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Maxim, you are right that \xA0 is a non-break space.
However, like the others already mentioned, the .split()
method defaults to breaking a string on whitespace
characters, not breakable whitespace characters. The intent
is not a typographical one, but originates from the desire
to quickly tokenize a string.

If you'd rather like to see a different set of whitespace
characters used, you can pass such a template string to the
.split() method (Walter gave an example).

Closing this as "Won't fix".