Talk:List of countries and dependencies by area

Afghanistan

You should not use Taliban flag on this list until the government is officially recognised by UN. Taliban are a terrorist group forced to take the power in Afghanistan where the people will never accept it except a particular tribe who are called Pashtuns (Taliban are all Pashtun). Zaki Frahmand 15 September 2021, 10:04 UTC

But they are running the country at the moment, so.... 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 14:29, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

U.S. and China

The United States is 0.2 square kilometers larger than China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BookReader9876 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes US is 9.8 m and China 9.5m Nlivataye (talk) 09:34, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The area of the U.S. is inflated, it includes the U.S. coastal waters and territorial sea. If Australia also includes its coastal wasters, its surface area would be 8,099,264 km² (note: this figure includes the Australian coastal wasters only, which is three nautical miles seaward from the baseline, if we also include the Australian territorial sea, the area would be larger).

Link: https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/area-of-australia-states-and-territories 2001:8003:900C:5301:6D42:D85:B2AB:41FE (talk) 07:15, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Yemen Area

Please Change Yemen Area to 527,968km2 (203,850 sq mi), as its not listed correctly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.231.157.168 (talk)

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the area of Yemen is only 455,000 km².

Link: https://www.britannica.com/facts/Yemen 2001:8003:900C:5301:6D42:D85:B2AB:41FE (talk) 07:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

United States and China (Note 4)

Somebody did a lot of work on Note 4 at few years back, so I don't want to breeze right in and remove everything. However, now both sources cited (CIA and Encyclopedia Britannica) state that the United States has a total area of 9,833,517 to 9,834,633 sq km while China has a total area of 9,596,960 to 9,572,900 sq km.

https://www.britannica.com/facts/United-States

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-states/

https://www.britannica.com/facts/China

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/china/ Ridge Runner (talk) 19:43, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, apparently Britannica has updated their figure for the US. Thanks for pointing this out! Unless someone beats me to it, I'll work on updating the note over the next week or so. --Lasunncty (talk) 07:01, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry it took me longer to make this edit than I intended. I have now updated the table and simplified it a bit, considering that all three sources are now pretty much in agreement. But since the inconsistency in how the areas are calculated is still there, I left the ranking as it was. I removed the discussion in the note about the history of the CIA Factbook, since all three sources have changed their values over the years, and I didn't think it made sense to only talk about one of them. --Lasunncty (talk) 10:28, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

You really shouldn't remove the history of the CIA World Factbook. Based on its history, we know their painstaking efforts in helping the U.S. to overtake China as the third-largest country in the world:

Progression of U.S. area in the CIA World Factbook

1. From 1989 to 1996: 9,372,610 sq km (including land and internal waters) – ranked fourth in the world.

2. 1997: 9,629,091 sq km (added the Great Lakes and coastal waters) – bigger than China's de facto area, but still smaller than China's claimed area.

3. 2004: 9,631,418 sq km (updated data using better land surveying technology)

4. 2006: 9,631,420 sq km (another update)

5. 2007: 9,826,630 sq km (added territorial sea) – finally bigger than China's claimed area (including Taiwan and disputed areas controlled by India, excluding coastal waters and territorial sea)

6. 2009: 9,826,675 sq km (updated data using better land surveying technology)

7. Present: 9,833,517 sq km (the most recent update)

The funny thing is that the U.S. has not gained any territory through war or land purchase, but its area is keep growing. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:654F:59FC:9276:D657 (talk) 02:39, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

None of these sources are correct. They are not professional land surveying agencies and they use some unknown external sources for their figures. The big problem here is that China does not officially publish its water area (and its "official land area" is only a wild estimate). There is one fanatic Chinese geography nerd on Zhihu.com who manually calculated the land area (pure land + internal waters, excluding coastal waters and territorial sea) of both countries and his summary is as follows:

China (land area under de facto control, excluding Taiwan and South Tibet): 9,392,000 sq km

China (claimed land area, including Taiwan and South Tibet): 9,498,000 sq km

United States (pure land + internal waters): 9,344,277 sq km

United States (pure land + internal waters + Great Lakes): 9,499,918 sq km

His conclusion:

Comparing apple with apple, the land area under Chinese de facto control is smaller than the land area (including the Great Lakes) of the United States, but China's claimed land area is almost exactly the same as the United States with the tiny difference falling within a reasonable margin of error (± 10,000 sq km).

He did not attempt to calculate China's coastal waters and territorial sea. We all know China claims a huge territorial sea in the South China Sea.

Basically, until China publishes its water area, we have no way of knowing which country is larger.

Link: https://www.zhihu.com/question/32233413/answer/350465953 (in Chinese) 1.146.222.56 (talk) 04:10, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Is this an actual argument? None of the sources are correct, so use some guy's calculations instead? How are we sure that this person isn't completely wrong or biased? Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 04:10, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

UK

I noticed that since I last visited this article, the parts of the UK have been added separately, which makes no sense at all. While places like Jersey or Bermuda could be added since they are not part of the UK and operate outside of it, even if they are not independent countries, it makes sense to add them (the same goes for Hong Kong and Macau since they operate outside of mainland China and have their own internationally recognized special status), this does not apply to the constituent parts of the UK. In the case of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, however, none of these are countries in the international sense, but are constituent countries like the federal states in the US. They are all part of the United Kingdom and not overseas territories or dependencies. The word country in the local sense of the United Kingdom does not correspond to the internationally recognized term referring to independent nations or autonomous regions outside the full rule of a sovereign state. Arianoleejones (talk) 22:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

You are correct, and I have removed them. The inclusion criteria are ISO 3166-1 plus account taken for states with limited recognition, and anything that doesn't meet that standard shouldn't be included. Kahastok talk 14:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The disanalogy here is that none of the 50 states was ever an independent state (country, kingdom, republic, generic political entity) in its own right. First the initial thirteen were colonies, then they were constituent parts of a federal republic, into which more territory was gradually incorporated in variously unethical ways. Yes, there was a certain short-lived misadventure in the middle of the 19th century regarding "states' rights", but that related more to which of the two camps certain states should fall into rather than whether they should each be independent political entities. For better or for worse, our "constitution" has never been that of a federal state such as Belgium, Germany, or Austria (or indeed, the US), so this is an exceptionally poor analogy.

To compare Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories – which are in some cases, one might argue, a fig-leaf covering the disintegration of the British Empire in the last century – to nations that were independent countries long before the language we are having this conversation in existed in its present form (and I am referring to times when English had three genders and at least four grammatical cases) is historical and cultural illiteracy, pure and simple. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:47, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Actually I must correct myself: Hawaiʻi was an independent state before it was colonised and brutalised by Europeans. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That's not correct, Vermont and Texas both had periods of independent nation-hood, and a few other portions of the US had shorter periods of it. It's also entirely irrelevant. 50.184.89.130 (talk) 14:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

How is this relevant to the discussion on the content of this article? Kahastok talk 09:34, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Top 5

What do you think are the top 5 disputes in how the table should be set up are?? The order of China and the United States appears to be one of them. Georgia guy (talk) 12:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Numbering is wrong starting at 12

