Talk:List of countries and outlying territories by total area/Archive 1

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Archive 1

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talk that occurred on the subject page during development

Why can't Norway be both 61th and 8th, if China is both 3rd and 4th? I guess other countries on the list has this problem as well.

don't worry... I WILL clean this up! - montréalais

I'm about to run this through a few RegExps in textPad ... soon be fixed. BTW I sure hope these are km², not miles2-- Tarquin

They are in km². (I`m canadian after all!) Also, only complete alphabetically up to I think Pakistan. Will finish. - montréalais

Done. Only took about 3 minutes with a few search & replace commands. (Perl would have been even cooler...). BTW, the Canada page says canada is 2nd largest, not first. -- Tarquin

I know. Like I said, I`ve only got up to Pakistan... and Russia comes after Pakistan in alphabetical order. As I say... WILL BE CLEANED UP! :) - m.

(slaps self...) you know, me and this alphabet thing... ;-) -- t.

All countries are now here. Still to be cleaned up somewhat. -m.

Changing format for non ranked territories et al

I thought that the format for listing non-ranked areas, like Antarctica, EU etc. looked much cleaner in the "countries by population" entry of Wikipedia, and changed the format for all non-ranked countries to mirror the format in said entry. Indeed, the way it was formatted in this article looked almost like some kind of formatting mistake. If you feel this is rash judgment on my part, I won't fight a revert if you explain your reasons adequately. Malnova 22:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

England, Wales and Scotland revisited

Why were England, Wales and Scotland removed? They are countries, not regions or ..., even if also part of the UK. Unless someone explains clearly, I'll put them back in shortly. -- SGBailey 11:56, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

England, Wales and Scotland (and Northern Ireland) are not self-governing countries for the purposes of this list. They are not listed on List of countries, which should be the basis for all the other lists of countries on WP. sjorford #£@%&$?! 16:11, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

They are administrative subdivisions of a sovereign state. They happen to be called "countries", but might as well be called "republics" or "states" or "emirates", as is the case with other sub-national entities. But if the list is for every entity that is called "country", then of course they do fit the criteria. Perhaps the name of the article need to be modified/specified so the reader is not in doubt about exactly what is being listed? --Big Adamsky 21:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

This list is not for every entity called "country". It is for self-governing entities, which are collectively referred to as "countries" for the sake of simplicity. England, Scotland and Wales are not self-governing. The title of the article is in line with all other lists of countries on Wikipedia, and the introductory paragraph adequately explains what is being listed. I realise I'm starting to sound tetchy here, but there really is nothing wrong with this article. sjorford (talk) 17:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. My comment was not really meant as a serious suggestion but more as gentle gesture towards those that are not familiar with Geography as a field of systematic study. Cheers! --Big Adamsky 18:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah right - end of a hard day's work I often can't spot sarcasm. Sorry! sjorford (talk) 19:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I reverted back to the addition of England and the other countries within the UK. They are perfectly legitimate additions for purposes of comparison. All the other territories et al included for comparison are largely packed at the beginning (huge masses like Antarctica) and at the end (tiny atolls only geography nuts know about). It is logical to put some in the middle, and to use recognizable names that are known to many. Besides, the fact that they are listed, but NOT as sovereign entitities might comes as a surprise to some who visit here and be an education for them. Malnova 21:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

That is completely understandable. however is it really necessary to list all three of them?i mean England is very well known and many think that it is a country, and Scotland, somewhat less, but Wales and Northern Ireland? you have to draw the line somewhere. most non sovereighn nations listed there are overseas territories, not subnational entities that may be mistaken for a country. id be willing to keep England and possibly Scotland but i dont think we need all four components of the U.K. Same goes for the articles on population and density.

I see your point, of course, and I considered this. But I figured that with the overkill of atolls and rocks in the middle of nowhere at the end of the list that no one would mind the addition of 4 more territories most everyone has heard of in the middle. I don't mind taking out one or two of the UK components, but it seems to me we should also eliminate 2/3 or more of the 1 kilometer islands with a population of 1 or 0 at the end. Malnova 11:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've removed them again. These four countries, as wonderful as they are, don't appear on any other similar lists of countries on Wikipedia, so they shouldn't appear here. I'm asking only for consistency. sjorford (talk) 00:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Archipelago Countries (UNCLoS)

I wonder why this "Country Size" is calculated only based on "Areas include inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers)". It is not fair for Archipelago countries, which according to UNCLOS their soverignty includes ALL body of water between the islands. It is paticularly true for my country, Indonesia, which is an archipelago. If you overlay a map of Indonesia on top of the map of (mainland) US, you will find that the length and width is almost equal, plus minus here and there. So, the size of Indonesia should almost be the same as US, give and take some numbers. Anyone have an accurate size number for Archipelago countries like Indonesia?

I learn from this page that the area of US is 9,629,091, but in the page United States, the figure is 9,372,610, which one is the correct one? :O --Samuel 10:59 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

9,629,091 sq km is the CIA World Factbook figure for the 50 states and D.C., land and water area. 9,158,960 sq km is the CIA's land-only figure, so that 9,372,6100 figure is odd ... maybe it's land-only, including overseas possessions?

The figure of 9629,091 is one that seems to have appeared in recent years, but the U.S. Bureau of Census gave a figure of 9,166,716 sq km of land and 202,910 sq km of inland water - to give a total of 9,369,885 sq km in each of the censuses of 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. This is only a guess but until the 1990's I understood the People's Republic of China (excluding Taiwan) to be the third largest country by area, whereas in the last decade, it seems to have been overtaken by the USA. Is it perhaps a political ploy to make PRC seem less significant? :P

In spanish I notice there is an entry for Western Sahara (#75). This throws the numbering off. Does anyone know what is right? Should it be included or not? Thnaks.Randyc

And not only is it an issue of discrepancy but it is also a discussion of whether one country should be classifed as a protectorate of another (only because of its claims to it, whether legally or not). This is for the specific case of the table here in question. These issues could clearly be hashed out on the individual country pages, but the question remains, for accuracy, should a country like Morocco lay claim to Western Sahara and therefore change the table layout? Randyc 18:02 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is there a more neutral view (or more widely accepted) other than CIA for listing sake (such as the UN)? Randyc 11:05 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hardly, but CIA can't be blamed for any neutral view either. --Ruhrjung 08:38, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Morroco has defacto but not official control over Western Sahara. This list is currently based on defacto sovereignty (the West Bank and Gaza are counted as part of Israel.) I guess legitimacy is not an issue. The template we use is not only used on sovereign states. For example, Hong Kong also has a country template.

based on defacto sovereignty. If this is the criterion, why is not mentioned in the article? Guillermo 10:03 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

As for the UN, admission and membership are contingent upon approval by member states themselves, namely, members of the Security Council. The Republic of China and Holy See (Vatican City) are non-members worth noting.

--Jiang 12:20 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

As far as any non-American listings go, the order for largest countries by area is:

Russia Canada China, People's Republic USA Brazil Australia India Kazakhstan Argentina Sudan Algeria Congo, Democratic Republic Saudi Arabia Mexico Indonesia

The major source I use is the Europa World Yearbook which supports 9,372,610 km² as the area of the USA. Also you put Argentina as larger than Kazakhstan but this is only possible if youy include the Antarctic areas which Argnetina lays claim to.

Saudi Arabia exceeds Mexico by almost 200,000 km², you seem to have exlcuded a sizeable chunk of it :)

Marionette

As far as any non-American listings go, the order for largest countries by area is:

Russia Canada China, People's Republic USA Brazil Australia India Kazakhstan Argentina Sudan Algeria Congo, Democratic Republic Saudi Arabia Mexico Indonesia

The major source I use is the Europa World Yearbook which supports 9,372,610 km² as the area of the USA. Also you put Argentina as larger than Kazakhstan but this is only possible if youy include the Antarctic areas which Argnetina lays claim to.

Saudi Arabia exceeds Mexico by almost 200,000 km², you seem to have exlcuded a sizeable chunk of it :)

Marionette

corrections

greenland is an integral part of denmark just as alaska and hawaii are in the usa and should be included in its area making it about the same as saudia arabia; french guiana, martinique,etc are departments of france (just like states in the usa) not dependencies.

I updated the area of OMAN but I see that the numbering is all fixed, is there any way to correct this without having to redo everything. The reason for the change in Oman area is to do with definition of borders, especially Yemen and UAE. I would guess that these countries shrunk as a result. Data change was 1995 or thereabout. Can anybody help fix this? Rjstott 06:43, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

BTW Geography of Oman still needs updating. I hope the rankings didn't change too much. I will add a list below of the articles that include the area numbers. -- User:Docu

Could someone please fix the intro to the article, I would do it myself but I really have no idea what it is trying to say. As far as I know "outwith" is not a word, but it has been there for some time now. Malnova 02:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles including the area numbers

List of countries by area (here, twice)
List of countries by population density (area and density)
Shorter lists, e.g.
- Area and population of European countries
Country article, e.g. Oman
- text and
- summary table: area, ranking, population density
Geography article, e.g. Geography of Oman (total and land area)
Orders of magnitude (area), e.g. 1 E9 m² (total and land area, rank of two per page)

(please complete) -- User:Docu

Greenland

Shouldn't Denmark+Greenland+Faroe be the world's 14^th largest country(+dependancy) totalling up 2,210,580 km²? Nichalp 20:14, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)

That sounds sensible. Greenland's area should be included in some country or another. DJ Clayworth 20:29, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

So According to that France should be at 41st place...

How is the landmass of Greenland calculated? On a map it seems bigger then Algeria and Congo which are listed as bigger countries.

Most maps are notorious for over representing the size of the northern land masses. Malnova 08:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Bassas da India is/are uninhabited islands adminsistered by France. This is not "a country".

At first I thought the same thing, but its not even in the List of countries by area. The second half of the article is "List of major geographic bodies, all ordered according to area", which seems highly innapropriate to the article title that is in regards to countries. If there is no objection, I'm moving that out to a separate article. Even then that's a poor listing, because how can you count one uninhabited atoll as a "major geographical body"? Taxman 15:58, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

Bassas da India is still on the list of countries. Were you going to take it off? Jeff Worthington 10:40, 26 Apr 2005

Major Geographical Bodies

Wait a minute! The whole numbering system is off - Denmark is placed in the list according to the total area of Denmark + Faroes + Greenland placing it rather higher than Denmark alone would be, whereas France is placed in the list according to the area of Mainland France alone - placing it lower than if you included its dependencies. Which system do we use? Personally I say rank them according to country alone - I don't want to change the whole list unless someone reponds to this Bish 22:06, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Falklands aren't counted as part of the UK for some reason. Why should any region save antarctica be counted spearately from its controlling country? I know some countries treat their overseas territories distinct from their mainland (different voting rights, etc.). What determines for this list, the areas which are counted? perhaps falklands should be included immediately under the entry for Britain, and then either the total should be used to order the entry, or just the "Britain" area. same with denmark, france, etc. which have territories all over the place. use either the total or the country itself, but include all territory in the same entry? SpookyMulder 15:55, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How can the world area be 510m km^2? A = 2/3 pi r^2, where r = 6371km or so even 7000km^2 = 49m km^2 so A = about 85m km^2.

The formula you are using is wrong. The surface area of a sphere is defined as A = 4 π r^2, where r = 6378.137 km, giving a world surface area of about 511 million sq km. For the sake of argument, I know the Earth is not an exact sphere, but for rough calculation, it can be treated as such.

largest countries

there is a lot of confusion in this discussion about what is not really that complicated: denmark is properly listed as 14th including greenland as there is no denmark "alone" apart from greenland anymore than there is a usa "alone" apart from alaska or hawaii, that is, the areas are not geographically contiguous but they are all parts(NOT territories) of ONE country. France, on the other hand, is a mess: french guiana, martinique, réunion, and guadeloupe are all departments of france just as alaska is one of the united states, and their area should be added to that of "metropolitan france" to give the total area of the french republic for purposes of the list; the other places listed under france are dependencies. countries that have only de jure status should also be included, but marked as such , in order to let people make their own decisions as to how they wish to consider them; in other words palestine,chechnya, western sahara, and tibet (china's area should be indicated both with and without tibet) belong on the list.

why China is not the third?

US is 9.82 million sq km now. So that means for 1996 to now, US has grown by almost 500,000 sp km, that size of spain. Yeah right.

Area of the US

US now reports itself as 9.82 million sq km on the latest "factbook." So that means from 1996 to now, US has grown by almost 500,000 sq km, the size of spain.

I dispute that figure for the US. China is the world's third largest country. I have always read and used $9.6\times 10^{6}\,{\rm {km^{2}}}$ for China and $9.3\times 10^{6}\,{\rm {km^{2}}}$ for the US, and indeed my gazetteer gives the area of the US as $9\,375\,720\,{\rm {km^{2}}}$ , excluding the Great Lakes (part of which are Canadian anyhow).

