Miriam
Do you know all countries in the world?
I took this quiz with a son of mine: <a href="https://www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/how-many-countries-can-you-name" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/how-many-countries-can-you-name</a>;. First we competed against each other and I got only 133 countries in 15 minutes. Then we worked together. On our third try together we finally managed to name all and still had two minutes left. It is a fun way to learn about geography and there are definitely several countries about which I don't know much and should learn more. The list contains 196 countries. Basically it's the 193 member states of the UN plus 3 states. (Some people might be offended by this list depending on if they think that their state is missing on the list or a territory belonging to their country is listed as separate state but I hope that for most of you, it's just fun to test your geographical knowledge. And please let's not start a political discussion here which states should or shouldn't be included).
Especially, if you're not a native English speaker, it's very challenging to type all the country names correctly. At my first try, I had this low result also due to the fact that I just didn't know the correct English spelling of many countries and tried to write them the German way but then the quiz wouldn't accept them.
When reading the comments to the quiz, I learnt that Swaziland was renamed Eswatini in 2018. When looking for some nice music in Siswati I found the singer Sands: <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/sands-swazi-singer-tigi-siswati-fashionable/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.okayafrica.com/sands-swazi-singer-tigi-siswati-fashionable/</a>;.
Then I remembered the discussion by Adam, where he complaint that South Sudan isn't in the italki country list: <a href="https://www.italki.com/discussion/220800" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.italki.com/discussion/220800</a>;, so I decided to check out the list and was surprised that the italki list, indeed does not list the internationally recognized state of South Sudan but has several dependent territories that aren't actual countries and are hardly inhabited. There are for instance:
<ul><li>South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Georgia_and_the_South_Sandwich_Islands" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Georgia_and_the_South_Sandwich_Islands</a>; (no permanent native population, only small non-permanent population)</li><li>United States Minor Outlying Islands: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Minor_Outlying_Islands" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Minor_Outlying_Islands</a>; (The only human population consists of temporarily stationed scientific and military personnel. )</li><li>Heard Island and McDonald Islands: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island_and_McDonald_Islands" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island_and_McDonald_Islands</a>; (uninhabited)</li><li>Pitcairn: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands</a>; (If you never heard of Pitcairn Islands you should definitely check it out. Wikipedia says: "Pitcairn is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world. The Pitcairn Islanders are a biracial ethnic group descended mostly from nine Bounty mutineers and the handful of Tahitians who accompanied them, an event that has been retold in many books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. Today there are approximately 50 permanent inhabitants, originating from four main families."</li></ul>This makes one wonder how italki chooses the regions they put in their list...
Did you take this or a similar quiz? Was there a country you never heard of or a region where you hardly know any countries? Did you learn something interesting?
1 พ.ย. 2019 เวลา 15:25
ความคิดเห็น · 3
2
Interesting info, Miriam! Thanks for sharing! I can't name them all but maybe I can say if it is a country or not. I was using an gaming app about countries and flags and It was fun but I had always trouble figuring out the island countries in maps, especially the small Oceania countries.
1 พฤศจิกายน 2019
1
Short answer to your question - YES. When I was a small child my favourite toy was a globe.
1 พฤศจิกายน 2019
1
While an uninhabitated region like Heard Island and McDonald Islands is included in the countries and regions list, they overlooked Tristan da Cunha, the world's most remote inhabited island: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_da_Cunha" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_da_Cunha</a>;, even though there are 250 permanent inhabitants there: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ElF8awm90" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ElF8awm90</a>;.
Wikipedia explains: "Tristan da Cunha is a British Overseas Territory with its own constitution. There is no airstrip of any kind on the main island, meaning that the only way of travelling in and out of Tristan is by boat, a six-day trip from South Africa. [...] The current residents are thought to have descended from fifteen outside ancestors, eight male and seven female, who arrived on the island at various dates between 1816 and 1908. The men were European, and the women were mixed race and African. Now all of the population has mixed ancestry. In addition, a male contributor of eastern European/Russian descent arrived in the early 1900s. In 1963, when families returned after the evacuation due to the 1961 volcanic eruption, the 200 settlers included four Tristan da Cunha women who brought with them new English husbands."
1 พฤศจิกายน 2019
Miriam
ทักษะด้านภาษา
ภาษาจีน (กลาง), ภาษาฟินแลนด์, ภาษาฝรั่งเศส, ภาษาเยอรมัน
ภาษาที่เรียน
ภาษาจีน (กลาง), ภาษาฟินแลนด์
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