It appears that the numbering (which is automatically generated?) falls apart at entry 11. DR Congo (#11) is obviously larger than Greenland, and Saudi Arabia (#12) is clearly smaller than Greenland. Thus, Greenland does not get its own number because it is/isn't part of Denmark (#130). Paulehoffman (talk) 23:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Greenland is considered a dependent territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. For this article, all dependent territories and de facto states are included but unnumbered in the ranking. 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 14:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Unlike the US territories, Greenland is officially considered a integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark, just that it's not correct to call it sovereign state nor a dependent territory ThePurgatori (talk) 01:53, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2023

concerning "Note 1" about Canada: this note is currently ambiguous because it appears several times in different contexts in the article, but was only written with one of them in mind. it reads:

With its surface area including all or parts of 17 of the world's 40 largest freshwater lakes, Canada is smaller than China and the United States in land area.

it should be changed to something like:

By surface area, including all or parts of 17 of the world's 40 largest freshwater lakes, Canada is larger than China and the United States, but smaller if only land area included.

the very first appearance of Note 1 on the page is in the right sidebar near the top and this shows an example of how the current note doesn't make sense because Canada is already on that list moved down. 2603:8001:D3F0:87E0:0:0:0:1DF6 (talk) 18:43, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

The note only appears twice, once in the pie chart and once in the table. I think it makes sense in both spots. As far as the wording, I would propose the following:

Canada's water area includes all or parts of 17 of the world's 40 largest freshwater lakes, so while it is larger than China and the United States in total area, it is smaller in land area.

--Lasunncty (talk) 07:27, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

The current wording is relying on a distinction between "surface area" and "land area" as if that's obvious, which I think to be clear should not be so subtle. The current wording also says "with its" to introduce a measurement being used "without its", which is also needlessly confusing. Yours is clearer for show, thumbs_up_emoji, but I'm not sure if "surface area" should stay in as a "standard term of art" or something? I'm fine with using terms of art, just not when the distinction is somewhat sneaky. (to my ear) 2603:8001:D3F0:87E0:0:0:0:1DF6 (talk) 08:10, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Comment Has Canada's "surface area" included Hudson Bay? If so, I think it is unfair to list Canada as the second-largest country, it is actually the fourth-largest country in the world by land area, behind Russia, China, and the United States.

Link: https://www.marineregions.org/eezdetails.php?mrgid=8493&zone=eez_internal_waters 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 13:48, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

According to the notes, Canada's non-freshwater internal and territorial waters are not included.

This entire list is ranked by total area, not land area, but you can sort it by land area alone if you wish. --Lasunncty (talk) 22:01, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Formatting with shorter line length

With the new standard line length being shorter, the new and old ways of formatting the article come off as entirely different documents. The old version with wide lines is a list, while the 'Notes' column' makes the new version read more like a listicle - not all in a bad way. My point is that this situation seems a little unstable. Eventually somebody will get annoyed that the default view is not a pure list, and want the Notes column excised. And they'd have good cause. I'm not sure what the solution is. The notes column is good content, but I'm not sure what options there are to display it in a good way by default. Does anyone have any ideas? Wizmut (talk) 06:08, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

We could force the table to maintain a certain width regardless of the window size. But what value would be ideal? --Lasunncty (talk) 09:24, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I got another idea and simply started moving notes to the Notes section. It's fiddly work because sometimes the notes already link to notes, and some notes are not even in the Notes column. Can finish later if there's no issue.

Did something similar at the population list and it looks very clean now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population Wizmut (talk) 19:40, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

French Territories

While i was looking at the list i couldn't see Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Mayotte and Réunion. I know that they are part of France but they also should be listed seperately i think. Mehmetberkgung (talk) 16:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC) ...just as if they were their own countries?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:01, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

yeah they have their own flag plus they are way too far away from metropolitan france so they should be listen seperately Mehmetberkgung (talk) 00:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Using the same rule, Hawaii would have to be on this list as well. Georgia guy (talk) 00:57, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

No hawaii is part of USA but those 5 territories have different visa policy they are like countries they has to be in the list if so we should delete all other UK overseas territories Mehmetberkgung (talk) 02:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Lots of places have independent visa policies. That doesn't merit inclusion on this list. CMD (talk) 03:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Support They are some political remnants from the colonial era which function as "overseas territories". The United Nations has assigned each of them their own UN M49 country codes (e.g. REU for Réunion, GLP for Guadeloupe, and NCL for New Caledonia). The international community has pretty much treated them as own countries too.

Link: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ 2001:8003:900C:5301:D32:8998:E83:7BBB (talk) 12:16, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Western Sahara Flag

Doesn't Western Sahara have a flag? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Sahrawi_Arab_Democratic_Republic.svg is the file 73.170.116.64 (talk) 05:43, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Nope, it has two flags depending on who you ask. Morocco says it has Morocco's flag, and the SADR government says it has SADR's flag. Wizmut (talk) 22:14, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment It is for WP:NPOV reasons. Western Sahara is a disputed territory. If we list Kashmir separately, we should avoid using either Chinese, Indian or Pakistani flag too. 2001:8003:900C:5301:D32:8998:E83:7BBB (talk) 12:06, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I would just remove all of the flags. They add nothing except a reason to argue — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 12:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Flags serve as a good representation for countries though. 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Iran

For note 21, some more info could be "Largest Shi'a majority country on Earth." and also "Largest Iranian-speaking country" since Iran is the largest country that speaks an Iranian language. Stuffmaster1000 (talk) 04:03, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Support Also, Iran's area is wrong. 1,745,150 km² is the correct figure. 2001:8003:900C:5301:D32:8998:E83:7BBB (talk) 12:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Pie chart and other figures

Should a pie chart be on this page?

A long-standing one was recently removed for being unsourced, and although I don't think that's a very good reason (WP:CALC), I'm not jumping to revert it, because there's already two other figures that summarize top country area, and they're both maps. And that's not counting the very list-like bar charts that occur right after the list. Really, we could just use one figure - the standard world map, colored by country size, that we already have.

I looked around at other pages that have list of countries by area, and only List of European countries by area has a pie chart. Oddly most pages have no figure at all. Africa has a map, but there's no color-coding.

One problem with pie charts can be seen at the Europe page: where do you stop? After just a few entries, the chart is now hard to read, and yet it hasn't even described the data very well. A better alternative might be a treemap. But what's even better than a treemap? A map.

Please discuss here if you love or hate pie charts in this context. Wizmut (talk) 01:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment A pie chart for the Top 10 largest countries is actually a good idea. 2001:8003:900C:5301:D32:8998:E83:7BBB (talk) 12:04, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Just ten placed into a whole pie, or a slice for 3%, 2%, 2%, etc? Wizmut (talk) 21:23, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Just a slice for each of the Top 10 countries would be nice, similar to the one used in the List of European countries by area. 2001:8003:900C:5301:6D42:D85:B2AB:41FE (talk) 07:06, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

It would be a small striped triangle taking up 15% of a circle. Not very easy to read.

The table could reasonably have a column that lists percentages. But that would be some work. Wizmut (talk) 07:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Barbados numbers are wrong

The table claims Barbados has more land area than total area (431 sq km compared to 430 sq km), which is impossible. Even if the numbers were accidentally switched around, the table also claims those two numbers are equivalent to 170 sq mi and 166 sq mi respectively, which do not match up (170 sq mi is about equal to 440 sq km). Finally, the table also claims barbados has 0 sq km of water area, so that suggests the two numbers shouldn't be different at all. TurkeyCookTime (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. --Lasunncty (talk) 19:26, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Template cleanup

I went over all the uses of templates and made sure everything was exact (fixed uneven spacing and use of commas).

