Talk:List of countries and dependencies by area/Archive 5

Archive 1

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Archive 5

Archive 6

Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2023

Теодор Узунов (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Теодор Узунов (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC) My request is to put that Bulgaria is the largest country in the Balkan Peninsula in the notes for Bulgaria

 Done added Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey —Alalch E. 23:17, 1 January 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)