Turks and Caicos Islands:
Small island group south-east of the Bahamas; effectively a continuation of that island chain.
British Overseas Dependency.
Capital: Cockburn Town.
And I can’t resist doing the Alands –
Group of small islands a little way off the coast of Finland: Finnish territory.
Inhabitants are virtually all ethnically-Swedish, Finnish citizens.
These islands were the base of the world’s last commercial fleet of big sailing ships: run by Gustav Ericsson, active until just after World War II – the outfit’s demise, basically due to the war.
As I’ll shortly be spending a few days with limited Internet access: am indulging self now, with next on list – an “odd ‘un”: 229, the British Virgin Islands.
British Overseas Dependency, located immediately east of the US Virgin Islands.
Capital: Road Town.
I believe that the Virgin Islands group were named by Columbus after the Eleven Thousand Virgins who, with St. Ursula, were martyred while on a pilgrimage, by the heathen barbarians du jour.
Next, as above: 230, Cook Islands.
Allrighty… so they once again reset the numbering to count only those fully recognized and functioning as independent.
Sort of 230 - Cook Islands
Another “Freely Associated” Pacific island state, this time with New Zealand. Cook Islanders are legally citizens of NZ, but people from NZ are NOT Cook Island citizens.
Recognized by UN as having international legal personhood, but not a member.
Named after, duh, Captain Cook, even though he did not really “discover” them.
195 Palau
Republic, the final piece of the former Pacific Trust Territory “Freely Associated” with the USA (see post #221, on the Fed. States of Micronesia, for explanation)
Includes the site of WW2 battle of Peleliu
Flag is a yellow sundisc offcenter on blue field
(How come these two are recognized as sovereign and associated, but one is not numbered? My speculation is that the Cook Island/NZ citizenship status, and the UN membership of Palau, may play a role)
Next batch of oddballs:
Bonaire
Anguilla
Wallis and Futuna
Back as we were, more or less… this is all becoming dizzy-making ! Re “one numbered, one not” – I’d go along with your explanation. In these obscure reaches of the world’s polities, one would reckon various anomalies as inevitable.
I’ll be perhaps a bit selfish, and help self to Bonaire and Anguilla – I’m better on the Caribbean, than the Pacific !
Bonaire
One of the “ABC” group of Dutch islands just off the Venezuelan coast: Aruba (does oil, and sand-and-sun); Bonaire (tiny, and kind-of “nothing much”); and Curacao (touristic quaintness).
The assorted Dutch Caribbean islands have assorted different status-es: Bonaire is a Netherlands Overseas Municipality.
Capital: Kralendijk.
Anguilla
Small island in the long “Leewards / Windwards” chain: British Overseas Dependency.
Capital: The Valley.
As mentioned in game entry for St. Kitts / Nevis: initially at independence, Anguilla was part of the nation of St. K. / N. There was a degree of discord, and (in the late 1960s IIRC) Anguilla requested and was granted return to British rule. This involved a (happily, bloodless) comic-opera-type episode, with a presence on the island for a time, of British troops and specially-assigned British police officers: the media had great fun with these doings.
I hereby exercise the option to ignore Wallis and Futuna because pretty much every human outside the locals, their immediate neighbors, and the French Overseas Office, has lived full satisfying lives ignoring Wallis and Futuna.
On to Tuvalu and Nauru if no other takers show up soon.
Me likewise with Wallis and Futuna, about which I know nothing except the name of the capital (looked up for use in the “A - Z World Cities” thread game); and territory’s name being reminiscent of a certain pair of lovable comic “Claymation” cartoon characters.
I’m in a similar situation re Tuvalu – so JRD, if you or anybody, can do anything with the place…