UN Member States and Territories, Oceans and Islands#

Europe#

Africa#

Australia#

America#

Asia#

Territories, Oceans and Islands#

Note:
When we list the area of countries two main problems arise: (a) it is not clear what a country is (like: Taiwan is not recognized as country by UN due to vetoes of mainlaind China and allies; Cyprus is listed as one country by the UN despite the fact that it really consists of a Turkish part, a Greek part and two UK exclaves (!); (b) different data bases measure the size of countries differently: for either political reasons, or because they exclude/include lakes, glaciers and/or ocean channels). Similar problems happen with mountains (when their peak is at a border) or cities (because in some databases only the core is counted, in others the whole much larger metropolitan areas), etc.

When we list Nobel Laureats, it is also not clear how to associate them with a particular country: is it decisive where a person was born, where the person obtained the award, where the person did the work for which the award was given, etc. Also, the country where e.g. a person was born may not exist any more! Overall, we consider the country of birth most important, but also try to list persons under the country they live in when the award was given. And in case of country changes we add them to potentially more than one country.

All this shows: Questions we often pose are ill-posed. There is no clear answer to what is the largest cave, or how many Nobel Laureats belong to a country etc. etc. unless the question is formulated more specifically.

There is one more issues: Some topics that are often treated as one are not aprt of a country, like the Caribeean or General under General or Exotic places under Cross Country information.