This is every country in the world… by Wendover Productions.
We’ll start with Afghanistan, the first country alphabetically.
Afghanistan is one of the few countries worldwide to be offset from Greenwich Mean Time by a
30 minute interval, its at GMT +4:30, while China
is one of the many countries to only have one timezone… except its ginormous.
It aligns to GMT + 8 so that means that stepping over the 47
mile long Afghanistan-China border jumps you forward by 3.5 hours.
That’s the largest single time zone jump on earth.
China in all its craziness has rather ambitious plans to build a high-speed
railroad from Beijing, up across the Bering Strait, and down into the United States, which
happens to be the home of 41% of Wendover Productions viewers.
Up in the north-west of the US, Point Roberts, a part of the mainland US, is
cut off from the US by Canada and since it doesn’t have a high-school, students have
to cross into Canada then back into the US each day
on their way to school.
Canada happens to be the second largest country on earth and has more
lakes than the rest of the world combined.
Its so huge, in fact, that its easternmost point
is closer to Croatia than it is to Vancouver.
One of Croatia’s thousands of islands is Rab, the
birthplace of the sculptor Marinas who went on and
founded San Marino, the fifth smallest country in the world and one of three to be completely
surrounded by another country.
One of the others is the Vatican—the smallest sovereign state in
the world—and there’s also Lesotho, which is home to one of Africa’s seven ski resorts.
Lesotho is of course surrounded by South Africa which
is the only country in the world to have three capitals—Cape Town is the seat of the Parliament,
Pretoria is the home of the president, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital.
South Africa also almost completely surrounds another
country—Swaziland, where roads are so bad that two of the last four transport ministers
died in car accidents.
While mostly surrounded by South Africa, Swaziland’s eastern border is with
Mozambique, whose name scores higher in scrabble than any other one-word country, but in
second place for scrabble is Kyrgyzstan which is home to six enclaves, the smallest of which
is part of Uzbekistan and is only 2 miles wide.
In Uzbekistan, no river leads to the Ocean—they all
drain into endorheic basins where all the water evaporates out.
Uzbekistan is one of only two countries worldwide to be double-landlocked—as
in, landlocked by landlocked countries.
In this case, every surrounding country of Uzbekistan
also ends in -stan—Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan,and Turkmenistan.
The other double-landlocked country is Liechtenstein—a tiny and historically neutral
nation.
In their last military engagement in 1886, none of the 80 soldiers were injured or killed,
and they actually returned with 81 people since
they made a “new italian friend.”
Italy is home to the Breuil Cervinia ski resort where you can
ski across the border into Switzerland.
Switzerland is rather paranoid about war to the extent that
3,000 points of entry into the country are rigged to blow at an instant in case of invasion.
Switzerland is also home to one end of the shortest regularly-scheduled commercial international
flight in the world—a six minute, 10 mile jaunt over to Germany where its not actually
illegal to escape prison.
Seriously—they say its only human nature.
Germany is home to half of one of the world’s few internationally divided islands,
and the Polish side of this island, despite being only
200 feet from mainland Poland, is not connected by any bridges to Poland, so just like point
Roberts, residents have to cross international borders to get to their own country.
Poland also happens to have been a part of Sweden’s
monarchy for a brief eight years in the 16th century.
Sweden has an internationally divided island too, and this one is a mere 7 acres large.
The border looks like this because Finland accidentally
built a lighthouse in Swedish territory and so they
just readjusted the border to make everyone happy.
Finland has exactly 187,888 lakes, and its northernmost point is actually closer to Greenland
than Poland due to the curvature of the earth.
Greenland isn’t actually a country so I’m not allowed to talk about it—its a dependency
of Denmark, where its impossible to be more than
30 miles from the ocean.
The wife of Denmark’s Crown Prince, Crown Princess Mary, was born in Australia which
is the 6th largest country on earth and is home to the longest fence in the world—a
3,500 mile structure to keep wild dogs out of the the fertile south-east region.
The middle of Australia also has practically nobody and nothing in it except a 297 mile
long precisely straight section of railroad track.
Australia freed the country of Brunei from occupation back in WWII which is one of the
few countries worldwide to be comprised of two comparably sized sections.
St Kitts and Nevis is also split into two but that’s because its
a two island nation and also the smallest country in the
Americas.
In Saint Kitts and Nevis you can gain citizenship by making a $400 thousand real estate investment
much like Bulgaria, where people nod up and down to signify no and shake left
and right to mean yes.
Bulgaria is one of the few countries to have an embassy in North Korea
which created its own time zone in 2015 for no real reason than to be different.
North Korea is only separated by one country from Norway,
where more than half the population lives below
this line.
Between Norway and North Korea is of course Russia—the largest country in the
world.
Its easternmost point is, in fact, closer to Mexico than Moscow.
