Ep. 74: The 8 Largest Countries

April 20, 2023 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf, to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode, is on the eight largest countries of the world. As we all know Russia has been the biggest for quite some time now, but who was the biggest before Russia?

Was it the British empire at its territorial peak in 1921, or was it technically the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or could it be The Russian Empire between 1815 and 1867. Or do you go way back to the Mongol Empire under the great Khans.

Unfortunately, I can’t definitively answer these questions, but there are several rabbit holes there, that you could go down, and easily lose a day.

With that being said, we will begin with a general summary.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Physical_Map_of_the_World_(2021).svg

The largest countries in the world are Russia, Canada, China, the United States and Brazil. Russia is the largest country in the world, covering an area of 17,098,242 square kilometres. It is located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, and is bordered by fourteen countries. Canada is the second largest country in the world, covering an area of 9,984,670 square kilometres. It is located in North America and borders the United States to the south and the Arctic Ocean to the north. China is the third largest country in the world, covering an area of 9,596,960 square kilometres. It is located in Eastern Asia and borders fourteen countries. The United States is the fourth largest country in the world, covering an area of 9,833,517 square kilometres. It is located in North America and borders Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. While Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, covering an area of 8,515,767 square kilometres. It is located in South America and borders ten countries.

Wikipedia Summary

This is a list of the world's countries and their dependencies by land, water, and total area, ranked by total area.

Entries in this list include, but are not limited to, those in the ISO 3166-1 standard, which includes sovereign states and dependent territories. All 193 member states of the United Nations plus the two observer states are given a rank number. Largely unrecognised states not in ISO 3166-1 are included in the list in ranked order. The areas of such largely unrecognised states are in most cases also included in the areas of the more widely recognised states that claim the same territory; see the notes in the "notes" column for each country for clarification.

Not included in the list are individual country claims to parts of the continent of Antarctica or entities such as the European Union [Note 1] that have some degree of sovereignty but do not consider themselves to be sovereign countries or dependent territories.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fuller_projection_with_largest_countries.svg

Mnemonic

The 8 Largest Countries (in order) Mnemonic – Russian Cheetah CUB Arrives In Argentina

(Picture a unique Russian Cheetah cub arriving in an Argentinian Zoo in the hope of breeding in the future)

1. Russia

2. Canada

3. China

4. United States

5. Brazil

6. Australia

7. India

8. Argentina

Five Fun Facts

1. The flag of the United States has had at least 13 iterations. It started as the Grand Union British flag variation, featuring 13 stripes for the 13 colonies. White stars were then added representing each state in the union, while states were subsequently added along the way.

2. Argentina has both the highest and the lowest points in the whole of South America. The highest point is the mountain Aconcagua which is 22,841 feet high. While the lowest point is Laguna del Carbon which is a Salt Lake that sits 344 feet below sea level.

3. Canada holds the record for the longest coastline at 125,000 miles, along with the most lakes. Apparently, Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined!

4. China has both the oldest civilization and oldest written language. Civilization is believed to have started around 6,000 BC.

5. Russia has the longest railway in the world. The Trans-Siberian Railroad is 9,289 kilometres long and crosses eight time zones. And yes, of course they are the biggest country, and were even bigger when they were the USSR.

Just speaking of the Soviet Union, I can’t believe more people couldn’t see the demise of the Soviet Union coming. If they really took a closer look, there were red flags everywhere!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_by_area.svg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. What is the capital of Brazil?

Q.2. Australia has the world's longest fence; it was first built in the 1880s to keep which animal out of the fertile south-east of the country?

Q.3. Where is India ranked in terms of population? Second, third or fourth most populated

Bonus Q. Both Russia and China are bordered by the same number of countries. What is that number? Options are 8, 11 or 14

Mnemonic Recap

8 Largest Countries (in order) Mnemonic – Russian Cheetah CUB Arrives In Argentina

(Picture a unique Russian Cheetah cub arriving in an Argentinian Zoo in the hope of breeding in the future)

1. Russia

2. Canada

3. China

4. United States

5. Brazil

6. Australia

7. India

8. Argentina

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. What is the capital of Brazil?

A. Brasilia

Q.2. Australia has the world's longest fence; it was first built in the 1880s to keep which animal out of the fertile south-east of the country?

A. Dingoes. It stretches across three states at approximately 5,600 km and was originally built to keep the rabbits out. After that was unsuccessful, they added to the height to keep the Dingoes out.

Q.3. Where is India ranked in terms of population? Second, third or fourth most populated

A. India is the second most populated country with approximately 1.393 billion

Bonus Q. Both Russia and China are bordered by the same number of countries. What is that number? Options are 8, 11 or 14

A. 14

Word of the Week

eristic

[ e-ris-tik ]

adjective

pertaining to controversy or disputation; controversial.

Example

Following research on Australia’s longest fence, the answer was eristic as to whether it was built for the rabbits, dingoes or both.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]