There’s the border, then there’s The Border. One is a line drawn on a map for administrative purposes, sometimes comes with its own road sign. The other is a checkpoint where your documents are handed over and you’re at the mercy of the border authority. Usually doesn’t happen between towns, but those are pretty popular in places like Soviet Germany, apartheid South Africa and the West Bank for example.
Notice how there is no border between your town and the next one? Same, but on a larger scale.
But there is…
There’s the border, then there’s The Border. One is a line drawn on a map for administrative purposes, sometimes comes with its own road sign. The other is a checkpoint where your documents are handed over and you’re at the mercy of the border authority. Usually doesn’t happen between towns, but those are pretty popular in places like Soviet Germany, apartheid South Africa and the West Bank for example.
Internal border control is common in East Asia. India, China, North Korea, Bhutan, Malaysia and Vietnam have it with varying degrees of strictness.