Mexico once had three different presidents in one hour during a
military coup, but also accustomed to short regimes is
Alsace-Lorraine in France which was an fully-recognized independent country for 12 short days
between being part of Germany and France at the end of World War One.
France, of course, had an enormous empire including Algeria which
is the largest country in Africa and unlike some of
its neighboring countries, is quite nice to women.
70% of the countries lawyers are female.
Right next door to Algeria is Morocco which has
de facto control of some of Western Sahara, a place
thats not really part of any country.
That’s why its always blank on data maps.
Morocco surrounds two Spanish exclaves, Ceuta and
Melilla, which are politically part of mainland Spain,
rather than overseas territories, despite being in Northern Africa.
Spain once had an enormous empire, part of which was Micronesia which
is now a US associated state, meaning they’re an
independent nation but the US covers defense and funding.
Micronesian citizens can join the US military without becoming a US resident—a
right only given to citizens of freely associated states.
Their currency is also the US dollar.
Palau is also a nearby US associated state which is
often compared to Fiji since they’re both idillic pacific island destinations even though
they're over 3,500 miles apart.
Fiji was a British colony up until 1970 and you have no idea how hard it
was to avoid using this transition up until now.
I could’ve used it with Nauru, St Kitts and Nevis,
Brunei, Australia, South Africa, Canada, the United States, and Afghanistan but I kept
it for now.
The UK is home to the shortest regularly scheduled commercial flight in the world between
Westray and Papa Westray in the Scottish isles.
It costs 17 pounds, takes 53 seconds, and traverses only 1.7 miles.
The UK has two exclaves—both of which are overseas territories.
One is Gibraltar, right across from Ceuta, and
the the other is Akrotiri and Dhekelia on the island of
Cyprus.
There are border control agents from three countries on Cyprus, the UK, Cyprus, and
Turkey.
Northern Cyprus is a self-declared state only recognized by Turkey who helps them keep
control of the territory with a heavy military presence and border control agents.
Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city on the planet to
span two continents—Europe and Asia—although there
are plenty of countries on two continents.
In Egypt, the Sinai peninsula sits in Asia while the rest
is in Africa.
Just past the southern border of Egypt is Bir Tawil, a piece of land claimed by no
country since Egypt and Sudan disagree on where their borders are.
Sudan recently split into two and created South Sudan—the world’s youngest
UN recognized country.
The second youngest country is Serbia which, up until 2006, was
called Serbia and Montenegro but split after a
referendum.
Montenegro also happens to be a town in Costa Rica where about 100 people live.
The capital of Costa Rica, San Jose, only allows car owners to drive 6 days a week to
fight pollution and congestion, so the last digit
of license plates correspond to their banned day.
Costa Rica’s southern border is with Panama, home
to the Panama Canal which, counterintuitively, has
its Atlantic end, the ocean to the east, to the west, and its Pacific end, the ocean to
the west, to the east.
Panama’s southern border is with Colombia but there's not one road crossing this 50
mile jungle which means its impossible to drive
between North and South America.
You probably know that Colombia was once part of Spain
but so was the Netherlands.
It was called the Spanish Netherlands.
The Netherlands is also home to Baarle-Nassau, one of the most messed up borders
in the world.
Belgium is well known for having a UN headquarters, and so does Nairobi, Kenya
—the suspected birthplace of the human race.
Kenya’s northern neighbor is Somalia, which received its first ATM machine in 2014.
Somalia has had three separate wars with Ethiopia in the
last century, and Ethiopia national airline was the second in the world to receive the
787 Dreamliner despite being the 13th poorest
country.
Ethiopia also has another one of those internationally divided islands, this one
with Djibouti, which is home to the lowest point in
Africa, Lake Assal, at 509 feet below sea level.
Djibouti also hosts the only US military base in
Africa, and Israel hosts one of the smallest ones, Dimona Radar Base.
Despite being a middle eastern country, Israel competes in Eurovision and many European sports
leagues since they’re culturally much closer to Europe than the
middle-east.
Israel has one of the weirder international borders with Palestine which is only a country
depending on who you ask.
The largest Palestinian community outside the Arab world
is in Chile which is one of the only countries to
have a government sponsored UFO research organization.
Chile is the southernmost mainland country in the world but doesn’t have the
southernmost commercial airport.
That title goes to Argentina with their Ushuaia – Malvinas
International Airport.
This (Iguazu Falls) spectacular waterfall is the border between Argentina
and Brazil which is home to the Amazon River, which
doesn’t have a single bridge over it.
Not one—its just in an area where practically nobody lives.
Recife, Brazil is closer to Dakar, Senegal than to Porte Alegre in South-western Brazil.
Just off the coast of Senegal is Cape Verde which is
pretty much paradise.
They have a high human development index score, high GDP, high literacy
rate, and the lowest recorded temperature in
history there was 50 degrees fahrenheit.