The article claims not to include territories, yet what are all those various islands doing in the listing for the US? Most of them are territories. Shorne 09:49, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Even if you take those islands out, the ranking doesn't change. And the area of the U.S. would still be

9.6\times 10^{6}\,{\rm {km^{2}}}

.

In any case, to get them to change that you'll need to convince them to switch to another source other than the CIA factbook. Good luck with that. ;) -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 06:01, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

The figure of 9629,091 is one that seems to have appeared in recent years, but the U.S. Bureau of Census gave a figure of 9,166,716 sq km of land and 202,910 sq km of inland water - to give a total of 9,369,885 sq km in each of the censuses of 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. This is only a guess but until the 1990's I understood the People's Republic of China (excluding Taiwan) to be the third largest country by area, whereas in the last decade, it seems to have been overtaken by the USA. Is it perhaps a political ploy to make PRC seem less significant? Unless of course, the USA suddenly expanded by about 300,000 sq km in the 1990's.

Submitting this thread for reference: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1724826 Laomei 17:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

It does seem odd that, after consulting several sources, the only one to give the area of the US as anywhere above ~9,3 million sq km was the CIA website (and those who mirror the information found there, as we are doing). Also, about reducing the relevance of the PRC, I can't phantom why we are segregating "two Chinas", to exclude Hong Kong and Macau from mainland China, when they are both part of said mainland and, perhaps more importantly, were officially returned to China in 1997 and 1999 respectively. This distinction has become obsolete for quite some time now. About Taiwan, we might consider a segregation, although geopolitically speaking, it is worth pointing out that Taiwan is not recognized as an independent country, only as a beligerant territory. So despite practical reality, as far as the world politics is concerned, Taiwan is officially a part of China. By any accounts, it seems rather clear that China is the third largest country and the US, the fourth. The article will need to be rectified. Regards, Redux 14:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

To the point, the Chinese officially claim that China is the world's third largest country: [1]. Regards, Redux 16:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The United Nations agrees with them: [2] (PDF file — found via search in the United Nations official website). Regards, Redux 16:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Why wouldn't the UN agree with the PRC? The PRC is a member of the UN, on condition that the UN regards Taiwan as a part of the PRC. The ROC is not in the UN. -- ran (talk) 04:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

However, the US is the only source that claims the sizes it reports for itself, looking over census data, the US seems to be growing somehow, between 1980 and 2000 by an area the size of California, yet no explanation whatsoever is made. How is that not POV and pure BS? Laomei 04:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

This debate urgently requires some clarification:

on the difference between total surface area, including internal waters (lakes, rivers, no matter how small), and total Land area.

The purported "discrepancies" between US and international sources spoken of does not exist. Every reputable international reference, including the United Nations, reports the same area as the US reports for itself; the real problem and controversy lies in which kind of measurement one country or another, or one organization or another, prefers to use, for political reasons.

The fact is, if we order countries by total land area, excluding all inland surface waters, then the United States is not only larger than China, but both are also larger Canada. Canada, being a geographic "sponge" with the world's largest number of lakes, and having the largest total area of inland surface waters, can only retain its place as 2nd on the list by measuring its total surface area within its international territorial boundaries. It is perfectly possibly to place China above the US, if one chooses, buy measuring only the total land area, but this would place Canada in fourth, which is not only counter-intuative (because of its visually apparent large size), but also politically unacceptable.

In other words, the USA can be validly measured as either smaller or larger than either Canada or China, but cannot be validly measured as being simultaneously both, with respect to both countries, based on the same measuring system.

But politics and pride intervene. So, what many reference books have done is to cheat the US, and make it simultaneously smaller than both Canada and China, by simply mixing the systems; even reputabe sources publish hierarchical lists that show the total surface area for Canada, thereby allowing it to be #2, whilst publishing, in the same list, the total land areas for both China and the USA, giving China a marginal edge and allowing it to be number 3 ahead of the USA.

This arbitrary hybridization of two completely different measuring systems is unfair, and only recently have mainstream reference sources begun to publish rationalized figures that consistently label and rank each country based on one single type of measurement, or more commonly, list both kinds of measurement side-by-side. By including total inland waters (but excluding littoral waters), and measuring the size of each country as the total surface area that lies within the perimiter of its international land boundary, we arrive at the figures currently published by the CIA World Factbook, and by several Almanacs: Canada is far in excess above the USA, but the USA has a slight lead over China, rather than China having a slight lead over the USA.

So, however you measure it, either Canada wins, or China wins, but not at the same time. And the accepted historical precedent is to give it to Canada rather than China, given how, on a map, the size advantage of Canada is difficult to dismiss on technical grounds, even if it has so much inland water, while the difference between the USA and China is marginal either way in comparison (relatively speaking). You can't have your cake and eat it too, although many publishers have, and continue to, tried to get around this and cheat with the figures.

What territories of the USA count?

1. the 50 states. 2. the Territory of Palmyra Atoll. 3. the District of Columbia. 4. Puerto Rico

Other territories are officially classed as "unincorporated," be they small uninhabited atolls and do not form part of the United States, even though they fall under United States sovereignty as dependencies. Palmyra, however, is an exception, because it is an Incorporated Territory, and is as much a part of the US as Manhattan, Long Island, Catalina I., Kodiak I., Maui, etc.

Palmyra is currently not included with the USA in the article, and is also listed separately in the CIA World Factbook, making it a somewhat confusing and contradictory case similar to France and its overseas departments. I would personally argue for incorporating its land area into the US figure, but that is just my opinion.

Why does the official figure fluctuate so much over the years?

Simple: because the land area really does change, and dramatically so, with changes to inland waters and coastal territory over the decades.

--Supersexyspacemonkey 18:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Puerto Rico is owned by the United States. Its residents are Citizens, despite the fact that they do not pay taxes. Is this the threshold? Taxes? Pretty absurd.

--Yourmotherisawhore

The official figure by the PRC is possibly inflated, since it covers not only the territories under effective control of the ROC, but also the claimed areas along its border with India, Russia, etc., that are under administration of those countries. — Insta ntnood 18:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The figure given in the article for the USA is definitely inflated - the UN gives it as 9,363,520 (for total surface area, not just land area). See [3] and select "USA" in the drop-down menu.

I understand that there are possibly legitimate reasons for the USA to claim its territory is bigger than this number but I think we should yield to the UN on this matter for the sake of NPOV.

For the record, China area is given by the UN as 9 596 961 which does not appear to include Taiwan (see this article). --Sumple (Talk) 04:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It would appear the only source that has the US as bigger in land area is the CIA Factbook. In addition to Sumple's UN link above, both the SBS World Guide 2005 (China at 9,596,961 km² (Total surface area, not including Taiwan) and US at 9,372,614 km² (total surface area)) and The Statesman's Yearbook 2002 (China at 9,536,717 km² (total surface area, not including Taiwan's 36,182 km²) and the US at 9,158,960 km² (total surface area specifically including 470,131 km² of water (Great Lakes, inland and coastal water bodies).) Surely weight of evidence has to support China being placed third and the US being placed fourth. --Binnor 12:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Binnor, an update to my statements above... The updated UN data (see below, discussion about using UN numbers) is the one used on the article now, and does show the US as bigger than China. It is mainly because the US has recently changed the method of calculating its surface area, and now includes more water surfaces that previously weren't included. --Sumple (Talk) 05:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, the CIA factbook - what a reliable source that is, with such a tremendous history of accuracy... Why of all the notable texts existing in the universe of documentation would we rely - as a reliable source no less - on a government agency with the greatest reputation for erroneous assessment and prone to error... This has to be a joke... Why wouldn't we use the U.S. State Department, since they have traditionally done most of the mapping of the world's geography? Stevenmitchell 08:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, and Abkhazia

If Taiwan is not included in the area and population figures for China, why are Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, and Abkhazia included for Cyprus, Moldova, and Georgia? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 05:58, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

We dont have an entry for "China". We have entries for the People's Republic of China and Republic of China. --Jia ng 06:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But we have an entry for "Cyprus", not the "Republic of Cyprus" nor the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", even though there is at least one country in the world (Turkey) that does not see things this way.

My point is that the chart is not consistent. China is divided up according to actual zones of political control, even though these "zones" aren't recognized as official anywhere; but other nations with extremely similar situations are simply put in as one single country. If someone came in here and tried to combine the figures for the PRC and ROC, I daresay that he'll get reverted in a few hours for being POV. And yet it's this POV situation that persists here with Cyprus, Moldova, Georgia, Somalia, and perhaps several other countries as well.

If China is put in as two countries according to regime, shouldn't we separate Somalia into Somaliland, Mogadishu, and all of the other various warlords in actual control? Not to mention that we'll have to completely reorganize much of Africa along similar lines. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 16:20, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Could there be a time frame limit (say, 30 years), and diplomatic recognition? — Insta ntnood 16:15, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Another question: If China has two entries showing the area actually controlled by each regime (PRC and ROC), why does the entry for PRC not include Hong Kong and Macao? Hong Kong and Macao are the special administrative regions of the PRC, which are actually part of the PRC, unlike those "overseas territories" or "colonies". - Alanmak 09:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a very good question that I have also been asking myself and others, but without getting any answers. More specifically: Are Hong Kong and Macao considered external territories under Chinese soveriegnty or are they part of China herself? UN publications apparently treat them as separate entries, but then the UN also treats France's four overseas departments as different from France proper, while on the other hand the UN considers Chile, the United States and Portugal to be both their mainland and remote islands. Here's how the UN sees the world. //Big Adamsky 17:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Hong Kong and Macau are explicitly stated to be " inalienable part[s] of the People's Republic of China " in the basic laws, nevertheless politically they're not integrated, and have their own international representations. It's difficult to comment if they're external, since, on one hand, politically and administratively they are, but on the other hand, geographically they're not. — Insta ntnood 19:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Given that practically the whole world recognizes the One China policy, it seems to me that the territory of China should be given as including Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (but these last should definitely have their own italicized entries). Officially, the ROC and PRC both agree that these are Chinese territories – the question at issue is which Chinese government should control them. (Of course the ROC also claims Mongolia, and I think Tuva, but that's another question for another time...) Quartier Latin1968

22:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The territories under effective control of the ROC are not under PRC control. The current practice of compiling this list is to use the figure under actual control of the countries. — Insta ntnood 18:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

According to the "Political divisions of China" article, all the 22 provinces, the 5 autonomous regions, the 4 municipalities and the 2 special administrative regions are considered as "Province-level / first-level administrative division". That is to say, in the hierarchy of the adminstrative divisions of the People's Republic of China, the two special administrative regions - Hong Kong and Macau - are considered to be of the same level as Beijing, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia etc. Obviously, Beijing, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia are integral parts of the People's Republic of China herself. Using this reasoning, Hong Kong and Macau should also be considered as parts of the People's Republic of China herself, regardless of their high degree of autonomy. I think a good way to present the information would be like this: Include Hong Kong and Macau in the entry for the People's Republic of China, and meanwhile add two other entries for Hong Kong and Macau for references. - Alanmak 04:48, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

We are not supposed to "guess" whether Hong Kong and Macao are integral parts of China. A way to find out the answer is write / e-mail to the governments of the special administrative regions and/or the Central People's Government and ask for an interpretation of relevant chapters in the laws. But ... does Wikipedia want to do that? :-) - Alanmak 07:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Why only the government, but not legal experts (constitutional laws in particular) and political scientists as well? :-) The government can hardly provide an objective answer, and the bureaucracy can't say anything new apart from what is already written down in black and white. — Insta ntnood 18:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hong Kong and Macau are prescribed in the basic laws as " inalienable part[s] of the People's Republic of China ". Whether they're integrated parts of the sovereign state is subject to debates and the personal points of view of different people. — Insta ntnood 18:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Our article on land borders treats the Special Administrative Regions of China as external appendices rather than fully integral, it seems... See also this Dutch statistical site. //Big Adamsky 18:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Why is there an asterisk next to India's entry?

India's entry has an asterisk next to it that links to the Remarks section, but there are no remarks regarding India's area. What was intended here? Can the asterisk be safely removed?

The asterisk appears to refer to the European union which would hypothetically occupy India's position, though I don't think it's necessary. Dtcdthingy 20:02, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree that having it at India's entry was silly, so I made separate entries for the EU and AU. Not sure if they really should have their own entries though, so if somebody wants to reverts my edit, get rid of the asterisk please. Illuvatar 14:46, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

France

To what does the 643,427 next to France refer? It's smaller than the total but much larger than the figure for Metropolitan France (which includes the mainland). Dtcdthingy 20:03, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That was a bogus number which I have now deleted. —Cantus…☎ 04:23, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

it is not a bogus number but the correct number for france which includes not only metropolitan france, which is analagous to the conterminous 48 states of the usa but also 4 overseas regions/departments which are integral parts of france just as alaska and hawaii are parts of the usa; to follow the similar pattern for the united kingdom which also has separate integral parts, viz. england ,wales, scotland, northern ireland, as well as territories; i have moved the 4 french overseas departments to the head of the list after metropolitan france so that the 643,427 represents these 5 entities just as the united kingdom number represents its integral parts.

