Going down the list of countries by population, what’s the largest country that you’re so ignorant about that you can’t list even 3 things about it, no matter how trivial?
For me, here’s how it went down:
[ol]
[li]China: Mao, Communist, Spring Rolls[/li][li]India: Formerly British, Gandhi, Curry[/li][li]United States: Freedom, 4th of July, Apple Pie[/li][li]Indonesia: Muslim, Sukarto, Nasi Goreng[/li][li]Brazil: Football, Rainforest, Rio de Janeiro[/li][li]Pakistan: Dislikes India, Osama Bin Laden found there, Has nukes[/li][li]Nigeria: Speaks English, Has oil, on the Niger Delta (this one was tough)[/li][li]Bangladesh: Surrounded by India, has over 100M people… That’s all I got. I know almost nothing about Bangladesh. [/li][/ol]
The next ones I failed on the list were Democratic Republic of Congo (jungles, and formerly Belgian were the only things I could list), Tanzania (African, on the ocean) & Uzbekistan (Formerly USSR, made fun of by Borat).
Kazakhstan was the country Borat was from but Uzbekistan was the one he constantly made fun of. Also, Bangladesh isn’t technically completely surrounded by India but it shares like, 90% of it’s border with India.
We might want to qualify that “no matter how trivial” proviso, or people will just say things like “it has the letter U in the name”, or “it’s in Africa”.
In the spirit of the OP, the African countries will be my downfall. If not Democratic Republic of the Congo then Tanzania. One of the Congos used to be called Zaire, but I’m not sure if it’s the Democratic one. Biggest city is either Brazzaville or Kinshasa, the other of which is directly over the river in the other Congo. Even that’s only really two things, so I’m saying DR Congo.
It is mostly desert. There is a Lake Chad, though. First country to recognize the independence of the Moon in Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. … Er, you don’t want to leave it hanging, or you may get Bush.
I got as far as the Comoros (no. 165 on the list), by which I was stumped. I didn’t even know that this island group was an independent nation – had thought that it belonged to Madagascar.
Further up the list, as regards “knowing three things”, I maybe cheated a bit – with my being a keen railfan, for many countries my third thing known was: what are / were the country’s railways or one-time railways like – or, as appropriate, “the country has never had any railways”.
There’s Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and they seem per the map to be sort-of wrapped around each other. The capital of one is Tashkent, and the capital of the other is Alma Ata, and I can never for the life of me remember which capital belongs to which country. I used this about “confusable capitals”, as one of my three things for both countries.
Stumbled on 46, Ghana : there used to be a Ghana empire, it was colonized by the Brits, and then…blank. I had no clue what the neighboring countries were, what’s the name of the capital, what they produce…nothing.
There are only four in the top 46 that I’ve not visited (Japan, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan), so I guess know three things about all of them pretty far down the list. I guess I’d have to go down to #74, South Sudan, I haven’t been there and haven’t had much time to brief myself on it. As an avid childhood stamp collectors, it’s hard to stump me on any place that has ever issued postage stamps.
Wow you guys are good. I struggled with but did get past #4 Indonesia, but then I got sacked by #7 Nigeria. I knew the African countries would be my downfall but was surprised that I struggled with Indonesia, so early in the list.
I’ve travelled a little, too. At last count it’s 29 countries (I don’t count airport connections). So I do get out a little bit.
I’ve never been there – but IMO, seems a rather nice part of the world, though horridly overpopulated. Uninhabited by humans until some 400 years ago; after that, was Dutch, then French throughout basically the eighteenth century, then a British colony until achieving independence within the British Commonwealth in the 1960s. Culture and language have remained largely French; though most of the inhabitants hail from the Indian sub-continent. Mauritius was the home of the famously extinct bird the dodo – flightless and ridiculously fearless and tame, it was rapidly wiped out by visiting seamen and their attendant vermin, early in the era of Mauritius’s being known to exist.
Oh, and the island once had a quite comprehensive railway system – the last bit of which was abandoned in the 1960s.
