boundaries meet. I live within a rock's throw of a tripoint, where three counties meet, but you can't really stand on it because it's in a river. You know about Four Corners, the only spot in the US where four states meet at one point, called a quadripoint. There is only one place in the world where the boundaries of ten geographical units meet, and that is at the summit of Mt. Etna in Sicily.

Although Etna is an active volcano, there are plenty of towns surrounding it due to the fertility of the land. Ten municipalities draw their boundaries, or city limits as Americans say, up to the top of the mountain. Two more municipalities reach almost to the summit, as you can see in a map at the linked article. Why did they draw their borders like that? Well, if your town was that close to one of the world's most famous volcanoes, you would, too. After all, Etna is a big tourist draw. It erupts occasionally, and the lava flow is as liable to run down into one town as it is the others. Since they share the risks as well as the fertile soil and the tourists, that's how it ended up. Read more about the strange boundary lines leading to Etna at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: BenAveling)


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From the linked article: "But since the Antarctic Treaty of 1961 has effectively frozen all territorial claims in Antarctica, that decipoint at the bottom of the world is a decidedly theoretical one."
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