I then also took a bigger step of making a new template for use on this page and others: Template:km2 mi2. This makes the markup a lot easier to edit and proofread, and reduced the file size by about 25% without removing any content.

I will fix the rounding problems this created for the smallest ten entries on the table, but I also found that those entries had a lot of varying answers when doubling checking them. For some the answer differs by as much as 100%, so 1 sig fig is probably appropriate.

If anything is broken, feel free to revert, but also discuss here! Wizmut (talk) 18:32, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Charts?

The two bar charts at the bottom of the page use data from 2005 (reportedly). But luckily, they don't show their results with the kind of precision on the table. And they don't have the clarity of the map. If nobody can find a unique purpose they serve, they can probably be removed. Wizmut (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Re-sorting functions broken

I don't know how to fix it, but clicking on some column headers either fails to sort correctly, or does nothing at all. Clicking on the Rank header works but the results are wrong because too many places have a hyphen as the rank. 伟思礼 (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

This broke because I added a zero-width non joiner to the template. So, I removed it, which will break the template when used with text notes. So, I will now replace the conversion templates in the notes with plain text, and remove the square miles (many figures in notes are already given in square kilometers anyways). If there's demand for it I may add conversions back, but for all figures in notes, although in my opinion it's easier to read the notes without the square miles. Wizmut (talk) 19:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of Svalbard

Svalbard and Jan Mayen are considered distinct from Norway, but Norway disagrees. To them and their law, Svalbard is an integral part of the country, just like Alaska or Corsica.

Although I like inclusion and think the "mainland" distinction is neat, it really doesn't seem to fit into the criteria for this list. This is the same category as large but integral islands or exclaves of the US, France, Italy, Australia, China, Russia not to mention Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand and probably many more.

A similar discussion has recently occurred on the population density list talk page which favored exclusion, but points in favor of including Svalbard were made in previous discussion on this page. Wizmut (talk) 10:46, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Not only Svalbard and Jan Mayen, other territories such as Åland, the Australian external territories, the Caribbean Netherlands, the French overseas regions, and the Special administrative regions of China (Hong Kong and Macao) are also considered integral parts by their respective administering state. Further discussion is needed to come up with an agreed inclusion criteria. Otherwise, we will have this kind of debate forever. 2001:8003:900C:5301:80DE:9FBE:80BE:AD01 (talk) 07:56, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 August 2023

can you please change the link from France to Metropolitan France in the table section France (metropolitan)? thank you 143.44.165.26 (talk) 11:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I kept the link to France but changed the (metropolitan) text to have the link as (metropolitan). Is this satisfactory? Wizmut (talk) 20:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes 143.44.165.26 (talk) 08:04, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Exclusion of the 5 overseas regions of France

why the 5 french overseas regions aren't included? .caiify3623. (talk) 01:10, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

They're all part of France and are included in France's area. Georgia guy (talk) 01:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

A long-standing consensus[1] is to use the ISO 3166-1 as the basis for country lists which use multiple sources, with the exception of also including partially recognized states.

There has been some questioning of this standard, but in the direction of excluding a few areas that are considered integral by their mainland countries (Svalbard for example). Your question would go in the opposite direction of including new areas.

It would not be out of the question to review that consensus, but there's no telling if we can actually improve on it. As you can see, they really talked the issue to death. Wizmut (talk) 01:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Colombian Caribbean Islands

San Andrés and its smaller Colombian neighbors in the Caribbean should be listed. Isn't their relationship to Colombia similar to the relationship of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to the United States? Pascalulu88 (talk) 14:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Discrepancies and Summary

The figures (currently) cited for the numbered countries add to (km²);

Total. 133,914,266. Land. 129,394,655. Water. 4,494,443.

The US is cited as

Total. 9,833,517. Land. 9,147,593. Water. 685,924.

Better values are

Total. 9,572,900. Land. 9,147,593. Water. 425,307.

… since the cited figure seems to be the only one to include territorial waters.

Note: There are 45 discrepancies where Total does not equal Land plus Water.

The 6 largest are: Ecuador (13752), Venezuela (4395), New Zealand (3629), Colombia (2838), Mozambique (2210), South Africa (1947).

The 6 smallest are: Namibia (-100), Norway (-270), Tajikistan (-1000), United Kingdom (-1115), Tanzania (-2213), France (-3122).

There are 5 out by 1 km². Fiji and Seychelles are odd.

There are 66 territories listed. I’ve checked the major ones: if the page says it’s not included in the "owner" country, then I’ve added them. They are Antarctica (14,200,000), Greenland (2,166,086), Taiwan (36,193), UK territories (18,874), US territories (10,681).

I've used the values cited in this article: the last 2 differ (a bit) from British Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies and List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area. The water area for US territories is the major difference. Svalbard is not added. I assume Hong Kong is included in China. I assume Halaib Triangle (20,580 km²), Bir Tawil (2,060 km²), Ilemi Triangle (1,000 km²), have been included in one of the "numbered countries".

Adjusting for US and the 5 territories above it makes;

Total. 150,085,483. Land. 145,821,888. Water. 4,233,971.

Making that Total equal 29.42% of 510,072,000 km².

MBG02 (talk) 17:42, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Some parts of the page is incorect

Firstly, Uganda is 241,038 sq km, not 241,550 sq km. An overwhelming majority of websites that talk about Uganda as the subject only say it is 241,038 sq km.

Also, 197,100 + 43,938 ≠ 241,550 so this is incorrect

Secondly, what's up with Eritrea's area? It says that it is 125,000 sq km when there is absolutely no evidence of the country being THAT big! Sources only say it is 117,600 sq km.

Also, the area of Bulgaria on this article isn't matching what it says on Bulgaria, and it's saying that it is 110,993.6 sq km (rounds up to 110,994 sq km), not 111,002 sq km.

And thanks to the fact that the government of Denmark has recalculated the country in 2017 when he noticed it was actually 42,943 sq km, this should be corrected from 43,094 sq km to 42,943 sq km, which Wikipedia exactly says this. (and reliable source for Denmark's recent recalculation: https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/miljoe-og-energi/areal/arealopgoerelser) 2601:280:5000:D2F0:2FA2:675D:BBAE:64CC (talk) 18:54, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Would you please provide source URLs for Uganda & Eritrea? Peaceray (talk) 19:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/eritrea/

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/uganda/

There are too many sources that say so otherwise 2601:280:5000:D2F0:6C0C:6D92:5758:FB55 (talk) 19:12, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Good faith contributions

@Just a random geography fan I wanted to thank you for your attention towards this article, with the caveat that any figures which deviate from the default source (the UN) need to have a citation each to back them up, which can be placed in the last column (the notes column). This holds even when copying from other articles, because those articles may have mistakes or errors.

I would also say that it's good to be bold and improve things, but if you genuinely think that your edits may require some extra explanation or may be in some way contentious, it's no problem to drop a line on this page or any talk page. The majority of us do not bite and are happy to help :)

Also wanted to say more specifically that your recent edit to add French Guiana may be reverted for the technical reason that it is not considered separate from France by their government or by the ISO 3166-1 standard. It is in some sense more similar to Hawaii or Aland than Gibraltar or Greenland. It may seem arbitrary, but using an outside standard has proved more resilient than holding a referendum on each region for each list. If you look at the discussion archives on this page and the pages for other country lists, you can see that it doesn't stop discussion entirely, but it does help. Wizmut (talk) 06:18, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• I support the inclusion of all five French overseas regions. The UN includes them in their list of countries and territories and assigned country codes to all of them. Being so far away from their mainland, there are some good reasons to list these regions separately. N. Mortimer (talk) 10:52, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Flag.svg vs noflag

This has gone back and forth a few times, but I don't believe there's ever been a discussion about it. For territories without a flag (or with a disputed status) should we use

• Flag.svg
• the noflag template
• or neither?

