Talk:List of countries and dependencies by area

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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

See International recognition of the State of Palestine. Wizmut (talk) 11:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

Why is china ranked higher than USA?

Our own sources state that the UN, CIA, and Britannica all rank USA above China. Why are we defying the overwhelming sources in favour of that ranking? An asterisk is one thing, but instead we're literally ranking China higher Jozsefs (talk) 11:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read the note? The sources include coastal waters and territorial sea for the United States but not for China. If we exclude coastal waters and territorial sea, China is actually bigger than the United States. According to this old article published by sina.com in 2006 (in Chinese), if China formally publishes the areas of its coastal waters and territorial sea, its total area could be over 12 million sq. km, making China the second-largest country in the world, even bigger than Canada.

Most countries do not include their coastal waters and territorial sea in their land areas. For example, the area of Australia would be 8.1 million sq. km if their coastal waters are included (source: https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/area-of-australia-states-and-territories). If we include their territorial sea (12 nautical miles from the territorial sea baseline), Australia's area will be even bigger!

The sources are not treating each country fairly, so we need to make some adjustments to make it a impartial table. Vic Park (talk) 00:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect Yemen land area

Yemen's land area has been found to not be 572,000 km², rather being closer to 455,000 km², as is shown in this article https://theborys.substack.com/p/what-is-the-size-of-yemen. The land area has since been corrected in the main Yemen article, but has not in this one. AnatidaeMapping (talk) 22:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A similar author/amateur came to a similar conclusion in 2022 or earlier[1]. That sort of source is usually not preferred, even though it seems obvious that the smaller number is closer to the mark. If we could find an academic coming to the same conclusion that would really make it easy. Wizmut (talk) 22:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the Yemen article found a government source with the smaller figure, even better. Wizmut (talk) 22:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The user who edited the Yemen article also wrote the blog by the way. But yeah, that source is good. AnatidaeMapping (talk) 02:46, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]