Sunday, March 22, 2009

Countries in funny places


Today, when I checked my "FEEDjit", I was stunned to find that someone from Saint Lucia had visited my blog!!! I know who it was, but can any of you guys guess who??? When I thought about how many countries I had on my Clustrmap (23 including Saint Lucia), I wondered how many left to go, and what percentage of all the countries in the world I had. After visiting About.com and finding out that there are 195 countries in the world, I quickly found out that I have 172 countries to go, and I have hits from around 12% of all the countries in the world so far. If you believe you are a geographical genius, see how many of the countries you can name. I didn't even know lots of them existed!!! Like Berkina for example, or Nauru and Suriname. Also, if you can do that (unlikely), then try and name their capitals (some have more than one). Now you're never going to get that!!!
There are only 192 member states of the UN, they do not include Vatican City (Holy See), Kosovo or Taiwan. Taiwan was a member state of the UN until 1971 when China claimed them as a province of China. Taiwan meets all the requirements of an independent country, and continues to press for full recognition as an independent country, but it is also due to political reasons that it continues to fail this struggle. The US department of state also only recognizes 194 countries, also leaving out Taiwan.
However, you need to recognize that there are dozens of places that are sometimes called "countries" but aren't at all - they're governed by other countries. Places commonly confused as being countries include Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Greenland, Palestine, Western Sahara, and even the components of the United Kingdom (such as Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, they come under the umbrella of the UK- they're not fully independent countries).
Either way, I am enjoying blogging, having fun learning all this stuff, and I hope you enjoy it too.
I got most of my information from About.com: Number of countries in the world and Capitals of every country in the world.
Quote of the day: The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be. - Walter Bagehot

2 comments:

Winged Hussar said...

Some people might find your title offensive.

pinky said...

i DON'T HAVE MANY PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES VEIWING MY BLOG!I FEEL SO LEFT OUT! HEE HEE!!