This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these

amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the

Cabinet of Curiosity's. We all know what Egypt looks like on a map. It's a squareish country cut out of northeast Africa,

easily distinguishable on a map by the Nile River Delta at the north end. But if you direct

your attention to the southern border, you may see something

a little odd on some maps. There's a strange bump on the bottom of the Egyptian border,

indicated by a dotted line that crosses into the territory of Sudan. This territory is called

Beirtowil, which means tall water well in Arabic, and it exists in a fascinating legal gray area.

Beer to will is the only habitable land on planet Earth, not claimed by one country or another.

Egypt claims its Sudanese territory, and Sudan claims that it's part of Egypt.

With neither country claiming proper ownership, it's left to become a true no man's land.

It has no capital and no major cities. According to most sources, the population consists

mostly of nomads and miners who pass through the land. That's people who dig in the earth,

not little kids, just to clear that up. So how does something like this happen? What causes a

territory with no ruler

to appear in the middle of North Africa? Well, unsurprisingly, Beir-to-will exists because of

borders drawn in the early 20th century by the British Empire. The original border

between Egypt and Sudan was drawn during the British occupation of Egypt in 1899, without consideration

for the actual geography and the cultural borders of the region. Three years later, in 1902,

the British administrators of Egypt amended this oversight, creating the squiggly border that

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