I agree hawaii is just as much apart of USA as French Guaine is. It is even on the euro notes --Happy ga 23:03, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Those four regions may well be part of the French Republic but they are counted as overseas regions, i.e. not part of metropolitan France. In the case of the UK, look at Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, which are much closer to the UK than French Guiana is to metropolitan France. The three are crown dependencies but not part of the metropolitan UK.

The anonymous user's point about the UK crown dependencies is utterly bogus because their status is completely different to those of the DOM. This is a particularly flagrant slip because France has territories with both kinds of status, and France makes a clear distinction between the two. Put simply, there are territories like the Isle of Wight and territories like the Isle of Man. Under the law (we're not talking the way things should be, but the way they are), the DOM (French Guiana, Reunion and the rest) stand in relation to the French Republic as the Isle of Wight does to the UK: they are integral parts of the mother country (and have been for many decades). The Isle of Man is not part of the UK, because it is a possession of the UK crown – if Sir Galahad possesses a swallow, it does not make the swallow part of Sir Galahad. So similarly, French Polynesia is not part of France, because it is a possession of France. This is not splitting hairs. The difference is fundamental. The US has the same mix: Hawaii is an integral part of the US (this is the Isle of Wight category), but American Samoa is a territory that the US possesses (the Isle of Man category). Overseas territories are not, constitutionally speaking, all the same. Quartier Latin1968

21:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Didn't all French possessions either become independent or being integrated with France shortly after the establishment of the Fifth Republic? French Polynesia (perhaps New Caledonia as well) is different from other French overseas units only because agreement was reached that there's a possibility for it to become independent in future, and more power has been delegated from Paris to the local administration. — Insta ntnood 21:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed; France, Australia and the United States all act as guardians , as it were, on behalf of their external territorial entities, while intregrated but physically remote portions of themselves are more like your Sir Gallaghan's pinky finger than his swallow. However, the difficulty arises when one discovers that the United Nations treats the DOMs as external entities, just like the TOMs and the constituent subject countries of the Kingdoms of the Netherlands and of Denmark (scroll up to my recent comment at the "Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, and Abkhazia" section of this talk page). //Big Adamsky 21:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the UN does count the DOM separately for statistical purposes – I assume this is on the strength of the geographic reality that they are overseas – but notice that they don't make it onto the list of non-self-governing territories. They're self-governing on the strength that they (legally speaking) are France, and France is self-governing. French Polynesia isn't an oddball here – all of the TOM are like it (that's Wallis and Futuna; Mayotte; also New Caledonia until it negotiated its new sui generis status; might be more but I can't think of them offhand). I don't think I can agree with Big Adamsky's idea of the US and France being 'guardians' with respect to Hawaii or Guadeloupe (respectively) – these are integral to the national territory of both countries. He's generally right, of course, when it comes to American Samoa or French Polynesia. It's not Sir Galahad's pinky finger, though – the inhabitants of American Samoa might be US citizens or not, but their territory is not the US itself – it is of the US. But Hawaii is the US. In the same way, Guadeloupe is France. (To Instantnood: All French overseas territories did not become part of France when the Vth Republic came into being – only four: Guyane, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion. No others.) Quartier Latin1968

22:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I think you misunderstood me there. I was referring to the external entities as being separate from the parent state (thus neither Hawai'i nor Guadeloupe fall into this category, since they are integral components of their respective states). Maybe I phrased that clumsily or illogically, but when I read it once more, I still understood what I was trying to say. //Big Adamsky 22:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification – I didn't realize what counted as "external" to your mind. I see now that you get the distinction I was trying to drive home! (I'm just still puzzling over your "integrated but remote" phrase... I suppose it's just a quibble, but I wonder just how integrated a territory like Wallis and Futuna or Guam actually is to the parent country – this must have been what threw me.) Quartier Latin1968

23:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

What did the rest become when the Fifth Republic came into existence (except those chosen independence)? As far as I know none of them had continued to be colonies/possessions/whatever you call them. — Insta ntnood 18:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Check math please

The PRChina numbers don't add up correctly. Please find what is wrong and fix it. --Golbez 00:29, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

I see someone else has not only fixed the math, but done a nice overhaul; was there vandalism going on? --Golbez 17:48, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Not countries

Most of the entries at the bottom of this list are not countries in any sense of the word, and should be marked as such or, preferably, omitted. --Rsholmes 22:08, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why do these are in the list if they are not countires? Shouldn't be they just removed so that no one gets confused?

Controlled areas

The best possible solution would be to list only nation-states and their corresponding area that they control. =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 19:56, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely. But then, there goes Somalia. (We really need more people who're more familiar with what's going on in Africa...) -- ran (talk) 14:47, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Rankings

Can it be two-column - one for ranking of sovereign states, and the other for all countries listed? — Insta ntnood 12:06, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest no, because then you lose the ability to directly compare to other countries. —Cantus…☎ 18:46, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Please take a look at this version [4]. :-D — Insta ntnood 06:46, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. I don't like it. —Cantus…☎ 09:07, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

The EU and world are not countries and are not ranked but other palces that are not countries are, why? --Happy ga 23:04, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Source

I came to this page and was astonished, who in their right minds would use "CIA World Factbook" as a source? If the KGB had a Missing Person List, would you believe it? CIA World Factbook I don't know if all of it are facts much less being Not-American-Point-of-View. A country's area is political and therefore being NPOV is quite difficult. I would suggest using the United Nations' figures along with observing members (Holy See, League of Arab States, European Community...). Then along it, using cursive, list out the territorries as well as non-UN recognised nations like Northern Cyprus, Taiwan, Western Sahara...

About PR China, Hong Kong and Macau's figures should be included because they are not territories of China but Special Administrative Regions which are integral parts of the nation. Same goes for France's Overseas Departments(Mayotte, Reunion...), they are integral parts of the nation, not territories, and therefore should be included.

Also, I think it would be wiser to simply use land areas, because normally, when one is referring to a nation's area, one is refrring to the land areas in addition to areas of bound bodies of water which does not extend into another nation. Lake Michigan would be counted as USA's area but Lake Superior would not. The coastal waters are not counted because they would be quite difficult to be exact and NPOV. Since a tiny coral reef could grant a nation 10 more square nautical kilometres of sea.

Lastly, the beginning section states only sovereign nations are included, which is obviously unclear as to which organisation's recognition of sovereignty. As I said I would suggest the United Nations' stance, because I think it would seem to be the most neutral since de facto sovereignty is quite difficult to measure (new and old treaties, problem of Somalia which chages de facto area every day...).

Thank you for reading, I hope you could take in some of my suggestions.

-S

The CIA World Factbook is as good a source as the United Natons website, and actually contains much of the same information, if one bothers to look up the difference between total area and land area.

As for listing land area rather than total area. In principle, I agree this sounds logical, but it poses problems. Under that syatem, Canada is a much smaller country, and would be demoted based on its massive amount of internal waters, not in the form of large lakes, but in the form of thousands of very small ones. It is counterintuative and awkward to demote Canada, on technical grounds, being that it appears, visually, to be so huge on a world map. The difference between USA and China, in comparison, is relatively much smaller and more marginal, so it would be better to respect Canada's historically accepted well-known position as #2 after Russia, and thus apply the total-area criterion to every other country in the world based on that.

--Supersexyspacemonkey 19:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Western Sahara

Western Sahara is not a country. -- Earl Andrew - talk 3 July 2005 08:53 (UTC)

===>Do you care to offer proof? Tell that to the several dozen states that recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic of Western Sahara and the African Union, of which it is a full member. Justin (koavf) July 3, 2005 19:13 (UTC)

It is not a sovereign state, but nonetheless a country. Wales and the Catalan Countries are countries, but not states. The Sorbs and the Garifuna are neither, but they do constitute nations. And in the end of the day, we're all people belonging to various groups and geographic units. Blablabla.... //Big Adamsky 17:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Even that depends on who you believe. According to the African Union, the SADR is a sovereign state whose territory is (mostly) under external occupation ... something like the Republic of Cyprus or the State of Palestine, or else like the Republic of Afghanistan when the Taliban occupied most of the country (an 'internal' occupation, you might call that, I suppose). Quartier Latin1968

23:18, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Criteria

I wonder if it might simplify everybody's lives if there were criteria for inclusion on the list – what counts as part of which country, and what's entitled to a ranking of its own. My feeling is this – and obviously this list is subject to all kinds of negotiation:

If a country is a sovereign state, it gets ranked. If there's a dispute as to whether a state is sovereign, we make a footnote indicating the fact and then go with the broad consensus of the international community (this might mean for example, China's is one and it's represented by the PRC not ROC; Cyprus is one; Tibet-in-Exile and Abkhazia are not recognized). If there is no such consensus (e.g. possibly Western Sahara?), we say so. States in free association with other states do get ranked as independent (e.g. Marshall Islands).
If a non-sovereign territory is an integral part of a particular country, it gets counted with that country (e.g. Hawaiʻi counts as part of the US, Wales counts as part of the UK, etc – and we should mention in the notes that such territories, especially ones overseas, are included). If there's a dispute over whether a territory is integral to a country, we go with broad international consensus if there is one (e.g. omitting Argentine Antarctica from Argentina). Such territories might be indicated in italics, but preferably in some way that sets them off from those in the next category, viz:
If a non-sovereign territory is not an integral part of another country, it does not get ranked but gets prominently included in italics. There are obviously degrees of autonomy and integrality, and we can argue about the specifics in various cases... but I would imagine that Greenland, Jersey, Aruba, New Caledonia, and Tokelau would all be shoo-ins for this status.

Anybody think I'm on the right track? (Whatever we do, we should have footnotes within the table, so that any contentious decisions are at least transparent...) Quartier Latin1968 03:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like terribly terriffic ideas. I agree that overall international consensus (including UN stance) on recognition of statuses as well as the "integral-versus-external" dichotomy that we were debating further up should determine how a certain geo-political entity ought best to be listed, ranked and enumerated. //Big Adamsky 04:11, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm.. external ones can be integrated, and bordering ones may not be integrated. :-) — Insta ntnood 21:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

By "external" I didn't mean "non-contiguous" but politically un-integrated. Compare Australia's external territories and the unincorporated territories of the United States. I'm not sure what the best generic term for this sort of arrangement would be... Big Adamsky 19:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm.. Complicated indeed. For the case of Hong Kong and Macau, some people may even disagree that they're not integrated, for they're stated to be " inalienable part[s] of the People's Republic of China " the basic laws, their constitutional documents. But I'd consider the provision only denies their possible independence or cession to other sovereign states. It says nothing regarding whether they're integrated politcally/administratively. Not too sure how the distinctions between Australia's external territories and mainland territories are maintained. — Insta ntnood 07:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Re #3: Right. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are part of Denmark granted with home rule. Thinking that all non-sovereign territories are legally not part of the corresponding sovereign states is sort of Anglo- and American-centric. :-) — Insta ntnood 18:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

You know, I've been doing quite a bit of reading on Greenland's constitutional situation this morning, and to my surprise you're right. It sounds as though Greenland is – for the time being – a part of Denmark with substantial autonomy (cf. the Russian autonomous republics, Catalonia, Scotland...). I say for the time being, because Greenland's position has been evolving – still, I am right about Aruba, Tokelau, and New Caledonia, I'm fairly sure. Quartier Latin1968

21:06, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Legally speaking Aruba is one of the constituents of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, together with the Netherlands (in Europe) and the Netherlands Antilles. The kingdom is the sovereign state. As for New Caledonia, we'd better refer to the discussion on France above. — Insta ntnood 21:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The status of Greenland within the Kingdom of Denmark is comparable to the status of Aruba within the Kingdom of the Netherlands (as opposed to the Netherlands proper). I think it is also comparable to some extent to the relationship between Tokelau and New Zealand. Or no? New Caledonia is a whole other matter (I wrote my thesis on aspects of their devolution/decolonization). //Big Adamsky 21:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, right; so you're saying the sovereign state (i.e. what we rank) would actually be the Kingdom of the Netherlands (and the Kingdom of Denmark), not NL or Denmark proper... So that would mean that the Netherlands proper, Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba would each count as category 2 (integral units) of the Kingdom of NL. And likewise with Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Is. That makes sense. (Is it the Kingdom of NL that handles foreign affairs, or NL proper?)

