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What about historical but presently defunct countries? -- Extinct countries, empires, etc.

I must say that I object to getting rid of the CountriesX system completely. I don't mind much seeing all the countries here on this page listed in a table (though see below). But I think there was no harm in leaving the individual pages alone.

We could have the letters in the table (the big A, big B, etc.) point to individual pages for that group of countries.

My objection to having all the countries here on this page are two-fold.

First, this page is now a giant monstrosity. Any list over a certain length ought to be broken down alphabetically, I think. For example, over on actresses and actors, I anticipate that we would prefer, eventually, to not have a huge and useless list, but instead to break it down alphabetically and perhaps by era (date of birth, for example). But in any event, even if we did have one big page of actors, we should also have alphabetically-broken-down pages, etc.

Second, I think that the use of tables for this sort of thing ought to be discouraged, for the same reason that people complained (rightfully so, I think) about the biology page. Yes, it looks nicer, but it also makes it harder to use the data for other purposes (by other projects, for example), and it makes it harder for newcomers. Simple straight text is really nice for many reasons.

Well, it is broken down alphabetically, as it ought to be. :-) But why on separate pages? I don't think it's a monstrosity at all. I like being able to see all the countries in the world from one page; it's kind of a pain to have to click through to the "CountriesA" page just to find the entry on Andorra. I'll grant you it would be nicer if it were alphabetized horizontally rather than vertically. That wouldn't take long to do, though.

As to the second objection, well, since I was the first one to object to the biology page format, I guess you're right. How about this? --LMS

I like the second form better. It's more accesible for devices that do not render tables well --AstroNomer

It would be nice to have some sort of a jumpbar on the top of the pages A B C D E F .. where clicking on A takes you to the A's, etc.. I'm not sure if this can be done with this software (Wiki) Rob Salzman

28/05/2001 - I've moved the country listing by continent to By continent. I think this makes navigation easier and helps to make wikipedia useful[?] -- WojPob

I agree, WojPob.

I think the next Really Cool thing to do would be to find a public domain/free atlas, and start uploading maps. Or e-mail them to Jason. If someone does that, it will force Jason to give some people some sort of capability and permission to upload image files to the Wikipedia server. --LMS

My understanding was that the images on the CIA site are also in the public domain and could be used. LDC objected to the format (jpg), though, saying the quality was not high enough. Personally, I think the qualities of these particular jpgs are high enough, and would have added them to the site if not for my concerns about the size of them and the resulting download times for people like me on dialup. :-) the relevant part of the CIA site starts at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/indexgeo; an arbitrary example of one of their maps is http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz. But I have to admit that my main interest is in where the country lies in relation to its neighbors, and that this is of course :-) not what everyone will be interested in--other people may want to know population distribution, altitude, etc. And others may object to the somewhat cartoonish quality of the CIA maps, with their bold, thick boundaries. (One suspects that for the CIA every issue is so clearly defined....) --KQ

As Tim Shell pointed out, the U.S. Department of State has published information in the public domain at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/bgn/ ; all of it is free (as in beer and speech) for use unless it has a copyright notice posted. I've added much information on Albania, attempting to integrate it into the CIA info (which is also in the public domain) and have added a new subpage (apologies to Larry), "foreign relations." I had a question for the general Wikipedia public, though: the Department of State has yet more information specific to the relations between the United States and Albania. I have not added it, as (IMHO) it seems too specific and begs for equally detailed information about its relations with other countries, which I can not provide. Do you think this is the correct approach? --KQ

But why not? If the information is factual & encyclopedic, who cares if it's very detailed? You might not want to, though, just because it doesn't seem worth the effort. I could understand that.

I do think that this poses a problem for subpages. :-) You could put it under U.S.-Albania foreign relations[?], I guess. --LMS

I'm coming around to your views about subpages, I think. I wouldn't mind changing all of them in the "countries of the world" context (albania/government etc.) except changing them presents the new problem of what to change them to: "Government of Albania" or "Albanian government"? As inconvenient as they are, subpage titles still fit the most information the most concisely.

