# Why China, NOT Canada, is the world's 2nd largest country in land area!!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 3, 2000, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953 "2000-08-03T05:22:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@theuglytruth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theuglytruth)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/1 "2000-08-03T05:22:15Z")
Canada, it is said, with it’s massive 3.8 square mile landmass, is behind the 6.5 megs Russia as the world’s second largest country, whle China trails behind at #3 with 3.5 million sk.
But WAIT A MINUTE! Are the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut Territories REALLY part of Canada? Or are they just territories just like Guam and Puerto Rico are territories of the United States, and NOT really part of Canada?
In that case, that would chop off about 40% of Canada’s landmass, thus putting the Great White North far below China and even the good ol US of A in the world’s largest countries list.
Hey, if we can’t count Guam, Puerto Rico, Samoa and the Virgin Islands as part of our country, then I say Canada can’t count the Yukon, NWT and Nanuvut!
Sorry, Snowbirds, hate to piss on your picnic. But hey, there is always hockey!
NOW . . .I’ll set my stopwatch. My over and under on how long it will take some yahoo to post that Tibet is really not part of China is . . . . 57 minutes.
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### Author:  [@PowerpuffKue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PowerpuffKue)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/2 "2000-08-03T06:21:45Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by theuglytruth \*
> \*\*Canada, it is said, with it’s massive 3.8 square mile landmass, is behind the 6.5 megs Russia as the world’s second largest country, whle China trails behind at #3 with 3.5 million sk.
>
> But WAIT A MINUTE! Are the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut Territories REALLY part of Canada? Or are they just territories just like Guam and Puerto Rico are territories of the United States, and NOT really part of Canada?
>
> In that case, that would chop off about 40% of Canada’s landmass, thus putting the Great White North far below China and even the good ol US of A in the world’s largest countries list.
>
> Hey, if we can’t count Guam, Puerto Rico, Samoa and the Virgin Islands as part of our country, then I say Canada can’t count the Yukon, NWT and Nanuvut!
>
> Sorry, Snowbirds, hate to piss on your picnic. But hey, there is always hockey!
>
> NOW . . .I’ll set my stopwatch. My over and under on how long it will take some yahoo to post that Tibet is really not part of China is . . . . 57 minutes. \*\*
What I haven’t figured out is, are you posting a debate, or is this just a personal attack on Canada?
I’ll try to look for a debate… well I think I’ve found it, it’s hidden in ultra-U.S. pride.
Those are parts of Canada. Canada can waltz in and say, we own this, and is anyone really gonna protest, I mean not a notable amount of people live there, so it belongs to them. If the US wanted to, they could say to PR and Guam, “Your part of the US now, pay taxes or leave.” But we don’t, we let them vote to see if they want to, and they of course say no, they live tax free until they say yes.
So sorry, but those “territories” do count in the rankings. But honestly, I don’t see how PR, Guam, the Virgin Islands, etc would put us over Canada.
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### Author:  [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/3 "2000-08-03T15:49:14Z")
Um, PR, Guam, etc., ARE part of the U.S., and are counted in penis-measuring contests on how big the U.S. is. You should go to bed earlier, **truth** , your cognitive faculties were obviously impaired when you posted. 😉
Sua
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### Author:  [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/4 "2000-08-03T16:02:42Z")
As long as we’re on the topic…
What, exactly, is the status of the three Canadian territories? Do residents of the Yukon have all the same rights (voting, etc.) as their British Columbian cousins to the south?
Are they analogous to U.S. territories (not really full members of the club, but still included in the whole), or are they actually full members of Canada and just use the term “territory” for some reason (as some U.S. states use “commonwealth,” even though they are states).
Zev Steinhardt
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/5 "2000-08-03T16:25:52Z")
**Zev** , the Canadian territories are more analogous to Puerto Rico, sending non-voting delegates to Parliament while having to accept far more orders from Ottawa. The differences between provinces and territories is more than simply naming.
**theuglytruth** , you came _so-o-o-o_ close at 59 minutes to _some_ sort of response, (although neither Yahoo nor even Alta-Vista has shown up with a quibble over Tibet).