As a former Portuguese colony, Cape Verde speaks
Portuguese which is the 6th most spoken language in the world even though its origin country,
Portugal, is smaller than Kentucky.
They just had an enormous empire, which for a while
included Indonesia, which has another one of those internationally divided islands with
Papau New Guinea, similar to Hispaniola island which
is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Hispaniola is the 22nd largest island in the world but Madagascar is number four.
Its also the largest single-island-country.
85 million years ago Madagascar was connected to India
before the continents shifted but Sri Lanka was connected to India as recently as 1480
via a land bridge that has since eroded.
Sri Lanka is just north of the equator but right on the equator is
Ecuador.
Its capital, Quito, is only 20 miles from the equator so its day length varies by only
15 minutes between winter and summer.
Although, since the country is split by the equator, winter
and summer happens at the same time in the same country.
Ecuador is one of 30 countries to have an antarctic research base and right next door
to Ecuador’s base is Peru’s.
Copacabana, not that one, this one, in Bolivia, can only be reached by
driving through Peru.
Bolivia, despite being a landlocked country, maintains a 5,000 person
Navy, although Mongolia, also a landlocked country, maintains a navy that has one ship—a
tugboat—and seven total sailors.
Mongolia is also the least dense country on the planet with only
5 people per square mile.
While they may seem un-intimidating now, the Mongolian empire was
once, the largest contiguous land empire in history.
Part of that empire was Cambodia, which has changed its name six times in the last 65
years.
95% of Cambodia’s population is Theravada Buddhist.
The other major branch of buddhism is Mahayana Buddhism which is practiced in
Japan where, out of its total population of 126 million, they had three gun murders in
2012.
Iceland, however, can top that, because they had one murder total in 2012.
Of course, Iceland doesn’t have a huge population which makes
it less impressive until you consider that 30% of
Iceland’s residents own guns.
60% of that population, however, lives in this circle.
Iceland was also the first country to recognize Armenia’s
independence, and Armenia separates Azerbaijan from its Nakhchivan exclave and since the
Armenia-Azerbaijan border is closed, residents of
Nakhchivan have to go all the way around Armenia to get to to their own country.
Azerbaijan's national soccer team has played Andorra's
five times in the past few decades and four of those
games have ended in a 0-0 tie.
Andorra is the largest country in the world to not have an airport
which is less impressive when you consider that they’re the 19th smallest in the world.
The smallest country in the world to have a major
international airport is the Maldives, the 8th
smallest country.
This airport has dozens of destinations and is on a small island with no land
connections to other islands which means once you land you have to either take a boat or
seaplane to your destination.
One of the airport’s destinations is Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia
which is home to world's largest roundabout in Putrajaya at 2 miles in diameter.
Malaysia is the only country connected by road to Singapore,
the largest surviving city-state in the world.
Despite having hundreds of skyscrapers, Singapore is not the densest country in the world.
That title goes to Monaco which is less than one
square mile large.
Monaco has no income tax, much like the Bahamas, which is one of two countries
whose official name starts with the word “the”, the other one being the Gambia.
The Gambia’s interesting shape comes from the flow of
the river Gambia whose watershed reaches all the way to Guinea which is one of three countries
to have the word Guinea in its name.
The other two are Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea.
Guinea was once the word for the entire west-african region so when these countries became
independent from their colonizers many chose to include “guinea” in their names.
Equatorial Guinea’s capital actually isn’t on the
mainland—its on an offshore island—and, despite its name,
the equator doesn’t intersect Equatorial Guinea but the country is on both sides of
the equator since they have sovereignty over Annobón
island to the south of the equator.
This is similar to Kiribati—a nation comprising of a few dozen
islands in the Pacific.
Kiribati is the first place on earth to experience New Year’s since their
time zone is UTC +14—a time zone exclusive to
these islands.
Kiribati is close friends with Cuba since Cuba sent doctors to the islands who
reduced the child mortality rate by 80%.
Cuba—the only Caribbean island to have a commercial
railroad—is one of the few remaining communist states.
One of the others is Laos—the only landlocked country in south-east Asia—which
borders Vietnam—also communist and the 14th most populous country in the world despite
having the size of about New Mexico.
Vietnam is good political friends with Venezuela who
is not great friends with bordering Guyana since
Guyana thinks the border looks like this and Venezuela thinks the border looks like this.
Guyana —the only English-speaking country in South
America—borders Suriname—the smallest country in South America and the only country
other than the Netherlands whose sole primary language is Dutch.
Suriname was our 98th country so that means that we’re halfway through and that that’s
the end of part one of Every Country in the World, however, part two will be out on Tuesday,
December 13th so make sure you’re subscribed to catch that right when it comes out.
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I’ll see you next Tuesday for part 2 of every country in the world.