I think you're right about the US-Albania foreign relations: probably it is too specific to be of much interest to most people. --KQ

Chechnya should not be included here yet. The peace treaty of 1996 deferred independence talks till 2001, and most governments considers Chechen territory part of Russia -- Piotr Wozniak

Taiwan is, Chechnya should also be.

When I think "Countries of the World" my mind taxonomizes it into two things. The first is a table with all the countries, listed by continent first and alphabetically second, which includes statistics such as pop., GDP per capita, growth rate, doubling time, etc. The second, and hierarchically equal part, is a spiel about the distinct differences between a country, a state, and a nation. ( Looking them up in a dictionary doesn't do any good because Webster is a sellout. )

I'd be happy to write said spiel if people would like, although I do admit that it doesn't, in fact actually matter that much.

--Seckstu[?]

Why is Christmas Island listed as a country? It's Australian territory, and I don't think there's any particular desire to secede (though if the current imbroglio with the Norwegian ship carries on I'd be starting to consider it if I lived there . . .. :) )

That was probably me responsible for that. I don't know; I was just mindlessly adding everything from the CIA World Factbook without much considering if it's in fact a country. Perhaps we should have a separate page listing various territories? But then Puerto Rico and Western Samoa would be moved off the Countries page too, I guess. --KQ

there is already a page for dependent states at Dependent areas. That is probably where Christmas Island belongs. Chistmas Island was once administered as a dependent state. Now Australia tends to claim it is an integral part of Australia, but under international law it may still be a dependent state. By the way Western Samoa is NOT a dependent state. It is a fully independent nation in its own right.

Yes, I am again thinking one thing and saying another. Western Samoa, former name of country now known as simply Samoa, not to be confused with American Samoa. Anyway.

I notice some overlap between Countries of the world and dependent areas--for instance, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Hong Kong, etc. I'm becoming increasingly leery of potentially volatile discussions, so let me just point out that there is an overlap and comment that I'm not taking any further action on it. :-) --KQ

I'm thinking of doing away with all the subpages stemming from countries of the world. What do you think of renaming them all to for instance:

 History of *
 Geography of *
 People of *
 Government of *
 Economy of *
 Communications in *
 Transportation in * 
 Military of *
 Foreign relations of *

"Transnational issues" would be integrated w/ "foreign relations of." Any suggestions? (aside from "get a life"?) ;-) --KQ

I say great idea -- subpages are just plain ugly! -- Simon J Kissane

Should England, Scotland and Wales get listed as individual conutries?

It depends upon what you want the list to be. Scotland, England and Wales are separate countries and used to be separate nations but they are not at this moment separate nation-states. Except perhaps in the sporting world where they each send separate football teams or other sporting teams to international events. -- Derek Ross

I've noticed there is a Basque insisting in putting Euzcadi (spell, please?) in the list of countries. I think we could create a third list (apart from countries of the world and extint countries, of nationalities whose terriotories lay in one or several countries, but for which there is at least a fraction of that population wanting to be a country of its own. The basques would be on that list, probably also the kurdish people, Tibet maybe, etc. what do you think? --AN

We could start a new page Nations without a country[?] Joao

Regarding the Basque Country issue, I must say that the Wikipedia community has established absolutely no rules about which countries should show up in this page. Given the fact, I do not understand why nations without the collective rights of self-determination as Euskadi or Tibet or many others should not appear (remember Woodrow Wilson's ten points for the achievement of peace in Europe in 1918?). And, believe me, a Country is something framed by a people, a culture and a land. There are also nations as the Roma or Gypsies who lack a precise land of their own. So, I please ask people to be tolerant with weak countries and nations as Tibet, Roma or Basques...I think real politik is based upon hypocresy and is the weapon of the powerful countries to dominate. Many thanks. Txino

