LISTS

Lists.

A list is only useful if someone counted it properly. Every list here is generated from the same dataset of 195 states the quizzes use, so the totals cannot drift apart.

What is the smallest country in the world?

Vatican City, by a wide margin, and the next four on the list are stranger than the first.

Which country has the most islands?

Not Indonesia, not the Philippines, and the answer depends entirely on what you agree to call an island.

Which country has the most time zones?

France, because a country is not only the shape you see in Europe.

Countries and capitals of South America

Twelve countries, twelve capitals, and two of them sit higher than most people ever fly.

Countries that start with A

Eleven of them, from Afghanistan to Azerbaijan, counted against the UN list rather than a blog post.

Countries that start with E

Eight, and one of them changed its name this century.

Countries that start with S

Twenty six, the largest letter on the map, and the reason so many of them exist is worth a paragraph.

Countries that start with B

Seventeen, from the Bahamas to Burundi, with two of them running on two capital cities apiece.

Countries that start with C

Sixteen, and neither Congo is one of them: both file under other letters entirely.

Countries that start with G

Eleven, from Gabon to Guyana, nearly half of them in Africa.

Countries that start with M

Eighteen, the biggest letter in this batch, from Madagascar to Myanmar.

Countries that start with N

Eleven, and North Korea is here while South Korea files under a different letter entirely.

Countries that start with P

Ten, the smallest of this batch, and one of them is a UN observer state rather than a full member.

Countries that start with T

Eleven, from Tajikistan to Turkiye, a name its own government asked the world to start using in 2022.

What is the most spoken language in the world?

The answer changes depending on whether you count native speakers or everyone who can hold a conversation. Both rankings, and the rule behind each.

Countries with similar flags

Romania and Chad, Indonesia and Monaco, Ireland and Ivory Coast. The pairs that catch people out, side by side at full size.

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