To me, flag.svg indicates that there is a flag that is either unknown or under dispute, while noflag (or the neither option) indicates that there is no flag (no claims, and no government of their own). --Lasunncty (talk) 04:30, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you're correct about what each option indicates, and I also think that's what was being used until a few days ago. Western Sahara is ambiguous, but Antarctica is not - it has no flag (discounting fan suggestions). Wizmut (talk) 04:38, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

• Use for notable disputed territories such as Western Sahara. Use for Antarctica. Use (the noflag template) for Northern Ireland (except sports articles). N. Mortimer (talk) 10:39, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Land and water figures (Semi-protected edit request on 7 December 2023)

Please add Template:Citation needed to the tops of the "Land in km² (mi²)" and "Water in km² (mi²)" columns.

The top of the page says that all data come from [2] unless otherwise noted, but this document gives just one figure for area (comparison with the chart shows that it's what appears in the "Total in km² (mi²)" column), so the land and water columns are not sourced. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done I added a similar template to the sentence which mentions the main source. Adding a tag directly to the table could deform it a bit.

I did a little bit of checking and it appears that the land and water data could have come from the CIA Factbook or an old version of the UN Yearbook, but there may be some deviations that need to be resolved. I will add this to my to-do list if nobody else wants to. Wizmut (talk) 00:42, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I found a better source which gives both the land area and the total area of all countries and territories in the world:

https://www.worldometers.info/geography/largest-countries-in-the-world/

If we subtract a country's land area from its total area we would get its water area too. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:654F:59FC:9276:D657 (talk) 03:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Not well-regarded on the list of reliable sources: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources. Wizmut (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Who give these ratings to those sources? 2001:8003:9100:2C01:654F:59FC:9276:D657 (talk) 07:44, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but the absence of any metadata makes me frown.

I found this tool from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN: [3]. Although annoyingly they use 1000 hectares instead of km2. (100 hectares = 1 km2)

The World Bank data seems to match: [4] Wizmut (talk) 10:09, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Bit of a snag in using this alternate UN source: it gives sometimes weird numbers. For example, the FAO gives Canada an area of about 15million km2 because it includes all of that water in the arctic circle. So it's sometimes saying territorial water is integral, which is an unusual definition. It does the same thing for Monaco, making it several times larger in total.

Sometimes it will actually break up the water into categories, but it's not consistent. I think only the land figures are always using the same definition.

So here's my the plan: use the WPP source for 'total area', the FAO source for 'land area', and update the water areas only where the two sources agree on total area. Somebody else can figure out what to do when they disagree, I'll note them here later. It might be ok to use simple subtraction, because they're both the UN, but maybe not because it's different teams. Wizmut (talk) 09:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I have completed work on the first column, which took a couple hours. Here are my detailed notes, which were too long for an edit summary:

• Update UN source to 2022 data.
• Fix total for Kingdom of Denmark (WP:AVRC).
• Change Brazil, Botswana source to UN WPP.
• Add citation for Iran, Venezuela, Somaliland.
• Update note for Iraq, Ecuador, New Zealand, Benin, Palestine, Saint Lucia, Saint Helena.
• Fix total and sort Saudi Arabia , Kenya , Uruguay , Malawi , United Arab Emirates , French Polynesia , Northern Mariana Islands , Saint Martin.
• Fix totals for China, Sudan, Philippines , Burkina Faso, Israel using CIA data.
• Fix totals for Argentina, Kazakstan, Mexico, Libya, Mali, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Egypt, Chile, Zambia, Myanmar, Thailand, Spain, Turkmenistan, Cameroon, Germany, Vietnam, Malaysia, Ivory Coast, Poland, Oman, Italy, New Zealand, Guinea, Uganda, Ghana, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Senegal, Nepal, Tajikistan, Eritrea, North Korea, Bulgaria, Iceland, South Korea, Hungary, Portugal, Serbia, Austria, Ireland, Panama, Sierra Leone, Lithuania, Latvia, Togo, Slovakia, Denmark, Moldova, Belgium, Belize, Slovenia, New Caledonia, Fiji, Eswatini, East Timor, Bahamas, Montenegro, Qatar, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Somoa, Aland, Bahrain, Dominica, Singapore, Guam, Seychelles, US VI, Grenada, Malta, Montserrat, Guernsey, St Bart using UN data.

I also had these additional notes which I might not get to:

• UN's china figure is rounded off
• UN gives no Sudan area
• double check pakistan, france, sweden, norway, finland, united kingdom, netherlands (and NL caribbean)

I still have the land area on my to-do list, after which I'll report which rows the UN WPP and the UN FAO did not agree on. Wizmut (talk) 09:23, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@‎Joshua Jones and Stuart Smith Can you be more specific about which parts are unsourced? All of the figures are directly from the UN's World Population Prospects.

For example, in the 2022 edition of their statistical yearbook[5], you can find the pdf or xls table and search for the entry on "Argentina" which is 2,796,427 km².

The source from the earlier revision also contains the same number. Wizmut (talk) 12:05, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

@Wizmut and @123.51.107.94, well here's the thing: the website with those figures of areas are not supported by the government of those countries, and i've edit the area numbers of the ones supported by the governments of each of these countries. So, in the end, don't believe everything online, and make sure you're finding more reliable sources. Just a random geography fan (talk) 04:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Every figure on this list requires a source. The United Nations is a reliable source. Edits without a source are disruptive. You have not provided a citation for any of your edits. Wizmut (talk) 08:26, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Problem with double counting the areas of disputed territories

I noticed that this article has a serious problem with double counting the areas of disputed territories. Most notably Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet) involving India, Pakistan, and China. The Indian area figure (3,287,263 sq km) includes Pakistani-controlled Kashmir (Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir), Chinese-controlled Kashmir (Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract), and Arunachal Pradesh (controlled by India, claimed by China as South Tibet). On the other hand, the Pakistani area figure (881,913 sq km) includes Pakistani-controlled Kashmir only and the Chinese area figure (9,596,961 sq km) does not include Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet) and any part of Kashmir, including Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract which are actually under its control. This implies two things:

1. The area of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir (Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir) has been double counted.

2. The sources used in this article, which published these figures, have sided with India by including all disputed areas, including those under de facto control of Pakistan and China, as part of India, which have completely ignored the claims made by Pakistan and China. By using their figures, we have violated the WP:NPOV policy because we have also sided with India in an international dispute involving three different countries.

In order to comply with the WP:NPOV policy, using Western Sahara and the Spratly Islands as precedents, I reckon we should list Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet) as separate regions and deduct their respective areas from each of those claimant countries. By including them as separate entries could help shed light on the ongoing complexities and sensitivities surrounding their political status.

Furthermore, by listing these regions separately, it could serve as a reminder of the differing claims and perspectives held by India, Pakistan, and China on these regions. It would highlight the need for diplomatic efforts and peaceful resolutions to address such disputes.

