# In 1800, 10% of the world's poorest nations were in Africa. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 24, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800 "2011-01-24T16:47:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800/21 "2011-01-25T08:47:44Z")
The stat is presented is utterly ridiculous. Tell your friend you have a surefire way of ensuring that less than 0.5% of the world’s poorest nations are in Africa: get rid of all those independent countries and form the United States of Africa! ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800/22 "2011-01-25T16:48:01Z")
> [@grimpixie](#): > > “In 1800, 10% of the world’s poorest nations were in Africa. In 2000, 80% of the world’s poorest nations are in Africa” Wait, wait, wait. Regardless of how we choose to define “poor,” making a statement about _any_ percentage of “the world’s poorest nations” is completely meaningless. 80% of the world’s _five_ poorest nations? 80% of the world’s _hundred_ poorest nations? Unless you quantify the whole, citing a percentage thereof makes no sense. So no, there’s no way of verifying either part of this statement as presented. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800/23 "2011-01-25T17:53:19Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > Wait, wait, wait. > > Regardless of how we choose to define “poor,” making a statement about _any_ percentage of “the world’s poorest nations” is completely meaningless. > 80% of the world’s _five_ poorest nations? > 80% of the world’s _hundred_ poorest nations? > > Unless you quantify the whole, citing a percentage thereof makes no sense. So no, there’s no way of verifying either part of this statement as presented. Uh, yeah, that too. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800/24 "2011-01-25T18:00:43Z")
Surely one is supposed to parse the statement as “Of all the nations in the world in 1800, the 10% at the poorest end of the scale were in Africa” 😕 ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800/25 "2011-01-25T20:19:22Z")
> [@grimpixie](#): > > Surely one is supposed to parse the statement as “Of all the nations in the world in 1800, the 10% at the poorest end of the scale were in Africa” > > 😕 Yes quite, that objection is nonsensical. The proper objection is quite simply it’s not clear what data is based on, nor how one would count African nations c. 1800. Not as if Central African ones, for example, were reporting to the UN or whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![Apex\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800/26 "2011-01-26T06:15:55Z")
> [@grimpixie](#): > > Surely one is supposed to parse the statement as “Of all the nations in the world in 1800, the 10% at the poorest end of the scale were in Africa” > > 😕 It sounds like you’re saying the statement means that in 1800 the bottom 10% poorest countries were all African. So how could the bottom 80% poorest countries be African? The term “poorest nations” needs to be defined as well as the proper statistics presented (they probably don’t even exist). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-1800-10-of-the-worlds-poorest-nations-were-in-africa/568800.md?page=1)