I'm no longer sure, but I was under the impression that the Realm of New Zealand was a bit of a different situation, because the Realm includes New Zealand and its external dependencies (viz Tokelau) and states in free association with it (viz Niue and the Cook Islands). [As to the status of the Ross Dependency, I don't know what it's supposed to be, but whatever that is would be nixed if we took the Antarctic Treaty to represent international consensus.] Very interesting. Quartier Latin1968

19:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Is the Realm of New Zealand or New Zealand the sovereign state? — Insta ntnood 07:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Not really. As far as I know Denmark does not have such a distinction like the Kingdom of the Netherlands does. The Faroe Islands and Greenland are part of Denmark granted with home rule. The Kingdom of the Netherlands has a cabinet council of the kingdom, composed of the ministers of the Netherlands and a minister plenipotentiary from each of the two other constituents. — Insta ntnood 07:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Applying criteria

Okay, now that I've got this bee in my bonnet, I've been scheming up ways that we can make it clear to the average peruser of this list what the statuses of the various territories are. My idea is that we could have different background colours for territories of different categories. "Do not rank" means that we count that territory's area under that of the sovereign country. The area of Hawaiʻi, for example, counts within the figure for the US. "Rank but do not renumber" means that we give the territory's ranking (perhaps in parentheses) but then carry on with the numbering as though it did not get assigned a rank. This does make sense – it ensures that all areas in the world are part of a (quasi-)ranked entity, even if they happen to be non-sovereign like American Samoa or whatever. What are your thoughts? Quartier Latin1968 04:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

	Sovereign?	Disputed?	Consensus?	Overseas?	Autonomous?	example	treatment/notes
Sovereign states	Yes	No	n/a	n/a	n/a	Austria	Rank
Sovereign states (in free association with another)	Yes	No	n/a	Free association	n/a	Marshall Islands	Rank; note free association
Sovereign states (disputed, but sovereign by int’l consensus)	Yes	Yes	For	n/a	n/a	People’s Republic of China	Rank; note dispute
Sovereign states (disputed, with no int’l consensus)	Yes	Yes	None	n/a	n/a	Western Sahara (?)	Rank, do not renumber; note dispute
De facto sovereign states (not sovereign by int’l consensus)	Only de facto	Yes	Against	n/a	n/a	Republic of China	Do not rank; note dispute
Autonomous overseas territories, integral to a sovereign state	Integral part	No	n/a	Yes	Yes	Greenland	Do not rank; note integrality
Overseas territories, integral to a sovereign state, without autonomy	Integral part	No	n/a	Yes	No	Hawaiʻi	Do not rank; note integrality
Autonomous contiguous territories, integral to a sovereign state	Integral part	No	n/a	No	Yes	Tatarstan	Omit; or Do not rank
Occupied zones (int’l consensus as to which country is sovereign)	Integral part	Yes	For	No	No	Golan Heights	Do not rank – note area of occupation
Occupied zones (no int’l consensus)	Integral part	Yes	none	No	No	Kashmir (?)	Do not rank – note area of occupation
Autonomous overseas territories, dependent upon a sovereign state	No	No	n/a	Yes	Yes	American Samoa	Rank, but do not renumber; note dependency

First, do the second type include Niue and the Cook Islands? They're in free association with New Zealand, but they're not UN members as the American ones do. For the first and second type, I'd prefer using UN members (and the Vatican City) as a criterion instead, and group the Cook Islands and Niue with other non-sovereign territories.

Second, the Republic of China is recognised by 24 sovereign states, with de facto recognition from many others, and it has been in continued existence. Diplomatically its status as a sovereign state may be disputed, but it does fulfill almost all criteria of the tradition of the study of international relations and political science. It is not the same with the dozens of self-declared states.

Third, I don't agree Hawaiʻi and Tartarstan should be listed. It is like a convention that they're counted within the figures for the United States and Russia respectively. The French TOMs/DOMs do not, however, follow similar convention. They are very often counted separately.

Finally, I'd prefer two-column [5] to "rank but not renumber". Non-sovereign territories, e.g. Greenland, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Macau, Bermuda, the Cook Islands, should be ranked in the second column, but not the European Union. I prefer not to do so to the French TOMs/DOMs, but it may be debated. It's hard to define whether they're integral parts of the corresponding sovereign states, since they're multiple definitions for what constitute integral, not to mention the difficulties to define the degree of integrality/integration. — Insta ntnood 07:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You may have partly misunderstood me regarding Hawaiʻi and Tatarstan. The first group are separated geographically from the rest of their states, so listing them is merely more justifiable than it would be for the Tatarstan group. Regarding the latter, I agree with you that they should (for the most part) not be listed – this is why I said 'Omit'. I don't see a distinction relevant to the present purposes between Hawaiʻi and Réunion, but I picked a US example to profit from comparison between Pacific Island groups (American Samoa and the Marshall Islands being the others).

Regarding the Republic of China, I'm not going to dispute the point here – pretend I said Turkish Republic of North Cyprus if you'd rather. (For my money, 180 or so countries to 24 is a broad international consensus – but if you disagree, there are any number of other examples that could serve.)

Any widely-recognized state can join the UN, or not. It's optional. Switzerland and the Koreas stayed outside till just a few years ago. It's also clear from the UN Decolonization Committee's map that, as far as they're concerned, Niue and the Cook Islands are eligible to be UN members if they want to. (I was surprised to learn this a while ago myself.)

The 'conventions' you refer to are exactly what I find problematic. They seem to follow no kind of system. My point is that if we Wikipedians spell out exactly what our system and criteria are, in a way that's transparent for all to see, nobody's going to be left wondering – "So did they count Gibraltar or not? Why is Macau over there? Is Réunion independent all of a sudden?" Do you see what I mean? The conventions themselves, fluid in any case, leave something to be desired. Quartier Latin1968

08:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The unsystematic manner is exactly what the reality is. Wikipedia is a reflection of the reality. Unlike Switzerland and the Vatican City, Niue and Cook Islands are not very often considered sovereign states without UN membership. — Insta ntnood 11:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Whose reality? The specific, perhaps narrow reality of the bureaucrats and publishers who make up these tables, or that of the Wikipedian community capable of subjecting its information to the constraints of NPOV and real-time peer review? Quartier Latin1968

23:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well probably. It's fine to group Niue and the Cook Islands in the sovereign states category, as long as their eligibility to UN membership is sufficiently verified. The relations of that between the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia or Palau (both UN members and former US territories) are pretty much the same, which the United States takes care of some of their businesses. — Insta ntnood 18:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

===>Western Sahara (SADR) I'm in favor of numbering Western Sahara, alongside the ROC, since the SADR administers a higher percentage of its claimed territory than the ROC (remember that the ROC still claims all of the Mainland, Tibet, Sinkiang, and Mongolia), and is recognized as legitimate by more governments. Justin (koavf) 04:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Is the SADR effectively operating as a sovereign state - fulfilling most of the criteria within the territory it administers? Morrocan occupation is not widely recognised, but the reality the PRC controls most of China is seldom debated. — Insta ntnood 11:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

IMO, "Autonomous overseas territories, dependent upon a sovereign state" should not be ranked unless they are in free association (e.g. Niue). Otherwise, they differ little from "Autonomous overseas territories, integral to a sovereign state". How do we determine what is "integral" and what is "dependent"?

Taiwan should be ranked. It deserves to be on a seperate class from the real "de facto countries" Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. The Republic of China is recognized by 25 states, is a member of a few governmental organizations, and was until the 1970s recognized by most states in the world and a member of the UN. In contrast, the others have no recognition (except Northern Cyprus and its puppetmaster Turkey), are not members of governmental organizations, and have never received any widespread recognition (if any at all) in their histories.--Jiang 08:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Colours

I'm surprised nobody's commented on my proposal of using colour in the table as a way of distinguishing between different broad categories of political status (always subject to notes, disclaimers, and clarifications of course). Should I take this a sign of a lack of enthusiasm? Quartier Latin1968 23:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea in general but think that fewer colors might be preferable, making it easier to remember what each of maybe 5-7 colors means. --Myke Cuthbert 22:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Sealand

Do we include Sealand anywhere? --Doc0tis 18:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

No - it's little more than a "vanity state", and certainly isn't in the same class as any of the countries listed here. It has no foreign relations, and its claims to independence are due to its legal status being largely undefined. sjorford (talk) 13:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, Sj – no. E Pluribus Anthony 13:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Since it has been reported as the smallest country we should include some link to it. violet/riga (t) 08:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Greater China

"Greater China" is not an economic treaty organization like NAFTA. It is a cultural and geographic entity used in economic contexts to avoid taking a political stance over the political status of Taiwan. We could might as well take a political stance and call it "China". It is wrong for this encyclopedia to deny users the knowledge of the area of all china. There are economic entities (EU, African Union) and entities without any shared or unified governance (Antartica, West Bank, etc) on this page. Why exclude China from the list?

The listing "includes mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau only; excludes the Republic of China(Taiwan)" does not make political sense. Only wikipedia would come up with something this ridiculous. The "Republic of China" can mean several things according to POV: 1) the Communist view: a historic entity that existed from 1912-1949 that encompassed all of the present day People's Republic of China and some additional fringe territories including outer Mongolia 2) the Nationalist view: an existing entity that legally encompasses all of the mainland China, the Taiwan Area, and some fringe territories that have since been (illegally) ceded by the Chinese Communists, 3) the moderate pro-independence view: an existing entity that ecompasses the Taiwan Area and is synonymous with "Taiwan" since the claims on the mainland are outdated and 4) the radical pro-independence view: an existing entity that illegally occupies the Taiwan Area and became legitimately defunct in 1949. If we take the first viewpoint (and schoolchildren in mainland China are taught that the ROC no longer exists), we see something ridiculous as "includes Russia...excludes the Soviet Union". If we take the second viewpoint, we are probably sophisticated enough to understand what wikipedia really means, but we think wikipedia is POV by adhering to Chen Shui-bian-ism. If we take the third viewpoint, we are mostly satisfied by the perecieved meaning except we think using "Taiwan" instead of "Republic of China" would be much simpler. If we take the fourth viewpoint, we think wikipedia is promoting Chinese Nationalist POV and is ridiculous for calling Taiwan the Republic of China when calling it Taiwan would be much simpler and less confusing.--Jiang 08:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If a clearly defind area such as North America with close economic and caultural ties between Canada, US and Maxico not making the list, why shold a ambiguous term like "Greater China Area" makes it? Is there even such economic treaty or formal political ties exist between all the "Greater China Area" countries? The term itself is very political driven to start with dispite the claims by wikipdeia and it's mainly used by people with a pro-unification stance in those areas. The term "Greater China Area" exist even before the cross-trait trade were made legal so the whole "economic ties" make no sense.

If you want to take nuture stance, then, either list it with proper countury names included (PRC+ROC+Singapore. Not PRC+HK+Macau+TW+Singapore or PRC+HK+Macau+TW+Singapore) or don't bother list it at all. HK and Macau are part of PRC, there's no need to put redundant info such as "includes mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau only", and then futher insult ROC's de facto sovereignty by listing it along with HK and Macau with words like "excludes Taiwan" as it's on the same local gov lvl as the other two by not calling it's offical name. Only wikipedia would come up with something this dumb and insensitive.

And that's excatly whay it's listed as ROC(Taiwan) down at 135th, to avoid confusion. It's the same format that many Taiwanese gov websites now adapted. (www.president.gov.tw, www.taiwan.net.tw). Even the newer Taiwanese passports now carries the marking "Taiwan" under ROC. --Pipebender

It is precisely because so many people believe Greater China=China that we must include an entry for Greater China on the page. Greater China is a much more neutral term than "People's Republic of China", "Republic of China", and "Israel" among other politically charged entities. We do not list entities simply because there are "close economic and caultural ties" [sic]. We list entities because people outside of wikipedia commonly group them together as a single entity. The common use of "Greater China", the use by governments and organizations to use "China" to refer to Greater China, necessitates that we include an entry for Greater China, while "North America" is not grouped together as an economic or cultural entity, not economically like the EU, not culturally like Greater China. It is outside wikipedia's control. If you want to avoid any entries that can be perceived as POV, then wipe out PRC, ROC, and Israel, and while you're at it, wipe out the EU because there's plenty of opposition there.

Here, we are using "Taiwan" in a geographical context. After all, this is a listing of countries by area. Are you suggesting that every mention of Taiwan, in whatever context is POV? So would saying "my flight tomorrow morning is from Taiwan to Hong Kong" be POV because of the inherent paralleism in the English language? Do I have to say "my flight tomorrow morning is from the Republic of China to Hong Kong"? This is outright ridiculous. Note that in the list we used "includes mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau only". It is necessary to list "excludes Taiwan" because people might expect Taiwan to be included in the figure, given that figures from organizations such as the UN will include it. If people are expecting Taiwan to be there, they are definately not thinking about the Republic of China. We are listing Taiwan with mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. There is nothing POV about this as we have used geographical names (there is no such political entity called mainland China). What would be POV is if we used "Taiwan Province of the PRC".