After making these deductions, the new table would look like this:

3 or 4	China	9,596,961 sq km
7	India	2,965,175 sq km
35	Pakistan	796,067 sq km
–	Kashmir	232,088 sq km
–	Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet)	90,000 sq km

Alternatively, we could also include the area de facto controlled by each country in each country's respective land area figure, then the table would look like this:

3 or 4	China	9,641,816 sq km
7	India	3,156,562 sq km
33	Pakistan	881,913 sq km

Which option should we choose?

P.S. I believe that other countries involved in territorial disputes would have some similar problems. For example, the Halaib Triangle (20,580 sq km) claimed by Egypt and the Sudan may have been included in both countries' area figures. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:B903:331B:3DE3:E06A (talk) 08:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Doing too much math, especially across different sources might be WP:SYNTH. It's not too much of a problem to simply report the figures given, and the figure of "X without Y" could be mentioned in the note for "X" (provided such a figure could be derived from a single source). Preferring the UN as the most prominent source, while keeping others to notes, is just keeping the table readable.

Perhaps, the significant figures could be reduced in cases where two governments/agencies disagree. A similar trend used to occur on the population list. It didn't stick, though, and I don't really recommend this.

And the "World" entry double-counts everything at least once, but nobody minds that. Wizmut (talk) 09:15, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

There are many disputed territories around the world, and I don't think it makes sense to list all of them in this table separately. My vote would be for the second option, to list the areas under de facto control, but then include a note about disputed areas. And if the figures are not explicitly stated by a reliable source, include how the calculation was made so that it can be verified. --Lasunncty (talk) 02:17, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

It looks like the ISO 3166-1 might help us here. They list Western Sahara as a distinct region but not Spratly Islands or Kashmir. Always good to have a criteria from a reliable third party. Wizmut (talk) 07:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Sources

What is the master source for this data? According to the intro, totals are from the UN Demographic Year Book 2022 and land and water figures are taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Yet from what I can see, the data is a mishmash of sources, all from different years. Including the UN, CIA, national statistical agencies, online encyclopedia and the BBC. There may be others too.

Surely if a comparative table is to mean anything, it ought to be from the same source and from the same year. Dgp4004 (talk) 12:06, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Likewise, explanatory notes has been abused to add all sorts of unreferenced trivia. Dgp4004 (talk) 12:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Please see "Land and water figures" section above. I'm slowly working on conforming the table to the default sources.

But the notes at the top do say "unless otherwise specified", and there will be some entries that use CIA, official, or other sources. Wizmut (talk) 13:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, it looks like a big job! Dgp4004 (talk) 14:11, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment

We should use multiple sources for this article. The thing about sources is that none of them are perfect. Let's look at them one by one:

United Nations

They treat Antarctica as water (i.e. ice = water). For them, Greenland is only 410,450 km² (about the size of Paraguay) and Antarctica is only 285,000 km² (about the size of Ecuador).

CIA World Factbook

They represent the U.S. government. Kosovo is a country, the State of Palestine is not a country, the Spratly Islands is a disputed territory, Kashmir is not a disputed territory, Western Sahara is a part of Morocco, the Golan Heights is a part of Israel, Taiwan is "a part" of China (I hope China won't see this though), Russia is a Central Asian country, Papua New Guinea is a Southeast Asian country. Have you seen any other sources which list Russia as a Central Asian country?

BBC

They represent the British, pretty much a carbon copy of the CIA World Factbook.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Written by a bunch of so-called experts whose work quality is often worse than Wikipedians.

In order to maintain WP:NPOV, we need to objectively select the best source for each individual country or territory. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:CCE7:6086:F670:D06C (talk) 15:09, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I have finished going over every figure in the table and adding multiple sources to the footnotes, when it seemed prudent. Some comments:

I have no doubt that the UN asks each government if they've done a decent survey and takes a lot of them at their word. In cases like the United States, they copy the figure which includes territorial water, but in cases like the UAE, they copy the figure which only includes land area. The CIA factbook often does the same (usually the UN and CIA agree on the exact number). Point being, a column comparing major sources is unlikely to be a comparison of methods.

In cases where the UN and CIA disagreed, I checked official sources and academic sources as a tiebreaker. The footnote should always contain mention some kind of disagreement in the footnote whenever it exists.

For figures and disagreements that just made me skeptical in general, I went to the additional step of searching on Google Scholar. Usually this didn't help, because there's even more disagreement among academics (see South Sudan entry). But it often gave a useful range that warrants a mention in the footnote. Wizmut (talk) 19:05, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

United States

The US Census gives detailed figures on how it adds up its total area:[6]. This article generally excludes coastal and territorial water within the table itself, with the notes column showing alternative definitions, if any. But the US entry is the biggest exception in that it includes 477,000 km² of non-internal water. It really doesn't need to be this way; we could simply sum the land figure and inland water figure to make the US's entry comparable to all of the others.

It would look something like this:

	Country / dependency	Total in km2 (mi2)	Land in km2 (mi2)	Water in km2 (mi2)	% water
3/4	United States	9,369,417 (3,617,551)	9,147,593 (3,531,904)	221,824 (85,647)	2.4

The entry would remain in the same place and retain the extra note about US-China ranking.

Wizmut (talk) 22:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

As part of updating all the "U" countries, I have made this change with a slightly different note. Please do comment if you believe this entry should be rendered differently. Wizmut (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

@ZeusDragon2024 Your comment is requested. Wizmut (talk) 18:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

9,525,067 is the correct size of the United States. This includes internal waters such as rivers and the United States portion of the great lakes(Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Etc.. it’s not fair or accurate to include all of Canada Portion of the Great Lakes and it’s other large lakes and rivers but exclude the United States Portion of the Great Lakes from its total land area. All of Russia lakes are included in its total. 9,369,417 is inaccurate information. The United Nations, Brittanica, or the CIA factbook does not have that total listed. ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for using this space to comment.

The US gives figures for different types of water area.[7] It does not include the 'great lakes' area as internal, leading to the figures proposed above.

It is good of you to bring up cases where external lake and sea water may already be included. If possible, can you provide sources/links which explain what external portions of Canada or Russia are being portrayed as internal? Use brackets [] to contain the url.

At minimum, when the definition of 'water area' is different for a given entry, we editors should explain that to the readers. In this table, such caveats and differing definitions are placed into the footnote column. Wizmut (talk) 21:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

The U.S census is used to assess the population of the United States. The United Nations, Britannica, World Atlas, CIA Facebook, World Bank etc.. all include the United States portion of the Great Lakes in its total area. As I mentioned above, Lakes are included in total area of countries. Thats why Canada portion of the Great Lakes is included in theirs, Lake Baikal is included in Russia, the African Great Lakes are also included in their respective countries total area. It’s puzzling why this is up for debate when 99.99% agree that the U.S Great Lake portion should be included in the total area. The census has a different section for the Great Lakes is because the Great Lakes are shared with Canada and are not owned exclusively by the United States. 9,369,417 is not found anywhere to describe the size of the U.S ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 22:38, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Please add links to your claims so the discussion can proceed. Wizmut (talk) 22:45, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

It is common knowledge that the Great Lakes are shared between Canada and the United States And it is common knowledge that the U.S Census is to access the population of the United States. You cannot ignore The United Nations, Britannica, World Atlas, CIA Factbook, World Bank etc... as I stated above there is no modern source displaying the United States total area as 9,369,417. The U.S Great Lakes portion are administered and part of the United States. Everyone agrees. Excluding these facts is unethical. ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 22:57, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

"Administered" is not the same as "internal". Territorial waters are administered.

