What's the largest country you can't name 3 things about?

[RivkahChaya]

@Peremensoe

You wanna get serious? Name things that are only true for each country.

I’m not sure I can think of three things that are uniquely true for the US.

[vontsira]

@Siam_Sam

My favorite Mongolian fact is the Mongolian Neo-Nazi Movement.

Truly a strange – and alarming – bunch of people. I wondered whether the article might (in fact it doesn’t) mention this guy:

Roman von Ungern-Sternberg

– who is one of my favourite Mongolia-related features, in a horrid kind of way.

[Donnerwetter]

Azerbaijan.

I actually managed to come up with 3 factoids:

(1) capital: Baku
(2) kind of like Turkey
(3) oil

But that’s about it.

[Donnerwetter]

Now I actually went through the list.

My definitive answer is:

Burkina Faso

(1) used to be called Upper Volta
(2) capital: Ouagadougou (spelling?)
(3) ?

(Obviously, Burkina Faso is an African country, but that shouldn’t count as knowledge)

[Double_Foolscap]

Oof. Indonesia.

It’s a country I just don’t know anything about; it never came up in school, none of my interests relates to it, and I don’t know anybody from the area.

Sorry, Indonesia: I’m sure you’re lovely

[MrDibble]

@vontsira

Mr. Dibble – if I understand rightly, for a while in the latter half of the 20th century, black militants in your country of South Africa, sought to rename the country, once white rule got rid of, “Azania”

Some few did (mostly these kind of guys), but never a large enough grouping. I don’t think the lack of pick-up had anything to do with Waugh so much as, well, Azania as a name for South Africa rather than just Africa has no real relation to local names and everything to do with shitty pre-war archaeology.

[astorian]

@astorian

Never mind 3 things, I can’t tell you ONE thing about Uzbekistan.

I figure some former SSR would trip me up.

Duh- I knew it was a former SSR. That’s one thing.

I feel better now.

[astorian]

@astorian

Never mind 3 things, I can’t tell you ONE thing about Uzbekistan.

I figured some former SSR would trip me up.

Duh- I knew it was a former SSR. That’s one thing.

I feel better now.

[Shalmanese]

@RivkahChaya

I’m not sure I can think of three things that are uniquely true for the US.

It’s capital is Washington DC, it’s President is Barack Obama and it contains the Grand Canyon.

[vontsira]

@MrDibble

Some few did (mostly these kind of guys), but never a large enough grouping. I don’t think the lack of pick-up had anything to do with Waugh so much as, well, Azania as a name for South Africa rather than just Africa has no real relation to local names and everything to do with shitty pre-war archaeology.

Thanks for interesting gen about the putative “SA – Azania” name-changing issue. One thoroughly “get-a-life” bit of hyper-trivial geographic nerdery which has occurred to me: if things had in fact gone that way, there would have come to be a chain of contiguous nations with “z” in their names, all the way from the Cape to Lake Victoria – via more-than-one alternative routes.

[Boyo_Jim]

The only countries I don’t know three things about are the ones whose names I don’t even know.

1. I know the country’s name.
2. I know there are people who live in it.
3. I know that it’s on Earth.

I can’t imagine anyone who knows the name of a country that can’t at least speak 3 facts about it.

[Peremensoe]

@RivkahChaya

I’m not sure I can think of three things that are uniquely true for the US.

What? Of course you can. With specific names and dates from history it should be easy to come up with hundreds.

[Nelson_Pike]

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?

I get stuck on #62 Burkina Faso. All I know is that it is in Africa. I think it is majority Muslim, arid, and inland.

@Peremensoe

You wanna get serious? Name things that are only true for each country.

This is a good suggestion. I get stuck on #52 Ivory Coast. I do not know one unique thing about it. All I know otherwise is that it is on the West coast of Africa, is tropical, and is in the ongoing ebola outbreak zone.

[even_sven]

@Nelson_Pike

This is a good suggestion. I get stuck on #52 Ivory Coast. I do not know one unique thing about it. All I know otherwise is that it is on the West coast of Africa, is tropical, and is in the ongoing ebola outbreak zone.

Abidjan was once known as “the Paris of Africa,” and was considered quite cosmopolitan.

Cote D’Ivoire is the home of Coupe Decale music, a form of exceptionally obnoxious (but quite catchy) pop music popular in West Africa and among the diaspora.

In the mid-2000s, a European mobile oil refining boat didn’t want to pay hazardous waste disposal fees, so instead they chose to head down to Cote D’Ivoire and arrange for a great deal of toxic sludget o be deposited at open sites throughout suburban Abidjan, leading to widespread injury and death.

[thelurkinghorror]

Slightly obscure African countries off the top of my head (except links and precise numbers):

Tanzania:

1. Merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
2. (Arguably) most famous person born there: Freddie Mercury (Farrokh Bulsara) in Zanzibar.
3. Religiously cosmopolitan - Christian majority, especially on mainland; Zanzibar is very Muslim. Mix of Catholic and Protestant, Sunni, Shiite, and Ahmadiyya.

Namibia:

1. Strongest German colonial influence in Africa.
2. One of the most Lutheran countries around, certainly outside of Scandinavia.
3. Site of one of Germany’s earliest genocides. More the result of one asshole than a government program like later. Pynchon wrote about it in both Gravity’s Rainbow and V.

Botswana:

1. One of Africa’s nicer (safe and democratic) countries.
2. Yet one of the worst for AIDS.
3. Hot as hell, but has a metal scene where guys walk around looking badass in leather.

DRC/RDC:

1. Belgian colony, awful under Leopold II.
2. Lumumba, Mobutu, the Kabilas.
3. ex-Zaire.

RoC:

1. French.
2. Communism took hold, whereas in Kinshasa Mobutu’s long regime was strongly anti-Communist.
3. Fancy lad sapeurs.
4. Probably mad their name got stolen.
5. ETA: doesn’t count because I just learned it: one of the militias in the civil war was “the Ninjas.”

The Ivory Coast is notable for being one of the few countries to have its official English name in non-English (Côte d’Ivoire). Timor-Leste is another.

[vontsira]

@thelurkinghorror

Botswana:

1. One of Africa’s nicer (safe and democratic) countries.
2. Yet one of the worst for AIDS.
3. Hot as hell, but has a metal scene where guys walk around looking badass in leather.

And also, of course, scene of the (IMO awful, campy, insipid – but seemingly adored by millions) cosy detective novels by Alexander McCall Smith.

[Annoying_Buzz]

I got stuck on Ghana. I knew it was in west Africa and is known for chocolate (or at least cacao) production, and that’s it.

Uzbekistan I knew was a former SSR, the capital is Tashkent,and it has some of the worlds worst-polluted areas (massive oil industry with zero oversight).

Tanzania I knew was a former British Colony, and had lakes Tanganyika and Victoria.1