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### Author:  [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/6 "2000-08-03T16:31:03Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tomndebb \*
> \*\ ***Zev** , the Canadian territories are more analogous to Puerto Rico, sending non-voting delegates to Parliament while having to accept far more orders from Ottawa. The differences between provinces and territories is more than simply naming.
>
> \*\*
Thank you **tomndebb**. That was something I was wondering about.
With that answered, are there any plans to make Yukon, NW Territories (are there more than one?) and Nunavut full provinces?
Zev Steinhardt
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### Author:  [@Mauve\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauve_Dog)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/7 "2000-08-03T16:45:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by theuglytruth \*
> \*\*Canada, it is said, with it’s massive 3.8 square mile landmass, is behind the 6.5 megs Russia as the world’s second largest country, whle China trails behind at #3 with 3.5 million sk.
> \*\*
3.8 square miles is massive, eh? Funny, Canada always _looked_ bigger on a map…I keep telling people, “That Mercator Projection is nothing but trouble…”
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### Author:  [@Joe\_Cool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Cool)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/8 "2000-08-03T17:27:39Z")
Further question…
The last time I read anything about greatest landmass, it was the U.S.S.R., not Russia itself. Is Canada now in the #1 spot, since the Union dissolved? Or is Russia still the biggest, even if not as big as before?
That would make the O.P. sort of right: China _would_ be the 2nd biggest, U.S. 3rd, etc.
Hey, Tibet isn’t part of China!
(only kidding. Like I care about Tibet.)
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### Author:  [@ren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ren)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/9 "2000-08-03T18:46:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> With that answered, are there any plans to make Yukon, NW Territories (are there more than one?) and Nunavut full provinces?
I don’t know about Yukon or the NW Territories, but Nunavut is clearly on a path towards independence (it remains to be seen whether they opt for total secession or to remain politically tied to Canada proper).
I’d post a link, but you can mine all the information you want on this with “nunavut” in any decent search engine…
Q: Without Nunavut, is Canada still the 2nd largest nation? (At first glance that seems an obvious yes, but I don’t have the land areas handy…)
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### Author:  [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/10 "2000-08-03T19:00:19Z")
Speaking from personal experience, China certainly SEEMS larger than Canada. Probably because so much of Canada is so isolated or is thought of as frozen wasteland.
China spans 5 time zones. Count 'em. 5. (Even though the entire country has standardized on a single timezone.) When you’re in Urumqi (NW China, west of Mongolia) you are actually closer to _Paris_ than you are to many parts of China.
But the tape doesn’t lie… The winner of the second biggest dick contest is … Canada!
I’ll repeat an earlier posed question: Why is this in Great Debates? It certainly seems mundane and pointless to me. Perhaps we need a thread for such stuff. 😃
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/11 "2000-08-03T19:15:01Z")
Canada has 5 time zones (Newfoundland, Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific).
You could say 4.5 time zones, since Newfoundland is only 30 minutes different from Atlantic.
The NWT, Yukon, and Nunanvut have one big problem for becoming a province: people. There aren’t many people who live up there. Also those who live up there depend a lot on Ottawa for subsistence.
They are nice places to visit however and I would recommend the one place in Inuvik that serves muskox burgers, although I can’t remember the name.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/12 "2000-08-03T19:40:45Z")
Canada does have lots and lots of unusable land…tundra, taiga, mountains, etc.
But so does China. Most of eastern “China” is desert inhabited by moslem nomads. And of course Tibet and the areas around it are sparsely inhabited mountains. 90% of China’s population lives in the Yangtze-Yellow River basin.
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### Author:  [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/13 "2000-08-03T20:25:14Z")
Acoording to the [CIA World Factbook](http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html):
Russia: 16,995,800 sq km
China: 9,326,410 sq km
Canada: 9,220,970 sq km
All sizes are for land mass only. If you add water, Canada’s bigger than China.
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### Author:  [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/14 "2000-08-03T20:26:51Z")
BTW, from the same source, China has twice the arable land by percentage (10%) than Canada does (5%).