Please give links that show for Canada and Russia that specific area figures include specific external waters. Otherwise we cannot assess your claims. See Wikipedia:Verifiability. Wizmut (talk) 23:04, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

First of all why are you even using the U.S Census in the first place? That is used to access the population of the United States. second why are you ignoring The United Nations, Britannica, World Atlas, CIA Fact-book, World Bank etc third, where is your link displaying the United States total area as 9,369,417. Fourth, where is the link where it is agreed upon that the Great Lakes should not be included in the U.S total area but should be included in Canada Total area. If you exclude the Great Lakes you need to exclude all lakes from every country. ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 23:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

@BlakeRichard00 please see this discussion. Wizmut (talk) 07:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The total area of the United States is not 9,369,417. This is not from any reputable source such as The United Nations, Britannica, World Atlas, CIA Fact-book, World Bank etc I believe this may be some sort of page vandalism. The area 9,525,067 is from Encyclopedia Brittanica. This totals includes just rivers and the United States Great Lake portion. All major sources such as The United Nations, Britannica, World Atlas, CIA Fact-book, World Bank etc include the Great Lakes as internal waters for the United States. Canada total area includes all of its lakes, Rivers, and its Great Lake portion. So how can you deduct the total from the United States. Lake Baikal is included in Russia total area and the African Great Lakes are also included in their respective countries total area. This seems to be some sort of vandalism or Anti-American misinformation campaign. Please stop spreading misinformation. Thank you. ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 04:26, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

One of the problems is that we don't know the things you know. If you make claims that refer to specific data points (Canada, Russia, Africa), please add links to back them up. This is the fourth time you've been asked to verify your claims.

You asked earlier why the US Census is a reliable source for area figures. The US Geological Survey gives the exact same figures as the US Census[8], and the Census itself derives those figures from unpublished TIGER data. If the USGS approves, it would not be surprising to find that the US Census knows what they're doing.

The other sources are not being ignored - their figures are noted in two places, at the rank of the US and in the US's footnote. But they use a definition that is different from the one preferred for this article (inland area). The Census gives land and inland water figures that are combined using simple calculations to arrive at total inland area.

Please also do not accuse other editors without proof. See WP:DV and WP:GOODFAITH. Wizmut (talk) 04:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

We should stick to sources like The United Nations, Britannica, World Atlas, CIA Fact-book, World Bank for calculating Total area of countries. For years these sources have been used on this page to determine the size of countries. No sources you provide says that the United States Total area is 9,369,417. Where are the sources and links from these organizations highlighting that the United States is 9,369,417. Even the Census disputes your claim? I just want to make sure that accurate information is being represented without any kind of bias. The Encyclopedia Britannica Calculation is the most non bias. It provides citations which highlights that the United States total area without the inclusion of costal and territorial waters is 9,525,067. This can be a good consensus. [9] ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 05:48, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Britannica is getting its figures from the Census, and doesn't disagree that the inland water is different from Great Lakes water.

inland water area equals 85,631 sq mi (221,783 sq km), and Great Lakes water area equals 60,093 sq mi (155,641 sq km).

We can use a simple calculation to add land and inland water to get total inland area. It's not a made-up definition. Are you saying that we should use a different definition for each country or not? Seems more likely to have bias in a situation where the definition can change depending on the country. Wizmut (talk) 06:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Here is a link from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration saying the Great Lakes are internal waters[10] scroll down until you see the internal waters page. It says “Examples of internal waters include rivers, canals, and lakes, including The Great Lakes.” ZeusDragon2024 (talk) 06:08, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Your finding is very much appreciated. Reading further, that page links to another titled "The Great Lakes" which contains some interesting details:[11]

Under customary international law as reflected in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, they may be considered internal waters as they are landward of the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. However a number of U.S. federal court decisions have treated the Great Lakes as “high seas” for purposes of federal admiralty and maritime jurisdiction as well as for federal criminal jurisdiction.

So there is high-level disagreement about whether the Great Lakes are internal. I think, for now, we can leave the Great Lakes in, because if the federal government can't resolve the question then we editors probably can't either. You've won me over.

By the way, the UN's Law of the Sea Convention can be read here:[12] Part IV Section 8 contains the definition of internal water. Wizmut (talk) 06:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Edit with potential intentional misinformation

This edit was made by a new editor who appears to have been introducing deliberate factual errors into geographical articles. I can't undo the edit due to later editing. Pinging User:Wizmut, who has made several recent edits to the page. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 18:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

That edit was simply changing UAE to use the CIA source and re-sorting it, without changing any other values. The re-sorting makes it look like more changes were made.

I recently went over all the values, including the UAE entry. For that entry, I used official figures for display in the table, but also mentioned the CIA figure in the footnote. So I don't think that user's edit was bad but I found more detailed figures that probably deserve to be more prominent than the CIA's. Wizmut (talk) 18:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Wizmut! Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 18:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2024

The true surface of Uganda is not correct. If we consider World Bank collection of development indicators it has a surface of 241 550 sq km. So you should modify its position above Ghana, so Uganda will become 81th. 82.77.193.119 (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Liquid water

Could the description be updated to clarify that ice and as frozen water is not included in the figures? 144.6.37.169 (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Good question. I'm not sure how to word it, though. Frozen lakes and rivers still count as water area, while glaciers and snow cover count as land. --Lasunncty (talk) 07:41, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

That is a good point. 71.57.118.5 (talk) 17:06, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Kingdom of Denmark

The Kingdom of Denmark is shown with all territories separately, according to Wikipedia, Denmark (Denmark proper) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is a unitary sovereign state, just like the United Kingdom, so this constitutional monarchy should be assigned a number rank, not Denmark proper ThePurgatori (talk) 03:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for creating this topic.

The ISO 3166-1 has been used on most all wikipedia country lists to determine whether a region is a sovereign or a dependency, or merely integral. For Denmark, this means identifying metropolitan Denmark as the sovereign and Greenland as a dependent territory. It is useful to defer to a reliable standards organization rather than decide for each country for each list.

Without a standard, there would arguments about whether or not to include the European Union and other unions, UK constituent countries, French overseas departments, autonomous regions of various states... a lot of arguments have come up with no other way to end them. Wizmut (talk) 03:31, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for replying me, but the Kingdom of Denmark is actually a royal state, so it will get numbered 12th while Denmark which is the metropolitan part of the royal state gets unnumbered, because it's a part of the royal state. Also the royal state shares the DK code. And the change is like in the Swedish Wikipedia.ThePurgatori (talk) 01:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

So why do we all learn that Denmark is in Europe sitting north of Germany?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:33, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

A mixture of history, politics, and the general fuzziness of the English language. Greenland was only integrated in 1953. CMD (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

For a few years this list has treated the area in Europe north of Germany as Denmark. But now it's treating the Danish Realm as if it were the official country. Is Denmark in Europe or North America?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:42, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't seem a particularly helpful question for the list. Is the USA in North America or Oceania? CMD (talk) 15:57, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Both, but mostly North America. It is 97% in North America and 3% in Oceania; specifically Hawaii. Georgia guy (talk) 15:59, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I assume you are speaking geographically. If you do that then you could argue the Kingdom of Denmark is geographically more in North America, however it's worth noting the population of Greenland is about 1% of the population of the metropole. CMD (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Both, but generally European because of culture, despite being mostly in North America 76% in North America and 24% in Europe ThePurgatori (talk) 22:28, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

officially, Greenland is considered a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but it has a degree of autonomy which was extended in 2009 ThePurgatori (talk) 22:33, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

But this is not a list of kingdoms by area. Anyone (not ThePurgatori) think it makes sense for this list to give #12 to Denmark?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:38, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

If it's just the ranking, I don't really have a strong opinion, but I do like deferring to the ISO 3166-1 when deciding what is or isn't a sovereign state. And the ISO says metropolitan Denmark is a sovereign, while it doesn't list the Kingdom. So based on that it makes more sense to list both, but give a number rank to metro Denmark only.

