There is a zone of twenty precisely measured feet of naked North American land, kept strictly clear of people and trees and all invasive botany and on which no new buildings may ever, without permission, be erected nor any ditch dug, nor any road or bridge built, nor any pipe or electrical cable established, and in the exact middle of which stand a large number of white granite markers, a line connecting which officially demarcates the mutually agreed boundary that separates the Dominion of Canada from the Republic of the United States of America.
This is an international land border—at 5,525 miles the longest in the world. There is currently no wall or fence or watchtower built on or along or across the line, except for those movable gates or barriers that have been constructed at the 105 roadways where it is legal to pass through the border, and at the ends of the 14 tunnels or bridges where the boundary runs along a river or across a lake. It is said, proudly but these days quite erroneously, to be undefended and thus the longest such undefended border on the planet.
The line that demarcates the two neighboring states has come about as the result of a number of complicated negotiations and subsequent agreements that have been signed during a lengthy period from the late 18th until early 20th centuries by plenipotentiaries initially from the courts in such places as London and St. Petersburg, and with the signing ceremonies conducted in variety of cities, most of them in Europe, but with the American capital city of Washington, D.C., party to nearly all of them.
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