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By BUGLE | July 2026 | Last updated: July 2026 Look at a map of India and you'll spot it immediately once you know where to look: a narrow waist of land in West Bengal, barely 20 kilometers wide at its tightest point, through which every road, railway line, and pipeline connecting mainland India to its eight Northeastern states must pass. Indian strategists call it the "Chicken's Neck." It's one of the most consequential pieces of geography in South Asia — and, as it turns out, one of several places on Earth where an accident of history left a country's territorial unity balanced on a startlingly thin strip of land. What's in this guide What the Chicken's Neck actually is · Why it exists — a 1947 accident · What makes it a live strategic concern in 2026 · How India is responding · Other strange chokepoints around the world · Why geography like this matters more than it should What the Chicken's Neck actually is Officially the Siliguri Cor...

By BUGLE | July 2026 | Last updated: July 2026 China claims almost the entirety of an Indian state roughly the size of Austria, calls it "South Tibet," and periodically publishes lists of Chinese names for its towns, rivers, and mountains — the sixth such list came out in April 2026. India governs the region as Arunachal Pradesh, holds elections there, and calls the claim baseless. In between sit around 1.4 million people whose citizenship has, on at least one documented occasion, been disputed at a foreign airport simply because of where they were born. Here's how this dispute actually started, what each side argues, and why it keeps resurfacing. What's in this guide The colonial-era root of the dispute · India's case · China's case · The 1962 war and what changed after · Why it flares up again and again · The most recent developments · Life at the center of a dispute neither side will drop Where this started: a 1914 meeting nobody fully agreed to In...