June 23, 2020

Mid-Range Countries

By roads-rus

dsc07006After listing the world’s largest and smallest countries, I got to wondering which countries are exactly in the mid-range respecting size.  The answer depends on which website you access and becomes confusing, so I decided to use the United Nations list of countries.  This organization must know.  However, country members are listed alphabetically and not by size.  I had to find a website that ranked countries of the world by size and discovered nationsonline.org.  It ranked them by size but recognized 234 of them.  The UN listed 193.  This country-ranking is fluid and interpretive, and I’m glad I’m not in charge of making such lists.

I began by looking at listofcountriesoftheworld.com.  It recognizes 191 countries.  I began scrolling and quickly found Akrotiri, Ashmore & Cartier Islands, which has zero population, and Bassas da India.  When I got to Bouvet Island, I abandoned this website because I didn’t know any of these countries.

IMG_4945But then I decided that the UN should know which entities are countries and learned that it recognizes 193.  To be sure, I read the entire list and knew every one of them but in alphabetical order.  It was worthwhile to do this.  Akrotiri was not on the UN list, and I learned that Swaziland changed its name 2 years ago.

I went to nationsonline.org, lister of 234 nations by size.  Its largest nations in the world list was the same as mine, but its smallest nations list was very different.  Its 10 smallest included Pitcairn Island, Gibraltar, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, and Bermuda.  Ready to give up, I learned that Bermuda was included because it’s officially listed as a United Nations Non-Self-Governing Territory and not a nation since Great Britain broke up its empire.  Oh.  Now I knew why the UN list in alphabetical order was the most reliable.

I divided the nationsonline list in 2 and found its mid-range countries by size included French Guiana, Austria, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Panama, Sierra Leone, Ireland, Georgia, and Sri Lanka.  Ruth and I have been to 5 of these, and I have a headache.

Hank

 

 

 

 

 

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020 at 8:20 pm and posted in Seen and Unseen Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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