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### Author:  [@Dumb\_Ox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumb_Ox)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2000, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/15 "2000-08-03T20:31:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> My over and under on how long it will take some yahoo to post that Tibet is really not part of China is . . . . 57 minutes.
Well, if you want to take the side of the Chinese government in their dispute with Tibet, that’s fine. But Canada’s claim on the Yukon, Northwest, and even Nunavut Territories is at least as strong as China’s claim on Tibet. As I see it, if you’re going to exclude the territories, you have to exclude Tibet.
And, for the record, I’m not just _some_ yahoo, I’m the _original_ yahoo.
**ren**
> [@](#):
>
> Q: Without Nunavut, is Canada still the 2nd largest nation? (At first glance that seems an obvious yes, but I don’t have the land areas handy…)
The figures on [this site](http://npc.nunavut.ca/eng/nunavut/general.html) suggest that if Nunavut secedes (the whole territory, not just the lands in the Land Claim Agreement), Canada will no longer be second. China is 9,596,961 sq km. Canada with Nunavut is 9,970,610 sq km. Canada without Nuavut is 7,976,610 sq km. (Nunavut itself is 1,994,000 sq km.)
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### Author:  [@theuglytruth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theuglytruth)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2000, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/16 "2000-08-04T13:42:28Z")
If Nunavut becomes 100% independent, who will be responsible for their defense? Eskimos with spears? I just cant believe that Nunavut would become a country without some MAJOR strings attached from Ottawa. Even Quebec would probably have to use Canada’ army and currency.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2000, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/17 "2000-08-04T23:03:48Z")
OK.
NWT, YK, and NU are 100% bonafide parts of Canada. They belong to us and we belong to them. There are no question as to what country the territories constitute, nor the nationality of the people residing therein.
If you go to the CIA World Factbook [http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html](http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html), you will find Guam, Puerto Rico, etc, as separate entries from the United States. However, this will not be true of Nunavut, Yukon, or the Northwest Territories.
The territories indeed have a different political system from the provinces, but in that way they are more closely comparable to (for example) Washington DC than they are to Puerto Rico.
So, to answer the OP: Yes, the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are REALLY part of Canada.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2000, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/18 "2000-08-04T23:05:20Z")
By the way, since when is Nunavut trying to become an independent country? This is the first I’ve heard of it, and I’m a Canadian, news junkie, and son of the journalist who covered the division of Nunavut and NWT for CBC Radio.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2000, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/19 "2000-08-05T02:04:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tomndebb \*
> **Zev, the Canadian territories are more analogous to Puerto Rico, sending non-voting delegates to Parliament while having to accept far more orders from Ottawa.**
Are you sure? [This site](http://www.georgetown.edu/LatAmerPolitical/Constitutions/Canada/canada1867.html) spells out the representation of provinces and territories as of the 1980s. YT and NWT were entitled to one seat each in the Senate. In the House of Commons, YT got 1 seat and NWT got 2. I could find no mention of these being non-voting delegates. [The Canadian Parliament site](http://www.parl.gc.ca/36/sm-mpcur-e.htm) shows that each of the 3 territories now has one MP and one Senator. No mention is made of their being non-voting.
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### Author:  [@Scribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribe)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2000, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-china-not-canada-is-the-worlds-2nd-largest-country-in-land-area/27953/20 "2000-08-05T02:12:16Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tomndebb \*
> **Zev, the Canadian territories are more analogous to Puerto Rico, sending non-voting delegates to Parliament while having to accept far more orders from Ottawa. The differences between provinces and territories is more than simply naming.**
Sorry, Nunavut, the N.W.T., and the Yukon do elect Members of Parliament, exactly as the rest of Canada does. The Prime Minister also appoints Senators from these areas too (but fewer than the Provinces get).
I’d say the Territories are basically de facto provinces in many ways–as they elect their own governments, with powers similar to the provinces down South. I don’t think, IMO, there would be serious objections if they wanted to become provinces.
I think the references to Nunavut “independence” refer to the fact that that territory’s government is mostly run by the region’s aboriginals, who are trying to negotiate special extra, powers based on their aboriginal treaty rights. They wouldn’t want to form a completely independent country, I suspect.
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