The ISO standard has been used for over a decade on WP country articles to settle narrow disagreements with no clear answer. Let's continue to use it in order to discover a good consensus. Wizmut (talk) 00:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Wizmut I am sure you have a formal point. However, Greenland is bigger than Saudi Arabia, which currently is ranked 12. To me it would make sense to say that Greenland is number 12 or to say that the Kingdom of Denmark is number 12. Leaving SA no 13 etc... Now the people living in Greenland are just ignored. 2001:2042:392C:CD00:DBB5:F6F0:967A:B84B (talk) 08:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Norway

Why doesn't Norway have a rank? woo (talk) 05:41, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

There are two entries for Norway. The mainland entry is not ranked. Wizmut (talk) 06:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Antarctic claims

The various Territorial claims in Antarctica have usually not been included in WP country lists because they aren't recognized much by other countries and the ISO 3166-1 doesn't even recognize them as dependencies. It's not really held territory in any practical or political sense. "Claim" is the real word for these, not territory, and this list doesn't include mere claims. Wizmut (talk) 03:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Latest changes

this last changes we're do by GeorgiaGuy

The Kingdom of Denmark gets a number rank because it is a sovereign state according to Wikipedia. So, it will stay ranked, but not Metropolitan Denmark, because it's a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. ThePurgatori (talk) 15:23, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

also, the Kingdom of Denmark ISO 3166 code is within DK. That's how it looks like in the Swedish Wikipedia. Also, the Kingdom of Denmark is generally European because of it's culture and history. ThePurgatori (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

> also, the Kingdom of Denmark ISO 3166 code is within DK.

Can you clarify? There's a long standing consensus of leaving the ranks up to the ISO 3166-1's list of independent states. So dependencies (such as Greenland) are not ranked. If Greenland were really integral, it wouldn't be listed at all.

On the issue of whether Denmark is a country only in Europe or whether it's a multi-continent Kingdom, well, both are true at the same time. That's issues like these are usually deferred to standards like the ISO's, as it rules out a lot of very near arguments.

The other two points don't seem as relevant. Other wikis will have their own standards, we need to use reliable sources and consensus established here. And this is the general list, not the Europe list. Wizmut (talk) 15:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

ok, i pretend this is the general list. sorry for saying this is the European list ThePurgatori (talk) 15:43, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Why does everyone who hears the word "Denmark" think of Europe and not North America?? What continent is Denmark really in?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:15, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

the Kingdom of Denmark is considered to be both continets, Europe and North America. ThePurgatori (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

So why do we always learn it is just in Europe?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:28, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

There's a distinction to be made between metropolitan Denmark and the Kingdom of Denmark, just as there's a difference between metropolitan France and all integral parts of France - which includes some outlying islands in the Caribbean and Africa.

Oddly enough the ISO 3166-1 treats these cases as different, and to be sure there are differences. But it's going to be a close decision for all of these, especially for something as arbitrary as ranking. I would favor giving ranks only to those locations that are listed as 'independent' on the ISO's list. It's an outside standard that rarely changes.

And of course, the notes column should be used to provide as much clarification as possible, so some of ThePurgatori's notes should probably stay in, and perhaps added to. Wizmut (talk) 16:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Phillippines

It seems weird that Phillippines' total area in km^2 is just the triple of that in mi^2 45.146.232.57 (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

This occurs because there's a low number of significant figures. Wizmut (talk) 19:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Car bigger than South Sudan

Car is bigger than South Sudan 47.153.31.2 (talk) 01:31, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Area. North versus South

13 span the equator. I've included all of (Brazil, Congo DR, Congo R, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia) in the South, and all of (Colombia, Kenya, Kiribati, Maldives, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somalia, Uganda) in the North.

Total area is 150,055,928 km²

North is 100,867,518 km² = 67.22%

South is 49,188,410 km² = 32.78%

I’ve used the areas from this article (at Sep 2023) except I've adjusted USA.

I can’t figure out how to get the sum closer to the stated area for land of 148.94 million km².

Probably several of the areas of the top countries are inflated.

I’ve used the 195 countries listed (at Sep 2023) with;

9,596,961 km² China

9,572,900 km² United States

And added;

. 2,166,086 km² Greenland

14,200,000 km² Antarctica

. . . .36,193 km² Taiwan.

MBG02 (talk) 07:36, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Total area at 18 June 2024 adds to 150,048,771 km²

for the 195 countries numbered, plus Greenland, Antarctica, Taiwan

9,525,067 km² United States (currently listed value).

Note:

Total “land” is cited as 148,940,000 km²

Total water (for the same 198) adds to 4,215,955 km².

MBG02 (talk) 11:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Africa. North, South.

I did the same for Africa because the AI bots gave stupid answers. 54 countries in Africa. 7 span the equator.

I've included all of (Congo DR, Congo R, Gabon) in the South, and all of (Kenya, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somalia, Uganda) in the North.

Total Area is 30,060,210 km²

North is 20,775,486 km² = 69.11%.

South is 9,284,724 km² = 30.89%.

MBG02 (talk) 07:46, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 June 2024

statstics = statistics 2603:8000:D300:3650:7DF4:F5F4:69E5:4CB6 (talk) 22:06, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done Peaceray (talk) 23:12, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Crown Dependencies

Isle of Man, jersey and guernsey all have a link to UK in the table.

Which is quite misleading as they are actually not part of the UK. Luc MRS (talk) 20:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

A dependent territory is not part of the country it is dependent on. Wizmut (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Still, would it not be better to link to Crown Dependencies rather than the UK? Peaceray (talk) 21:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Well the ISO 3166-1 says they're a dependency of the UK, not of the Crown Dependencies. There's a long-standing consensus to have all country lists follow more or less the same standards and to defer to the ISO on details that aren't the special subject matter of the list. So this list uses its own definition of 'population', but not of country or dependency, or any other topic that's relevant to every country list.

The parenthesis themselves really just indicate that it's a dependency, and what other entity on the list 'controls' them (in whatever sense the ISO has determined). This tells the reader why it's not ranked or included in another entry, and it probably doesn't need to be any more than that. Using the ISO's data point as this indicator settles the tertiary issue of how best to indicate that the entry is unusual in some way. Wizmut (talk) 21:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

well ISO 3166-2:IM says:

The Isle of Man, a British crown dependency, has been officially assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code IM since 2006. Previously it was assigned the ISO 3166-2 code GB-IOM under the entry for the United Kingdom.

They are indeed a dependency, just not to the UK, as far as I understand. Luc MRS (talk) 10:20, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

A few territories have separate ISO codes. Putting (UK) is a reasonable shorthand, and if readers want more details on the precise relationship of each territory here to its sovereign state that is available on their various pages. CMD (talk) 11:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2024

I would like to change the table that says the Philippines is 100,000 sq miles to say it is 115,831 square miles. This is corroborated on other pages, like the Geography of the Philippines page, and on this page. It says that the square land mileage is 115,120 square miles and the square water mileage is 707 square miles, which is much closer to 115,831 than to 100,000. Moopmops (talk) 18:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Not done for now This appears to be a problem with the templates used.

• The List of countries and dependencies by area#Countries and dependencies by area table uses {{km2 mi2}}

Code: {{km2 mi2|300000}}

Result: 300,000 (100,000)

• The Geography of the Philippines lead uses {{convert}}

Code: {{convert|300000|km2|sp=us|0}}

Result: 300,000 square kilometers (115,831 sq mi)

This is a discrepancy that I think must be resolved with the templates. I will determine the proper place to open the discussion. Peaceray (talk) 19:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Km2 mi2

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Km2 mi2#Discrepancy between Template:Km2 mi2 & Template:Convert. Peaceray (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Closing edit request, since it appears to have been on the wrong page. PianoDan (talk) 22:54, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Abkhazia is occupied territory by Russia

Abkhazia is occupied territory by Russia and it is not recognised as a country by UN. This should not be displayed separately but under Georgian flag on the list. 80.46.152.34 (talk) 05:39, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Abkhazia is a state with limited recognition. Wizmut (talk) 06:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The area of Bulgaria is wrong

Its territory covers an area of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), the information in this page is wrong and must be changed. I'm genuienly curious why the land area of Bulgaria was made smaller? Dwartbg (talk) 12:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

As the table says in the footnote column, the data for Bulgaria are from the CIA World Factbook.[13]. There are other figures available from other sources, including the UN FAO, which gives 111,000 km2 total area and 108,560 km2 land area,[14] or the UN Statistics Division, which gives 110,372 km2 total area,[15] or the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute, which gives 110,997 km2 total area.[16]

This table prefers sources that have all three figures (total, land and water). And it prefers to use the two most comprehensive sources, either the CIA Factbook or the United Nations. The UN is preferred when its two departments agree, while the CIA source is used when they disagree, which is about half the time. For a few entries, the government of that location has more detailed and plausible figures, so their numbers are used instead. In cases where it's uncertain which number is the most reliable, the footnote for that entry may quote additional numbers.

Any change to the figures should have a reliable source that quotes all three figures in the table (or at least land and total, from which water can be derived). A reliable source that only quotes the total may be mentioned in the footnote. Wizmut (talk) 16:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

EU by logic

Hi! If there's Kingdom of Denmark, and then Denmark (mainland Europe) and then Greenland and wait because it seems there's a "country" named Antarctica but even "Earth" why can't EU, an entity itself more similar to a country than these last two examples (Antarctica and Earth) be unranked but listed for comparison purposes like the others? As for the other entities that have fewer "country attributes" than EU, I can understand to not be on the list, but the EU? By these assumptions, EU is listed on similar lists, and other Wikipedias are doing the same, why not in English? Manlleus (talk) 10:04, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Oppose, because it's not a country and not a sovereign state listed in the ISO 3166-1. There are a lot of international organizations. I've seen a bunch added to some country lists in the past, and it ends up being a whole lot of non-countries crowding the top spots.

I would also favor removing 'Kingdom of Denmark' and move mention of it to a footnote in the Denmark entry. Antarctica is also sketchy but it's of peculiar interest for this list, and keeps the conflicting Antarctic claims away. Wizmut (talk) 21:43, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

EU has more in common to a country than Antarctica, and second, EU has same peculiar interest for people as we see in economy lists too, hard to defend a specific opposition despite ISO and laws and the rest of nomenclature without keeping an exception to "selective" articles. I think Kingdom of Denmark shouldnt be excluded, but mainland Denmark and Greenland because despite ISO, there aren't two equally named countries, just different entities and EU is quite an example of it, if the list can't manage these, is incomplete. I think in the long run, EU may be it included, unranked but listed for comparable reasons. Just an opinion Manlleus (talk) 23:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

czechia

czechia is written as the czech republic although it was renamed from czech republic to czechia in 2016 75.192.219.123 (talk) 19:28, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Taiwan inconsistency

This article's table apparently does not consider Taiwan (ROC) to be a country, yet the country's own article does. Isn't this an inconsistency? Shouldn't it be considered a country by both or neither, rather than considered a country by one, but not the other? Alex the weeb (talk) 22:10, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

It's both, as are several other places. It depends on who you ask and leads to endless debates with no answer. The criteria chosen is to rely on the ISO 3166-1 and leave it at that. Wizmut (talk) 22:20, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Discrepancies in the table

Of the 264 entries in the table (Countries and dependencies by area):

If you convert km² to mi²:

- the total area is incorrect/inaccurate for 63 entries (3 are off by >10%)

- the total land is incorrect/inaccurate for 86 entries (3 are off by >10%)

- the total water is incorrect/inaccurate for 80 entries (10 are off by >10% and 2 are off by >25%)

Should total area be equal to total water + total area?

- if so, then we can calculate total water for 89 entries

- and not sure what would account for the discrepancy between the values for total water and total area - total land for 72 entries) - Palestine's total land is greater than the total area (6025 > 6020)

- % water is incorrect/inaccurate for 10 entries (Cayman Islands should be 9.1%, not 0%) duswls (talk) 15:44, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Some of the apparent inaccuracy could be due to rounding. The UNFAO source rounds to the nearest 10 km2. When I updated many of the values, I took each figure straight from a given source, but sometimes had to use different sources for the same location. If the note for a given entry doesn't seem to give good reasons for why each figure comes from each source, then by all means some figures could be swapped out using different sources. The footnote could also then be updated to reflect any important differences between sources.

For km2 to mi2 inaccuracy, Template:Convert will by default convert with respect the number of significant figures given. So the Maldives is rounded a lot, for example. In cases where this is too much rounding, that template documentation page gives info on how to specify a certain number of significant figures. Wizmut (talk) 16:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the informative reply! duswls (talk) 21:05, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Palestine/Israel

WP:PIA related discussion that was started by an IP
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Palestine is not recognized as a country. However Israel is a recognized country, which prior to its independence from the British rule was named Palestine. This page should be factual not political 84.110.98.54 (talk) 10:58, 10 November 2024 (UTC) See International recognition of the State of Palestine. Wizmut (talk) 11:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Total area of guinea bissau is higher than Taiwan but it is after Taiwan in the list

total area of guinea bissau is higher rhan Taiwan. TrueMoriarty (talk) 12:33, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed Good catch! Wizmut (talk) 12:51, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

👍 TrueMoriarty (talk) 15:51, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

France has a titanic maritime territory of 10.7 million square km, via its overseas territories. We are considering maritime territory, thus France should be higher up than canada

Should be count france as amongst the top-10 bigest contry because of ot's maritime territory, considering with only it's maritime territory it is bigger than canada? Igotzsomegutidezz (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Territorial waters are not included unless no other figure can be found. Wizmut (talk) 20:41, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Water column in table - We should change that to cubic km

Hi there, may we change the Water column in the table to cubic km? I know this would be correct by the data for Australia for example. We can refer to Margat's UN IGRAC resource, Groundwater Around the World, where we'll see groundwater volumes with similar figures to yours, but it's in cubic km of course, as it's a volume. Sorry to critique a tiny typo in a superb resource. Link: https://www.un-igrac.org/resource/groundwater-around-world Just a small aquitard here - someone with skill might need to check out my advice eh :) RustyTheAquitard (talk) 13:49, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Area is the chosen measure of this table. Volume would probably be a different table. Wizmut (talk) 14:08, 29 November 2024 (UTC)