The ROC government itself puts Taiwan (i.e., the Taiwan Area) in the same level as Hong Kong and Macau: http://english.www.gov.tw/e-Gov/index.jsp?categid=81&recordid=78445 and mainland China (i.e., the Mainland Area): http://english.www.gov.tw/e-Gov/index.jsp?categid=81&recordid=78445 And after you've deleted Israel from this place, go and nominate APEC on articles for deletion: how dare they invite HK and MO to be members when Chinese Taipei is a member as well! Is the Taipei Times promoting unification too? "The so-called "Hong Kong model" refers to aviation negotiations held in June of 2002 between Hong Kong and Taiwan."

As I have stated earlier, the "Republic of China" is itself a disputed term and can mean different things according to viewpoint. The ROC government websites have added Taiwan in parenthesis under the directive of Chen Shui-bian. That is Mr. Chen's POV and it would be a violation of our rules to follow it.--Jiang 10:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

So Jiang, by your recommendation, we should list China with the clarification that it means HK, Macau, and territories controlled de facto by both the PRC and the ROC; and list the Taiwan Area as well (in place of the ROC)? Which do you think we should rank? (Just seeking clarification.) Quartier Latin1968

16:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It's fine to include the area of the geographical area of China on this list, but the concern is that there is no non-debatable definition for the extent of the geographical area of China. Should (Outer) Mongolia be included? What about the territories the PRC has "ceded" after 1949? As a result we can hardly produce a precise and NPOV figure. Even if we're going to list Korea or the Korean Peninsula, we still have to deal with the issues that some Korean nationalists' claim across the Amnok/Yalu and Tuman/Tumen rivers.

The use of the term Greater China beyond economic and business contexts is another issue to debate.

As for Jiang's concern, for these lists we usually present the figure of the areas that are currently under their control, and exclude claims that are occupied by other sovereign states. Olivenza (Olivença) is an example. — Insta ntnood 20:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

my point is that "Greater China" is much more neutral (and according to Instantnood) precise than using just "China". Given that "Greater China" is a relative neutral term that is in wide use, we should list it here.--Jiang

Jiang, it's not POV as long as a large segment of the population accept the opinion. Calling it ROC(Taiwan) is a compromise between the two sides. Wikipedia can not call it POV just because it does not adhere to Chinese Nationalist's history.

If only mainland China, HK, Macau and Taiwan are listed under "Greater China Area", then where's Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu? Are they not part of the "Greater China Area"?--Pipebender

Please read the NPOV policy more carefully. It explicitly states that majority opinion is not neutral opinion. And we dont even have a case of majority opinion here. Using "Republic of China" is not a compromise. According to the overwhelming majority of the one billion people in mainland China, the PRC government, one hundred sixty something countries in the world, the United Nations, and a whole host of governmental organizations, the Republic of China does not exist. Please use non-political terms for non-political subjects.

In the case of Greater China, we should use Taiwan to mean the Taiwan area. This is how it is used when comparing these areas. The link can point to [[Taiwan Area|Taiwan]].--Jiang 03:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Jiang, So even tho you claim majority opinion is not neutral opinion, yet you use the same reasoning for putting up Taiwan alongside with HK and Macau insted of ROC(TW)? It's not making any sense. Also this is the same reasoning that you reverted someone else's entry here <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Lee_Teng-hui&diff=prev&oldid=9347415>. "Greater China" itself is a political term and does not belong here.

The majority of taiwanese, over 80% do not wish to be a part of PRC. --pipebender

Pipebender, the terms China and Greater China are not necesarily so closely associated with the PRC as many people would do. Jiang, the term Greater China is rarely used beyond economic and business contexts. I remain sceptical to using it on a list in geography. We have to be very careful with terminologies, and not to equate Taiwan with Taiwan Area. — Insta ntnood 18:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The term "Greater China" is othen used to describe cultural similarities in the various political entities concerned (hence the occasional inclusion of Singapore), and does not neccesarily reflect nationalist sentiments. Even if they have differences in political ideology, the Chinese cultural sphere generally prides itself on its Chinese roots, so it is not neccesarily politically offensive. That Greater China is rarely used beyond economic and business contexts is a highly disillusioned assertion, for I personally have not seen it used in that way.--Huaiwei 01:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No, the notion that "Taiwan" refers to a geographic entity is not in dispute. Who denies that Taiwan exists? This is not based on majority opinion but established fact. Unlike disputed names like "Senkaku Islands", all sides to the dispute use the name "Taiwan" in non-governmental contexts. Even the TSU and Lee Teng-hui (who doesnt seem to be speaking mandarin anymore) aren't clamoring to have Taiwan romanized into POJ instead.

As for my edit at Lee Teng-hui, I was not justifying the inclusion Li Ao's claims in the Lee Teng-hui article on the basis of majority opinion. I was justifying the inclusion of the information in the Lee Teng-hui article instead of having it moved to the Li Ao article. And any claims like these would have to be referenced (attributed to Li Ao) with counterclaims presented as well.

Again, whether "Greater China" is politically charged or not does not prevent it from being listed here. And I don't see evidence on how it is politically charged.--Jiang 19:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The number one criteria for a listing here is sovereignty. China does not have sovereignty over Taiwan, even if it claims sovereignty. If politics is disregarded, which it should be in an objective Wikipedia list, Greater China or any other nomenclature that includes Taiwan is irrelevent.

The number one criteria for a listing here is not sovereignty. nor is it number 2, number 3, or any number. This is a list of countries, not a list of sovereign states. --Jiang 08:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

"Greater China" is not a country, and therefor it should not be listed. -- pipebender

then change "Greater China" to "China" if that makes you happy. Please do not mass revert without exlaning each of your reverted. why remove the islands at the end of the list?--Jiang 09:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Why do we need a "China" in the list when there's already a "PRC"? You suggested [here] that when someone clicked on "China", it should direct to PRC, not ROC. And in this case, certenly not when it's actually being linked to "Greater China" article. Not to mention it's a POV: Taiwan listed under China suggest Taiwan is part of China. Even more bias then with it listed under "Greater China"(Area).

Also I am not the one who modified the islands, I was just simply revert to latest possible entry befor your rv. And please don't remove EU to illustrate a point, "State your point; don't prove it experimentally". Plus, "Greater China" is a term that so loose and not even remotly close to EU's clearly defined member states with close political and economic ties. Pipebender 11:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

We need "China" on the list because our definition of PRC excludes Taiwan, which people in China (inclusive) who will admit to being Chinese will claim part. My suggestion at Talk:China was over disambiguation policy, which I specifically differentiated there from the wikipedia naming conventions (i.e. wikipedia:naming conventions (Chinese)) for use in article text and titles. Please read my comments there more closely - my whole point (which you missed) was that disambiguation uses were different.

And my point for favoring "Greater China" over "China": Taiwan listed under China suggest Taiwan is part of China. Even more bias then with it listed under "Greater China"(Area).[sic] But then when I want to use "Greater China" you come up with crap on how the term "is not a country".

If you object to only a portion of the article, then do not simply mass revert. It is bad etiquette and can get you banned. Just kindly revert the portion you object to (Greater China) rather than the whole thing. or much better, dont revert at all until the discussion is over. you do realize that you screwed up the interwiki links? why remove an:, alphabetize bg: before be:, remove gl: and ko: and a whole host of other unjustified changes. If you find this justified, then it is called vandalism.

and my apologies for removing EU. i failed to notice it in the diff and will add it back. Greater China has greater cultural cohesion and international recognition (UN, etc) as a de jure unified sovereign state, the PRC. On the other hand, the consensus is that the EU is not a sovereign state, let alone a country. While (greater) China can be considered a "nation" even if it fails as a "state", the EU easily fails on all three counts. not that i advocate its removal... --Jiang 12:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

That's right, "Greater China" is not a country. Look at the title: "List of ""countries"" by area". And what makes "China" the equivenlent of "Great China Area"? Is there no other better choice? like a more npov: "(mainly) Chinese speaking area"???

"Greater China" is not a country therfor does not belong here. "Greater China" is not a valid political and econamic body like EU therefor does not belng here. "The European Union's activities cover all areas of public policy, from health and economic policy to foreign affairs and defence." Does this "Great China" thing doing the same things as EU? Nope, nope and nope. EU atleast a Supranational union. Is this "Great China" a supernational? Does PRC's power extent to ROC or Singapore? Don't think so.

The term "Greater China" is not even clear on what countries are included, does it included Singapore or not? Again, "Greater China" does not belong here. It's a term the Chinese nationalist used to use to fufill their "One Grand and Great China" dream. It's time to move on.

So is China, "China" or "Greater China" or "(greater) China"?. Can't you decide on one? And does anyone really think that China+HK+Macau+ROC(TW)(+Singapore) reallly is a Nation?? To suggest that "Greater China" is some types of Country is pure delusional. 80% of Taiwanese surveyd do not wish to be a part of the PRC. And somehow that make it a nation? Pipebender 14:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure at least 80% of South Koreans don't want to become a part of the DPRK (North Korea) either. You're confusing the notion of regimes (e.g. North Korea, South Korea, PRC, ROC), with that of "nations" or "countries" (e.g. Korea, China). I'm sure most Taiwanese don't want to become part of the PRC, but that doesn't mean they don't identify with the nation of China. There's the pan-blue coalition, for example, that continues to make this identification without supporting the PRC as well.

And as for whether anyone feels China+HK+Macau+ROC(TW) really is nation. Of course there are plenty of people who do believe so on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. This does not necessarily mean that they support any regime that currently exists. There are those who support reunification under the PRC, some who support reunification under the ROC (though chances of this are admittedly rather slim), and those who support reunification under a hypothetical future government or confederation. -- ran (talk) 13:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I tried to find a compromise by adding an explanation over the dispute over Taiwan as part of the PRC, and I see Ran has already greatly overhauled/improved what I added while I was writing this (thanks!). It seems to me a fair compromise, but maybe I am naively oversimplifying this issue. Malnova 13:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

After reading the discussion I'm now more inclined not to list it for the time being. From the political aspect, unlike the situation of North and South Korea, the Republic of China (ROC) is not claiming only the PRC-held territories, but Mongolia, Tannu Uriankhai, northern Burma, etc., as well. From the cultural aspect, we may propose to list Scandinavia with more or less the same arguments. It's complicated by the different definitions of the extent covered by the term Greater China according to different people. PRC-held + ROC-held territories represent only one of the many points of view. — Insta ntnood 18:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

I have no opinion on whether "Greater China" ought to be on the page, but the list might benefit from taking out all the supranational entities (including the EU, AU, World, Antactica etc.), and putting them in a separate "For comparison" section at the bottom. sjorford (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is okay including "Greater China" because the two republics, unlike EU/AU/NAFTA/CIS members, still constitutionally claim each other's territories, i.e. ROC's "Constitutional One-China". And we may further indicate that (whether) the term excludes Singapore (Obviously it excludes on the political/constitutional-level).--219.79.165.220 18:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

My point is, I don't care. My point is completely separate from the rest of the discussion. My point is, all the entries that are not normally counted as sovereign countries, should be in a separate list. Don't try to engage my enthusiasm on the China issue, because I haven't got any. sjorford (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm in. I think the easiest way to simplify the list and keep it from morphing constantly is to just put sovereign nations in. This would probably still leave room for interpretation on Denmark, etc, but it would be better than what we have now.

But don't you see, that's a complete non-solution. You can move supranational entities around as much as you like – maybe not a bad idea as far as it goes – but China=PRC+Taiwan Area+HK+Macau is not considered a supranational entity by a great many participants in the debate. It's considered the indivisible territory of China. We Wikipedians aren't going to be able to solve or ignore that dilemma in any facile way. Quartier Latin1968

00:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, (that was my agreement up above, I forgot to sign it) I wasn't just talking about the China thing, all those other additions, that appear and disappear, are also mucking up things. Even if the China debate wore on, it would solve those problems. Maybe this was tried originally, but couldn't China's entry be 4 (or 3, I don't care which) and mention that this is a disutable point, as Taiwan is considered/recognized as part of mailand China by a good number of people/entities? Malnova 01:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Since no one seemed to express their interest either way on making this a list of only sovereign states, I went in and took out the unnumbered entries to ignite the debate. I think it looks much better this way, and is what this article is supposed to be. If, by some miracle, the list stays this way, someone should probably edit the China entry to make note of disagreements about it's size, status. Malnova 02:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Throwing out the EU, African Union, and other multinational units that were there "for comparison only" is probably a good thing. My concern now is that there are areas in the world left out of this table entirely: take Puerto Rico. Its area shouldn't count for the US, but it's now nowhere to be found on this table. Does anybody else find this a flaw? (Not to mention China/Greater China, which has vanished from the table for the moment, but I'm sure will reappear in another revert or two!) Quartier Latin1968 21:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed places like Puerto Rico have been left out, while others in similar situations, like Greenland, have been editted back in. Somebody could put them back in (or take all non-numbered "countries" out again), or maybe we could start a new list of semi or fully autonomous "countries" that are officially part of somewhere else, and put a link to them in the introduction. This could alternatively be a place for Taiwan, as it is disputed and it might help avoid revert wars. Malnova 23:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Good! So I've added what I hope are all the dependent territories not counted elswhere (and also Antarctica, which is sui generis under the Antarctic Treaty System). I notice, though, that there do remain units on the list that are counted as part of ranked countries (like Greenland), in spite of Malnova's recent application of Occam's razor. I do think these should be distinguished in some way from entities not counted as any ranked country. I'm going to be bold and put the names not only in italics, but also parentheses... Quartier Latin1968

01:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I took all non-numbered entities out originally, but they started leaking back in, starting with Big China and Greenland. Now we are back to a bloated list that belies the title of the article. I honestly think all of these entities should be moved (relegated?) to a new article for territories etc. and linked to this article, but I wouldn't make the effort of creating such an article if some is just going to put them all back in here again. Any opinions, ideas for against creating such a new article? And what of these territories and the like whether they are in a new article or not? What countries are they a territory of? It seems only natural this should be listed in the box to them if their entries are to have any meaning. Malnova 12:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Which leaves me wondering if we are all basically having a hard time agreeing on what a country is?--Huaiwei 12:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think we are. But let's be as generous and inclusive as reasonable when it comes to ranking all those non-sovereign entities, shall we? After all, restricting this list to solely covering the universally recognized states with full military control of their land base would exclude prominent entities that would probably be regarded as serious omissions by some. =J //Big Adamsky 19:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

See the discussions on-going at Talk:Country. It appears that the word "country" is so frout with problems due to its differing meanings, that it is perhaps not a good term to use for all lists by countries? :D--Huaiwei 20:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree! :-) Quartier Latin1968

03:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I took out Antarctica, which seems incongrous with the others. Yes, it may be sui generis under the Antarctic Treaty System, but as far as I know, no representative from the Antarctic Delegation signed it. It is neither a country nor a territory. The only reason for inclusion in this list would be if we were trying to catalog every area of land that has permanent or semi-permanent human occupation, but that is not the title of this article.

Which thus makes me wonder....should we change this and all similar page titles to List of territories by area instead?--Huaiwei 06:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The average user will go looking for a list of "countries" and that is why I think the title should be left the same, and the territories moved to a new article. Malnova 08:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

But there is an obvious inability to agree on just what a country is. How about redirects from "list of countries" to list of territories where appriopriate?--Huaiwei 08:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with Huaiwei, we should do what was already done for List of countries by population, that now redirects to List of territories by population. In this case, I think that Antartica should make it to the list, together with some more entities. --giandrea 19:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Monaco

I estimate Monaco's land mass has increased by at least 0.01 km2 in the past couple of years (and is growing as we speak) just with the port extension. Probably more like 0.02 km2. If half the Sporting promontory (the Monte Carlo Bay Resort) was added to Monaco from France last year, as I think it might, that would add another 0.01-0.02 km2. What I am suggesting is that Monaco's land mass is already or is about to be 2 km2. Time to open the champagne methinks! Can someone look at a current (not Google Maps) satellite image and do a real calculation?

Chile

Are the Desventuradas Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands also included in the calculation for Chile? As the external link is down and in the countrytable in the article about Chile they are also not mentioned. --Hardscarf 00:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"other" entities

NOTE: I did not start this section, nor did I make up the section title. User:Malnova changed the section title and deleted his first message to this section [6]. The original text was " I changed the name of this article to reflect that it also lists a number of territories, but is also a list of what people largely consider "countries" because I thought that it was most people come looking for and they might be confused by a countryless title. However, though I read up on "MOVING", I am not sure if I handled redirects correctly. I did what Wikipedia tutorials told me to do, but I am not positive I got it right. Could someone check that? Sorry. [[User:Malnova|Malnova]] 21:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC) ", and the title was " name change ". — Insta ntnood 18:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Here comes another problem. There's little reason for us not to rank those that are not sovereign states. At least we shall have two columns - one for rankings of sovereign states, one for sovereign states + dependent territories (and equivalence). — Insta ntnood 19:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is this such an imperative? The list has survived this long in it's current form. The list is not perfect, but neither is the world it describes. That's my thoughts anyway. Malnova 20:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and I would like to see in the list, even if not ranked, entities like the EU. --giandrea 21:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm, too, not asking to rank supranational organisations such as the EU. Their statuses are not quite comparable with the sovereign states and the dependent territories (and equivalence) listed. They're included merely for the purpose of comparison - giving readers some idea about their sizes. (C.f. what had been suggested above some time ago.) — Insta ntnood 21:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

At one point, there were a number of dubious entries clogging things up. The AU and the EU and even Antarctica weren't so out there I guess. But the former British Empire, the former Roman Empire? And all of these entries were listed in the top 10 (though not ranked) making the list look like a hodgepodge. If people insist on putting in such entries "for purposes of comparison", why do they all have to be massive entities, packing the top 10? Shouldn't example be spread evenly throughout if that is their true purpose? I am starting to think Istantnood's suggestion of a second, less obtrusive column for these entities might be the way to go, to avoid these problems. Might even be a good place for the China size dilemma. What would this look like I wonder? Malnova 23:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest to use the Wikipedia guidelines to resolve disputes? --giandrea 21:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I never agreed with the addition of other entities into this list. But I figured if they were truly for purposes of comparison, I should be diplomatic about it, and I would add some entities down the list to even out the "comparison" over the whole list. I added in some of the countries that belong to the UK, unranked of course. They are considered countries by many and called as such even if they are not countries in the strictest sense. For the record I am not a citizen of any of the UK countries, nor descendent of any of them, so I was/am NPOV in that respect. The entries survived a few days and then somebody editted them out. Twice. The exchange about it is above some where I am sure. From my experience here and other places, nobody else (or few) really gets involved in the debate, and the exchange almost always comes after the delete/revert, not before. My point about spreading out the "comparisons" was not addressed, and I am sure if I tried to put UK countries et al in again and get an intelligent debate going, they would quickly be deleted "on principle", and little reason would be given for it besides maybe a short "not countries" blurb. I even asceded someone's valid point not to list all of the UK countries, and still the two I left survived about a day. So, I figure, to avoid differing POVs about what entities should be added, we should go with a policy of no "pseudo-country" additions, because in principle they shouldn't be there in the first place anyway, and if we all start adding extra entries it wouldn't be much of a list at all. Yes this doesn't solve the debate of "what a country is" but it certainly does exclude the EU, AU, Antarctica, Roman and British Empires, the UK countries et al. Any one else care to join this debate? AND, on the off chance that this exchange is garnering any attention, could somebody PLEASE edit the introductory paragraph for this article and fix the word "outwith"? It is not in any of my dictionaries. I would fix it myself if I knew what it is attempting to explain. Alternatively, someone please tell me what "outwith" means. Above here somewhere on the talk page I have already written this same blurb, but so far, no response, and "outwith" has remained there for well over a month. Thanks in advance.Malnova 00:26, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why not being a citizen of the EU gives someone a neutral point of view. I am not a citizen of China, but my neutrality regarding the argument might be questioned! The same goes for people from around the world arguing about the European Union. All things considered, I think that the EU should be included, but not ranked, and perhaps with a description that goes like not a sovereign-state, but it has its own elections, its own currency, it is relevant. It is not like the roman or the british empires because it's an actual entity, not something storical. And its inclusion in this listed is quoted many times through wikipedia, but it doesn't appear here. --giandrea 09:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I certainly never said I wasn't a citizen of the EU, and certainly do not believe that if a person is not a citizen of the EU, it makes them neutral on the subject. Did you read what I wrote, I wonder? I was only referring to the limited example of the UK countries I have tried to add in previous edits. I was neutral in the respect that I am not from or descendent of the UK. I am certainly not completely neutral on the subject of the UK countries (nor the EU). Who is? Admittedly, if you had not written above that you and 450 million other Europeans would like to see the EU on the this list, I probably would not have even thought the fact that I am not from the UK was relevant. Would you mind addressing my other points? I have no more against the EU than I do against any supra-national entity that is clearly NOT a country. It opens up people to entering whatever "territories" they feel like (much as I tried to do with the UK countries). Malnova 11:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It's still me, Malnova, but I have more to add. You claim a consensus on other lists about the EU, specifically referring to the "countries by population" list a number of times. This prompted me to go take a look. I see no no signs of anything approaching a consensus. The look at the history and the talk page is testament to this. You and others have fought over the EU's inclusion there and it has went back and forth many more times than it has here in this list. The title of the "by population" article was changed to "territories" to try to stop an edit war over there. You came here, and you championed the cause of changing the name of this article to "territories by area" (with the explanation that the word Country is contentious). This leads one to speculate strongly that you changed the titles with the express purpose of making the EU's entry more valid. Additionally, I see also that someone who does not agree with the name change on the "by population" list has very recently changed the name back to "Countries by population" and the page is now protected due to an edit war. Malnova 22:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

My preference is to move the article back, and create two columns, one for rankings by sovereign state, one for rankings by country. Supranational and international organisations shall not be ranked. — Insta ntnood 18:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

name change

Hey everyone. I still don't find the title fo this article very satisfying and even misleading. The consensus here from what I have seen in the history and development of this page is to include sovereign countries and include territories/dependencies/protectorates etc. of countries that are outlying and/or not officially included in the area of their "mother" country. It seems to me a more descriptive title would be either "List of countries and outlying territories by area" or a version that changes outlying to "overseas". What do you think? If I get no feedback I'll change it in a few days to one of the two. Malnova 02:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I have received hint of dissent, so I have changed the name to "countries and outlying territories" to better reflect it's contents. I figured this was less instrusive than moving all the territories. Malnova 02:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

OR!

(Instead of a name change to "outlying territories") A little while back I thought I would make a separate article for all the outlying territories of sovereign countries and link it to this article in the introduction (with the eventual plan of eliminating the territories from this article if there was no dissent). I made a new article and worked on it a bit, but I let it fall by the wayside. I accidentally ran across it today, and someone has even went in and cleaned it up quite a bit, which makes me think it might be worth a try. The article is entitled Territories and self-governing areas of sovereign countries. Check it out if you have time. Any thoughts? The territories could of course have been ranked if there was a necessity, I just never got around to it. Thanks for your time. Malnova 04:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

UN statistics

A user (Sumple?) suggested we use UN statistics for NPOV. What do people think about this? I think it is a good idea, and we should get on it. I already see a number of figures that are different from the ones listed here. Fornow, I am at least going to change China's "disclaimer" box, which Sumple left curiously undisturbed. Malnova 23:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I just editted out redundant disclaimer from China's box as per Sumple's edit. I also decided to change China's area to the UN number while I was at it. I don't know if the number accurately reflects exactly the information still listed in China's box, and I would appreciate it if someone checked it. Malnova 23:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't touch the China box coz I didn't know much about where each of the numbers come from. But yeah, UN FTW. --Sumple (Talk) 08:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Could I ask what FTW means? Never heard that one. Thanks. Malnova 20:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

"for the win". i think. as in, XX FTW = Go XX! :D --Sumple (Talk) 22:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It would seem almost all of the entries differ from the numbers given on the UN site. I am thinking they should be changed to reflect it, and if no one gives any reason not to do so within a few days, we should change them. Malnova 00:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. --Sumple (Talk) 00:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello. FYI: there's a somewhat related discussion/vote occuring at the Countries Wikiproject page regarding standardizing GDP figures in country infoboxes. A proposal has been made to use the figures found in the CIA Factbook, but a consensus any which way doesn't exist yet. I'm noting it here because both of these proposals may be facets of a larger issue regarding standardization of country stats in Wp. Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 00:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

No. I do not agree using a source from the UN. I advocate the use of a CONSISTENT, SINGLE SOURCE.....and it's CIA's for the current case (since most of what's written here comes from CIA anyways). It's alright if people choose UN's data but every data MUST come from the UN. As I said, a single source!! Either ALL from CIA, or ALL from UN. It doesn't matter for me. But since the note at the bottom of the page mentioned that the source is from CIA, I am standardizing it per CIA's data. Which means again that United States is ranked number 3 in terms of total area and China is 4th. And note that from CIA's note on China at the very top/beginning: "(also see separate Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan entries)", which means the numbers in CIA does not include anything from HK, Macau, or Taiwan. 66.253.171.85 22:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

If you read what we were talking about, you would see that we are thinking of changing ALL sources to the UN figures, and the only reason we haven't switched them all is we were/are waiting to hear from other people on the subject. Yes, one source is the most consistent.

FYI 66.253.171.85 the UN number for China does not include Taiwan either. But the CIA figure for the US is calculated differently to the figure used by most other sources. Anyway, what Malnova said. --Sumple (Talk) 01:45, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I have started changing the area no.'s over to numbers listed in the United Nations Demographic Yearbook. I finished up to Western Sahara so far. The interactive listing on the UN site was using 1998 figures from the UN Yearbook, so I went and found the most updated UN Demographic Yearbook on the UN site: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/dyb/DYB2003/Table03.pdf Notice to people who have issues with some omissions. In cases such as the extra listings for Denmark, France and Norway (and others to follow), neither the UN list nor the numbers listed for the respective countries gave two entries for their areas. Both the UN and the respective country's articles seem content with listing just one area for theses countries (in all cases so far, the smaller, "sans territory listing) and so should we, I think. Their may be some discrepancies between the area number listed and some of the countries' explanatory boxes; this will have to ironed out over time. I invite commentary, criticism. I will finish up the job when I get time in the next few days. Someone else can do it if they have time. Malnova 05:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I finished editting in the UN numbers. As I said before, this may cause some discrepancies with the explanatory boxes which must be ironed out. I will look over these in the next couple of days, but would appreciate any help I could get. There are a number of footnotes about area figures used in the UN Yearbook itself. I had no figures to refer to for a number of territories, etc. near the end. The UN did not list figures for these entities for one reason or another. I left them in "as is" in respect to the people who want all territories and represented. The Islands not listed on in the Yearbook that I left in follow: Heard Island Georgia Sandwich Islands Mayotte American Virgin Islands Akrotiri and Dhekelia Christmas Island British Indian Ocean Territory Bouvet Island Ascension Island Pitcairn Island US Minor Outlying Islands Scattered Indian Ocean Island under French sovereignty Cocos Clipperton Island Ashmore Spratly Island Coral Sea Islands

I also left Israel's area figure as is because I assume it is more updated than the Yearbook 2003 figures because of recent moves by Israel. In addition I left in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as they are not represented in any numbers elsewhre on the list.

ALSO, the UN does not list Taiwan for obvious reasons. I think, for the sake of fairness and consistency, Taiwan should be relegated to a non-numbered ranking, but I have so far left it numbered and would like to hear feedback on what to do with it.

The Vatican is not a UN member, it was not listed in the Yearbook, so I left the original figure in as is.

In a small number of cases the original figures for a country/territory looked more "accurate" than a UN figure which was rounded off to an even hundred figure. Maybe the CIA figures are more "fine tuned" if not unbiased in these cases.

Lastly, though I did not intend to start another controversy, the Yearbook does list the US as larger than China (sigh) which is only going to start an edit war. Maybe we should put the explanatory box back in as a compromise.

Whew.. All this is subject to anyone's review and criticism.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/1754/area4fd.png This is relevant, no more edit war from me. Just would like now to know if the rest of the numbers for the other countries are also including coastal and territorial waters.Laomei 20:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The Yearbook is surprisingly vague on this. Surface area is "the total physical size of the country" and does not include uninhabited islands or polar regions. Malnova 22:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm still wondering why/how the US increased its area so much in so short a time. It didn't annex anyone, I don't think. --Sumple (Talk) 09:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The US just decided at some point to count coastal and territorial waters for the hell of it in the statistics. It's a dick waving thing and little more. I can't find any statistics of other nations that have done this or currently do it. Laomei 08:59, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

From the looks of Laomei's imageshack.us link, the difference between 1990 and 2000 is that, between the two, they decided to start counting Lake Michigan and the US portions of the other Great Lakes. As for the variation in the amount of land specifically, it could be explained by various land reclamation efforts (new dams, filling in harbors, diverting the Mississippi, etc.), and (to an insignifigant extent) volcanic activity.

As for the "dick waving" accusations, whether or not to include the Great Lakes seems to pose a relatively unique problem to Canada and the United States. How is the area of the Caspian Sea treated in this table? Guppy313 07:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should base all our figures on these vague UN figures. for a start, it doesn't specify how it calculates 'physical size', plus it is missing various countries, like Australia (which apparently has no available data, as an island country i can't see how australia's size could be debated (ie no contested boundaries). Further to guppy's comment, i wonder how other water bodies that cross international borders are calculated (ie Lake Victoria in Africa.) We really need a source that calculates the area of all countries in a consistent manner (ie either including or not including coastal and inland water bodies for all countries). The UN figures just seem to reflect what the countries themselves claim. --Binnor 06:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The UN does use figures that are reported by each country's national census authority, so in that sense the figures cannot be called 'vague'. The details of how surface area is measured is left to each country. Also, Australia does have a figure listed in the UN Demographic Yearbook so I'm not sure what you mean by no available data for Australia. Polaron | Talk 15:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The no figure for Australia was from the UN cyberschool bus link provided by sumple in the 'area of US' section. i stand corrected on that point. my first point still stands: the UN figures are vague in the sense that they do not specify how each figure was arrived at. Countries can, and do, measure their surface area using different methods and so we do not know if these figures include, for example, inland and coastal waters. Also due to these different calculation methods employed by various countries the UN figures are not consistent between countries, opening the way to endless debates such as China's area vs US area. If all our figures were from the same calculation method such a debate would be solved once and for all. --Binnor 06:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Malnova, I would say using the United Nations as the primary source would be the most reasonable solution, especially since it is the political body representing "all" of the nations of the Earth and it is the Earth that we are trying to assess... The UN would seem to be the least biased in its determinations and requires the assent of all the countries participating, making it again the most reliable source... Stevenmitchell 08:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Find and Replace Bug

The 21 March 2006 edit by BlaiseFEgan seems to have been a simple find and replace of commas with nbsps -- including all the commas in all the article entries. It also seems to have wiped out most of the crosslinks to other language wikipedias. I'm not sure if this is too far to revert to, but it seems important to correct. I also don't see how one country's standard of number separation is necessarily an improvement over another's. --Myke Cuthbert 21:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

China figure

The UN figure does not include Hong Kong and Macau (it lists them separately). It is easier to maintain the list if we mirror what is listed by the UN. Also, I don't get the obsession with the ranking dispute between China and the US. The US number as listed by the UN is clearly larger than the China number (even if you add the two SARs). Polaron 05:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree: the 'dispute' can be better accounted for through the use of succinct notes. Rank by one methodology; note others/anomalies. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 05:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

the dispute is not really about China including/excluding bits. It's because the US recently changed the way they count their surface area, suddenly boosting their figure by a lot.

About the SARs in China, it's really inconsistent that they're left off. But it's hard to add them in because the UN lists them separately (probly a legacy issue from pre-1997), but the Chinese government figure includes not just the SARs but also includes disputed territories that we wouldn't normally include. Woe unto the UN and its inefficiency. --Sumple (Talk) 08:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Stupid question: what country is P'sRoChina disputed with for number 3, because right now it is taking up both the #4 and #3 spots.

                            Wikiwarlock 6/24/06

Contradicting numbers

Please see Talk:Israel#Contradicting_numbers eeemess 13:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

India

I was wondering why India's total area includes disputed territories such as Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Being a disputed territory, those disputed area's should not be in either countries area listings.

Yeah, why do India's total area includes disputed territories which India itself doesn't control?? When China's area doesn't include disputed territories? Where's the sense in this? Heilme 22:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your disputed insertion since it is already claimed as disputed in the preceding column. No need for redundancy. Joelito (talk) 22:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

That's different. The number itself is disputed because the method of calculation (including disputed territories) is disputed. The preceding column did mention that the number is based on disputed territories but that's just a statement of how the number is calculated. Heilme 22:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It's redundancy. If the calculation is based on disputed territories then the calculated number is implicitely disputed. Again, no need to insert two "disputed" when one is sufficient. Joelito (talk) 23:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Then I will make the necessary edit to reflect the total area (including disputed) that are under administration of each government. Heilme 23:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I have added some area to China and minus the appropriate size from India's. Disputed territories cover Aksai Chin (1962) and northern Kashmir (1963). These areas are disputed but under China's administration (see Line of Actual Control) Heilme 23:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The article claims to exclude in (1) all disputed "non-Indian administered" territories. So why Arunachal Pradesh is listed? China claims it but it is administered by India.

Why is India listed as the 2nd largest country in Asia if Siberia is more than twice (2x) the size of India. Although, Russia's capital is housed in the eastern end of Europe, placing Russia's listing as a European nation, that is seriously misleading. Russia is essentially a transcontinental nation, so listing India as the 2nd largest nation in the world's largest continent is certainly a misrepresentation of reality. Stevenmitchell 08:24, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Lebanon

Slight correction, 10,400km^2 to 10,452km^2. This comes from the [| Ministry of Tourism - Lebanon Overview] website. 89.108.144.66 08:09, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Ranking of non-sovereign states

Polaron, I was the editor who originally switched this list over to the UN Demographic Yearbook. At first I applauded your efforts in keeping the list consistent, but I am sorry, I think you are going too far recently. Numbering sub-national entities such as Greenland is a big change, which I don't agree with. The UN put such entities on the list to acknowledge their largely self-governing status, but that doesn't mean we should rank them. But more importantly, you made no attempt to get any kind of consensus on this issue in the discussion pages before making this controversial change. If we are going to reflect the UNDY as much as is humanly possible then why not just provide a link to it instead of bothering with ranking them by size? And how does that explain Taiwan? Taiwan is listed nowhere in the UNDY, except as a footnote, so by the "strict" criteria you have set, it shouldn't be on the list at all. To be honest, my first instinct was to revert this controversial change after I noticed it what it was, but I decided out of respect for your diligent maintenance of this list over the past few months that I would come here first. So I am asking EVERYONE what the consensus is. I am for NOT numbering entities that are officially parts (or protectorates etc.) of other countries (Greenland being the highest ranked example). These entities being ranked but not numbered offers a good balance to acknowledge their status but also acknowledge that they are not completely sovereign entities, and this system has obtained for most of the life of this list. Any feedback, please? (Polaron, I apologize for using your user name in the title, but I couldn't think of another way to make sure it was eye-catching enough for people who follow this list, everything other section heading I thought of looked too generic. It's nothing personal.) Malnova 21:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings either way but why list them if you're not going to rank them? We can remove all the entries not included in the List of sovereign states and move this article to List of sovereign states by area. We should also do that for all ranked country lists for consistency. I believe it is important to be consistent throughout. Sovereign states are just a subset of countries which List of countries seems to indicate. Even if they are not sovereign, these dependent territories are not treated like regular subnational entities. They have top-level Internet domains; they have ISO-3166 codes, etc. It all boils down to what one thinks a country is. I will defer to what the majority opinion is. --Polaron | Talk 21:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have editted out the non-numbered entries before and they inevitably start creeping back in. The current title was my idea because of all the "territories" people kept including. So to be honest, what you suggested is exactly what I think/thought was the best way, but it never seems to work out that way. And the consensus for only including unequivocally sovereign countries didn't seem to be there, considering people's editting patterns (more so than their actual comments on this page). Malnova 09:06, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

All those included in the list of countries, except for unrecognised states, should be ranked. — Insta ntnood 20:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. At one point the list of countries by population had the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau added to the population of New Zealand, which is just daft. Apart from anything else, they're not counted at the same time. The New Zealand census covers New Zealand, not other dependent or freely associatiated countries. Imagine the area of Denmark if you include Greenland! 80.192.21.20 23:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

3rd/4th Place

USA is larger than China according to most modern historians and geographers. Alaska should be included as part of the USA and disputed territories should be included as part of China as long as China currenlty controls them. --GoOdCoNtEnT 06:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

As the (long long) discussion above resolved, the reason the US is bigger than China according to UN stats is because the US recently changed its method of calculating water surface areas. As a result, the surface areas reported to the UN has changed. However, many sources continue to use the previous method for calculating areas, which is why there is a "dispute". Since our policy in this article is currently to use UN figures as far as possible, the US is listed ahead of China.

I didn't notice the recent edits by User:Heilme to the China entry. That changes things... --Sumple (Talk) 07:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

European Union

I think it should be added. As an European I think there are another 4 hundred and a half millions European citizens that would like to see it listed. It's a political, economical, juridical entity after all, that's not different than a state. --Giandrea 02:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

What European citizens? There would have to be a Republic of Europe or something for that to happen, EU is an alliance or maybe a confederation, definitely not a country.--68.85.27.47 01:39, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Please, have a read of the Maastricht treaty, Title 2, Article G, paragraph C, where it is stated that:

"1. Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union."

The EU is NOT a confederation, and it is not an alliance, it's an organization whose definition is very difficoult, but it is very close to a nation. I think you should have a more in depth look of what you are talking about.... --Giandrea 16:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Why the African Union and not the European Union? The EU has higher integration than the AU anyway. - Rudykog 21:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The AU has been removed, again. As you point out, it is even less qualified for an entry in this list than the EU. Malnova 22:16, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, its quite simple. It isnt a sovereign state and so shouldnt be on the list. --Mad onion 17:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Qualifications for statehood usually include common defense and foreign ministries. This has been an explicit goal since the Maastricht Treaty, in 1992. In any case, Europeans now have a common passport. It says on each and every EU passport "European Union". I'd say that suffices for honorable. samwaltz 08:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not a contest with honorable mentions, it is a list of entitities recognized politically as states. Go check the latest Encylopedia Britanicca or any other encylcopedia. I doubt the EU is there.