Basque Country is in the list under Spain, it's not a country or a dependent territory. The purpose of wikipedia is to colect factual information about the world. If Basque Country were acepted as a country, then someone would have to change the articles about Spain and France. Joao

As much as you may not like it, the major aspect of defining a country is whether other countries agree with you. People by themselves can define a culture, but not a nation. Hence we recognise Tibet and Taiwan are they are recognised by many nations, even though China refuses. Myanmar is recognised as such (and not Burma), even though the USA refuses to do so. It is quite probable that the fate of small "wanna-be" countries is dictated by the larger countries. This makes for an unpleasant reality, but it IS the reality. Every state in the United Nations is recognised here, as well as countries recognised by at least some of the major nations. Basque is not recognised by ANYONE. This may be unfair, it may well be wrong and bigoted and evil, but that's just the way it is. That's not our fault. - MMGB

Well, I know it is not your fault but lets answer the cuestion: Why are you reconignising in your list countries like some isles that only have a garrison?.

And being unable to resist blowing hydrogen at the fire (where'd my eyebrows go?), I have to ask why Palestine is on the list....

Obviously, because Palestine is recognized as a country by many other countries.

Let me repeat two things I said above: "I was just mindlessly adding everything from the CIA World Factbook without much considering if it's in fact a country" and "I'm becoming increasingly leery of potentially volatile discussions, so let me just point out that there is an overlap and comment that I'm not taking any further action on it." The page does have its anachronisms; for those I apologize; however I'm not interested in engaging in political discussions, and for that I do not apologize. I had no political motive in it; I simply didn't think it through fully. Change incorrect information to your heart's content; you have my blessings but not my involvement. :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi

Let me propose the following simple standard -- its a country if it has an ISO 3166 code, an Internet ccTLD, or is a dependent territory (as opposed to mere metropolitan subdivision) of a country with one. That way we completely avoid politics. -- SJK

PROPOSAL - (Different to SJK's) How about we use this page to only list United Nations recognised countries. That is simple and non-controversial. We then have another page for all the others, with links to "dependent territories", "non-universally recognised countries", etc, etc. Because the second page will be very loosely defined, we can handle the Basques, Catalonias and "Hutt River Provinces" of the world. At the top of the page we have a disclaimer acknowledging that these are only UN-recognised countries, and a prominent link to the "other" page. - MMGB

actually, that page exist already, it's called United Nations Member States....so we still don't know what do we make with this one....maybe transform it in just a links page, with links to united nations, non-universally recognized, dependencies, etc? What IS a country? --AN

Problem is that not all states are members of the UN. The UN, technically speaking, does not and has no power to recognize states -- only the states can do that. (It can in some cases direct states to withold recognition of a purported state, though.) Switzerland and the Holy See are not UN members, and everyone in the world recognizes Switzerland at least as a country. In the past a lot more countries haven't been. We could maybe use the member state list, plus the state permanent observers to the General Assembly list. But then there still may be states with universal recognition not on either list (I don't think there are any at present, but there have been in the past.) -- SJK

Is it Taiwan (Republic of China, I think) an state permanent observer?

Taiwan is an observer, but it is not listed as a "state observer", but rather under "International organizations and other entities". It shares that list with a wide range of other things -- Palestine, the European Union, and even some NGOs, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. -- SJK

Joao, you told half the truth, as the Basque Country is also under French statehood. I don't agree that a country existence depends on the recognition of the NU. Somalilia is not recognized by NU, and Western Sahara is not recognized by at least half the countries in the world. As I told, a country requires to exist a people with a culture, a land and some think a "spirit" or self conscience. What other States recognize are States (Kingdom, Republic etc). States have a Government of its own and that's the difference between countries and states. It is paradoxical that there are countries without states and states without conutry. Bethinks me of Tibet and Taiwan. --Txino

I don't know who did this page, but it's fantastic! I hope it will convince Wikipedians to overcome their fear of "list articles" - this is a great little category system. Yeay! :) Martin 23:45 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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