How many countries are younger than you?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Jr. and I were having dinner at a steakhouse recently. In chatting with our waitress, somehow our ages came up, as well as travels abroad. It was a slow night at Ruth’s.

When she mentioned she was born in Zimbabwe, I said “No you weren’t.” My gave me a WTF look, and she said “Yes I was!”. I repeated my statement, and then she said “Well, technically you’re right.” :smack:

Born in 1953 (like my sister), she was born in Rhodesia, or more properly, Southern Rhodesia, and lived there until long after it had become Zimbabwe, so that’s how she thought of her homeland.

And Jr. was suitably impressed once more with my knowledge of things arcane and useless. It’s good for your kids to think you’re smart. :smiley:

22

Hah! No kid will admit he/she (usually she) is older than a country.

23

You’re young. :slight_smile: I make it 118. Or maybe 119, as it inconveniently lists “1954” as the date for Vietnam.

24

Same way with Germany too, apparently.

25

I think the OP means sovereign countries. If so, colonial possessions which achieved independence would qualify as new countries, even though they had never been part of the UK. They were under UK sovereignty.

26

There’s also some ambiguity with countries like Canada and Australia. Canada was created in 1867, by an Act of the British Parliament. It didn’t have full sovereignty.

During WWI, the contribution by the Dominions to the war triggered the idea that they were equal partners in the Empire. This sentiment got imperial and international recognition when the Dominions signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

In 1926, the Balfour Declaration of the Imperial Conference declared that the Dominions were full and equal in status with the UK.

This was confirmed by the Statute of Westminster five years later.

However, the British Parliament still had the power to legislate for Canada and Australia, with the restriction from the Statute that it would only do so at the request of those countries.

The British Parliament periodically used this power at Canada’s request from 1931 until 1982, when it passed the Canada Act 1982, which finally transferred full sovereignty to Canada.

So when did Canada become a new country for the purposes of the OP?

1867, when Canada was created?

1919, when Canada signed the Treaty of Versailles?

1926, when the Balfour Declaration recognised Canada’s equal status within the Commonwealth?

1931, when the Statute of Westminster gave constitutional force to that equal status?

1982, when the UK renounced its power to legislate for Canada?

27

I was born in the late eighties, not late enough to catch the tale end of the Cold War.

This list should help

28

Thanks. For me, everything after North and South Viet Nam.

Does this mean I can declare myself a country?

29

Something that weirded me out recently was the realization that I personally have been alive for one quarter of the history of the United States (taking 1776 as the year of the nation’s birth).

30

Pangea

31

Germany, technically. It was the DDR and the GDR when I was born; the Wall came down when I was eight. Wikipedia says the official reunification was in 1991, the same year the USSR broke up, when I turned ten. A bunch of stuff around the Baltic also fragmented and reformed and fragmented again when I was in junior high, and some of them are still not done deciding exactly what the rest of the world should call them.

Some of these are recent enough I’ve only vaguely heard of them. I had no idea that Montenegro was its own independent state until one of my friends went on a pilgrimage to Eurovision a few years ago.

32

There is a lot of ambiguity in the origin of nations. Do we count a colony of Great Britain as a new country when it gains independence? What do we do with Lithuania which was once a vast powerful Northeastern Empire, and existed on and off for centuries as more or less an independent nation?

As I went through the list of nations, I came up with 113 new countries or ones made up from former colonies. That basically covers everything from 1943 onward. So former colonies, tiny island nations in the Pacific and so forth are included. I do think my number is too high…and I didn’t even count some that were “indeterminant” Part of the problem is that some countries were pretty much intact even before being freed of their colonial status; Mexico is an example. It was part of the Spanish Empire until 1821, but didn’t arrive in its present form until the Constitution in 1917. However in 1853 the Gadsden Purchase removed part of then Mexico to form part of Arizona and New Mexico. So when did Mexico become a nation?