It's in the CIA World Factbook under list of countries by area, rather annoyingly for you. The EU should be here, but of course with a footnote explaining controversy. For god's sake, I hold dual European and British citizenship, I can walk into any EU embassy and be given help as if I were a Swedish citizen. EU has a Foreign Minister in all but name, a court, a legislatory body, a parliament, a flag, a national anthem, a president, a common army (EUFOR), a landmass, a common economy, no borders inside it, a capital city (ish)... what more does it need? Someone to stand up with a rifle and say "I've taken over Europe?". They've done it. By the back door, like it or not. And that deserves some sort of recognition here. The US Government has officially done it, who are you to say otherwise? Trip: The Light Fantastic 01:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the EU has a common army, funny how any country can so easily opt out of actually using or not using it's own soldiers though. Some EU countries sent troops to Iraq, others refused. Could you see California doing that? France has a relatively large nuclear stockpile aimed at a number of different countries. Isn't is strange to have a "country" where some "provinces" have nuclear arms and others don't? Yes, the EU has a common currency, only some countries said, "no thanks" but still have full membership. Can you sing the EU's national anthem? The only area that cannot be argued is that the EU does have a number of members which inextricably share a common currency, which affects them inexorably. And this is why I don't dispute it's entry on the countries by GDP list, because they are truly an integrated entity on this front. Malnova 22:03, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Now, is it really necessary to specify that Rockall is included as a UK territory? Rockall is, for those of you who have never heard of it, an 80 by 100 foot rock in the North Atlantic. And as the figure for the country's area is only given to three decimal places, it doesn't affect even the final digit of the quoted number. On the other hand its inclusion is highly amusing, and did make me laugh out loud. So perhaps we should leave it after all.Palefire 15:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Rockall should be removed, especialy since it's sovereignty is disputed--Mcnuus 17:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that people disagree upon the definition of "country"... European Union should be in the list as it does fulfill a good part of the criteria AND its people regard themselves as citizens.

My suggestion is to put it between the 6th and the 7th this way (with some more comment, perhaps):

Rank	Country	Area (km²)	Notes
6	Australia	7,741,220	Includes Lord Howe Island and Macquarie Island.
-	European Union	3,976,372	7th if ranked
7	India	3,166,414¹ or 3,287,263²	¹ Excludes non-Indian-administered disputed territories (Aksai Chin, Trans-Karakoram Tract, Azad Kashmir, and Northern Areas). Includes all Indian-administered territories. Figure from Census India. ² Includes all disputed territories.

Frigo 10:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Added the European Union as the 7th largest territory in the world if ranked. The EU is considered by everyone to be something more than a simple international organization, and this is supported by many EU citizens who consider themselves to be European above anything else, or European along another nationality. After all, no one will be hurt by adding it to the ranking. Sdnegel 15:27, 9th March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't entirely understand the reasoning behind putting the EU in (I'm not averse to it, per se, but I just want to hear all the reasoning behind it). Earlier on in this talk page someone suggested putting England and Scotland (among others) for comparison purposes only, supported by the fact that everyone's heard of them and that many people do think of them or even refer to them as countries (and, on the whole, they are very country-esque, especially England). This was shot down, however, because the List of countries does not contain either and they are sub-national entities, etc. and so forth. Now, the EU does not appear in the List of countries and seems to have been shot down for inclusion there after a brief glance at the talk page (for "not being a country"). I guess what it comes down to is consitency for me; either the EU is a country and can be put into articles about countries (and their outlying territories) or it can't. Even failing that, the EU should be declared universally (throughout Wikipedia, at least) to be so country-like that it demands inclusion in lists like this one. The way Wikipedia handles it now, where it does not appear at all in one list, it appears with an asterisk and a hyphen in this list and it (probably) appears with a number like any other country in some other list, just comes off as unprofessional (I guess understandably in retrospect) and disjointed. As I said, I don't mind it one way or the other, but I feel like the Wikicommunity needs to make a decision here and I can't be alone on that front... right? 138.69.160.1 17:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

A lot of elementary students use this page for referrence, a lot of them have no idea what the EU is or whether or not it is a country so PLEASE STOP PUTTING IT HERE FOR HEAVENS SAKE.

EUROPE DOES NOT HAVE THAT ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL POWER, A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE EASTERN HEMISPHERE EVEN JAPAN OR CHINA HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE EU IS STOP PUTTING IT HERE

USA Changing Way they Calculate

How exactly did the USA change the way they calculate surface area? What was the old number and what is the new number? 71.235.83.132 05:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

See #Area of the US and #UN statistics above for various figures from various sources. --Sumple (Talk) 07:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Canada only 4% bigger than U.S.A?

I find this hard to believe, I think Canada is getting ripped off on this one. Anybody look at a world map lately?

Depends on what map your looking at. Xlegiofalco 23:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

American maps usually make themselves look bigger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.20.224.165 (talk) 00:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

Not consistant with countrie's own entry

The first 4 entires have different area sizes than their main articles, as does India. Is there a reason for this? Lugnuts 07:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Northern Ireland

Viewfinder correctly points out that the 'ROI government no longer officially claims NI' [7]. But many would say that the authorities in the 26 counties (the so-called RoI) have no right to make such a decision and that the British government still have no right to be in Ireland. They would also say that the 32-county Irish Republic still 'exists' in some sense and will someday replace the illegitimate authorities in both parts of the island today. All in all, it's still very much disputed territory. Only listing claims by 'recognized' states is putting the cart before the horse. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 13:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to reimplement the changes I made about the disputed areas of states in Ireland, unless of course there are further comments on the talk page. My point is that a dispute about the extent of a country exists even if those states/entities currently involved in the dispute are not governments of 'recognized' states. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 14:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Doh! Retracting own comments. I've just noticed that my original edits weren't undone entirely. I'm happy enough with the way it is now. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 14:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Title Revisited

In looking at the Template:Lists of countries, this article is the only one whose title refers to countries and outlying territories (all the articles just use country). Should this article be renamed to List of countries by total area, to be consistent? -- (Shocktm | Talk | contribs.) 20:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The reason for the name change was because there was a general consensus to include territories that are officially considered "part" of other countries but are not included in the official totals for the areas of these countries. It was a compromise to accurately portray it's contents. Other lists, such as lists of alphabetically, don't have such nuances to worry about. The problem with such a deceptively simple title (which of course, was it's title for a time) is that there is no consensus, here or anywhere actually, of what a country is. As long as redirects from "List of countries by area" are in place so that people can find this list, I don' think it's a problem. Malnova 01:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge List of major geographic bodies, ordered according to area

Excessive duplication, particularly of potentially contentious information (and thus risk of POV fork); unclear inclusion criteria; non-country entities can be merged into this list unnumbered.

Suggest absent opposition, merge be conducted 7 days from now (2007-01-03). --EdC 18:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The reason for that page is to avoid the page here becoming a hodge-podge. You are not absent opposition I am afraid. Malnova 00:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, sounds like a Wikipedia:POV fork. If that page is to contain spillover, it shouldn't overlap.

Here's a plan of action to cleanup the two pages:

remove the merge tags
remove country entries from List of major geographic bodies, ordered according to area
add a link in the lead section of List of major geographic bodies, ordered according to area to List of countries and outlying territories by area
add a link in the lead section of List of countries and outlying territories by area to List of major geographic bodies, ordered according to area

Does this seem acceptable? –EdC 12:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. The geographic bodies article as it is, is largely redundant. Malnova 14:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

... and done. Thanks for your help and advice. –EdC 11:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Unranked inclusion of non-country entities for comparison purposes

It seems the above debate on whether an unranked entry for the EU should be included failed to reach consensus. It would be useful to reach some form of decision about which entities should be included unranked for comparison. –EdC 00:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The debate about the unranked inclusion of the EU (or after the EU is added, the AU or Antarctica, or the former Roman Empire, or the former British empire, as happened last time unranked entities starting being added) is all thru these talk pages. It is easily the second most talked about topic here after the China/US dispute, and this article went thru a revert war about it, arbitration was attempted and eventually the current form obtained. And why is it that we aren't reaching a consensus BEFORE the EU is allowed to be added, but merely after you revert my edit and then come here; even given the fact that for a considerable length of time there was a general consensus among people contributing to this page that the EU or other such entities should not be added? I refer you to an example of what the page could become if we open the flood-gates of "non-ranked entries for purposes of comparison": [[8]]. At least this is what I found in two minutes of searching, there are probably worse examples. Allowing the entry for any supra-national entry (starting with the EU), weakens the criteria for what can be included and you get the hodgepodge I referred you to above when other people start adding their own "pet" entities. Malnova 00:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I guess that's a reasonable argument. Could you point me to the arbitration or discussion – I haven't been able to find it?

As for the order of edits: I reverted your reversion of an IP's addition of the unranked EU entry. Consensus among contributors isn't enough; there should be clear criteria on the article page such that passersby in good faith understand what is and isn't appropriate to add. I'll take a look at the article lead section to see if I can make the criteria clear. –EdC 12:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The debate started out above under the heading European Union. It then went on to my Talk Page and the Talk page of a User named Giandrea. Read up there, and go to my talk page, and his/her Talk page to see our corresponding responses. We were scheduled to arbitrate somewhere, but we had the option of hashing here and our Talk pages and that's how we did it. I am afraid it didn't come to a compromise, because Giandrea was there for one reason, to get the EU on this list and others, not for the good of the articles themselves. Malnova 14:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

tl;dr. Can't be bothered to bounce around talk pages. But anyway, I'm happy enough with the slippery slope argument; any future EU additions can be bounced to List of major geographic bodies by area. Thanks for your patience. –EdC 11:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Macau

The Macao Special Administrative Region, being part of China, is located at the Pearl River Delta of the southeastern coast of Mainland China, and is approximately 60 km southwest of Hong Kong. The territory, 28.2 km2 in area, consists of the Macao Peninsula, Taipa Island and Coloane Island; the Macao Peninsula is connected to the Taipa Island by three bridges and the two islands are connected by land reclamation. The highest peak, of 170.6 m in height, is located on the Coloane Island. [9] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.138.191.63 (talk) 05:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Italicized entries should not affect the ranking

Italicized entries may be included on the list for comparison values but they should not affect the numbering. See List of countries by population. All the italicized entries should have a "-" instead of a number. Is there any prior discussion on this that I am missing? Savidan 22:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

But then you would be excluding substantial inhabited areas from the ranking. Either we rank the non-sovereign countries or we include their figures in the state that has sovereignty over them and rank those instead. In any case, the List of countries by population does rank self-governing dependencies separately similar to this list. --Polaron | Talk 00:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Why the Argentina Republic do not include their Antartic terrotory and the U.K. does?

Just that, This is not neutral at all. --200.45.35.228 17:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

None of the listed areas include any Antarctic claims. --Polaron | Talk 17:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The notes for the UK entry are:

Includes Northern Ireland and Rockall, excludes the three Crown dependencies (768 km²), the 13 British overseas territories (17,027 km²) and the disputed British Antarctic Territory (1,395,000 km²).

(my emphasis). –EdC 18:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Palestinian territories

I'm not going to wade into political waters here, but I do think it needs to be made clear exactly what is included in the figure for this. I'm assuming it's the entire West Bank and Gaza? Is E. Jerusalem included? --Jfruh (talk) 23:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Norwegian dependencies

According to Norwegian law there are three dependencies ("biland" in Norwegian) of the Kingdom of Norway. These are Bouvet Island (Bouvetøya), Peter I Island (Peter 1.s øy) and Queen Maud Land (Dronning Maud Land). The latter two are covered by the Antarctic Treaty System, so only Bouvet Island is undisputed and should be included in this list. Svalbard (including Bjørnøya) and Jan Mayen are part of the Kingdom of Norway and should be counted with it. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings. Nidator 20:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Golan Heights (Israel)

I can't see why you didn't write the Golan Heights as aaprt of Israel- they are acepted by the global community as Israeli territory, ever since the Six Day War, and it has never been a matter of discussion since then. Israeli occupies that area, has cities there and army bases. I don't think that you should seperate the Golan Heights from Israeli territory- ever since they took over that area in the Six Day War, it has been theirs. Adarsharon 17:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Bollocks. Try reading Golan Heights#Current status and United Nations Security Council Resolution 497. I'm going to WP:AGF initially, but any edits will be reverted with extreme prejudice. –EdC 18:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Autonomous regions

Why include the Faroes and Greenland in the list and not Åland? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nidator (talk • contribs) 12:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

The Gambia

The Gambia is listed with 10,380 km² on its own page. In this list it has some thousand more, I don't have patience to check it. --Dittaeva 15:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)