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I have come across this kind of sentence a lot but cannot figure out why the Japanese construct their sentences like this.
こうして、国境の両側で二つの町ができたのである。
As I understand, the subject here is 二つの町 and the verb is できた, のである is for emphasizing author's opinion. But isn't it weird that the sentence has a subject and verb already, but with the end in のである、it makes me confused that now, what is the subject of the sentence?
This is called である体 or だ・である調 (with だ), and is often used in writing. Essentially, である = だ's 連用形 + ある and functions a copula. I assume you'd be fine with the sentence coming in either of these two forms?
こうして、国境の両側で二つの町ができたのだ。
こうして、国境の両側で二つの町ができたのです。
Per 精選版 日本国語大辞典
口語文体の一つ。文末の指定表現に「である」を用いる文体。敬体の「です・ます体」などに対し、常体と呼ばれ、主として論説・小説など書きことばに用いられる。である調。
だ・である調 is often used as an alternative to です・ます調 and is often invoked in academic papers, opinion articles, and novels.
For the choice between だ and である when writing in だ・である調, see this answer:
