yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Countries inside Countries


2m read
·Nov 7, 2024

When it comes to neighbors, most countries have several options: like North to Canada or South to Mexico. But there are countries that don't have this freedom of choice, not because they're islands but because they're trapped in another country. For example: tiny Vatican City, which fits inside of not just Italy, but also just Rome.

How Vatican City got surrounded is complicated, but not unique for there is also the Republic of San Marino, home to 30,000 citizens which Italy also completely surrounds. Italy, apparently, is a country that likes countries in its country. But trapping nations is not just Italy's thing for there's also Lesotho, in South Africa which is both the largest encircled country at 70 times Vatican City's size and the most populated with over 2,000,000 citizens.

The thing that makes these three countries' borders bizarre is that any path in or out must go through the one and only neighbor they have. But now take a look at The Gambia, which excluding that tiny ocean border, is as surrounded as any nation can get. If we amend the previous rule to every land route, now we've made a category of single-neighbored nations.

Which includes all four of these and countries like Portugal, where the only way in or out is through Spain. Who else is on this list? Well, there's Monaco which must go through France, Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Denmark through Germany, South Korea through North Korea (though South Korea might as well be an island nation for most practical travel purposes), East Timor and Papua New Guinea both through Indonesia, Brunei through Malaysia.

And there are two sets of twins: there is The Dominican Republic whose only neighbor is Haiti and Haiti, whose only neighbor is The Dominican Republic. And the second set is: Ireland through the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom through Ireland.

A side note here: While there are tons of 'British' places around the world, some of which border other nations -- these are not part of the United Kingdom. It's complicated. Though if you wanted to, you could argue that the United Kingdom technically dug a land border under the channel to the continent, presumably to be closer to France, her best friend ever.

Finally, there's one more country in this category: Canada: the largest single-neighbored nation in the world.

More Articles

View All
Defiant | Vocabulary | Khan Academy
To Arms wordsmiths! This video is about the word defiant. Defiant—it’s an adjective. This word means openly disobeying rules, pushing back against authority. This word comes to us from French and ultimately Latin—a late Latin verb disfidare, which means …
Sam Altman on Choosing Projects, Creating Value, and Finding Purpose
Alright, the return of same moment! How’s it going? Nice to be back, right? How are things? Good! This is good. You know YC is gonna be huge next batch. Yeah! Interviewed like more than a thousand companies. I’m saying Open has been going really well. Exc…
The Universe's Biggest Paradoxes
Has anyone ever accused you of acting like you’re the center of the universe? Maybe you were 10 years old, upset that your mom wouldn’t take you to buy candy, or you were so focused on an upcoming project that you totally forgot to wish your coworker cong…
shower thoughts that could end quarantine..
Extinction level events have killed up to 99% of all living things that have ever existed. Embrace the 1%. Being in lockdown has given us time. It’s given us time to think, to ask questions, and to consider things that we might not have given a second tho…
What Would Elon Musk Work On If He Were 22?
You famously said when you were younger there were five problems that you thought were most important for you to work on. If you were 22 today, what would the five problems that you would think about working on be? Well, I think if somebody is doing some…
Preparing for the Hunt | Live Free or Die
[Music] It’s the final week of deer hunting season and Frontiersman Colbert’s last chance to get big game before winter. It’s important to clean your weapon. I don’t have any gun oil with me, but I’ve got pig fat, and pig fat’s going to work just fine. …