| @megascarp: I'm certainly willing to read anything you can find that backs up your claim that France borders 11 countries. I don't dispute that on the island of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten territory belonging to France borders territory belonging to the Netherlands. I do not dispute that Sint Maarten is an integral part (constituent country) of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. I do dispute that Saint Martin is an integral part of France (it is an overseas territory, not an overseas department). My definition of bordering countries are countries that share a land border (or freshwater border). My definition of a country includes territory that may exist away from the main body of the country as long as that territory is integral to the mother country. For example, Alaska and Hawaii are integrated into the United States in ways that American Samoa and Guam are not. In other words, the overseas territory has substantially the same rights and responsibilities that it would have if it were located inside the mother country. If this wasn't an important distinction then why is Hawaii a state and Puerto Rico not? Why is French Guiana an overseas department of France and Saint Martin not? I would think it would be a part of the learning process to understand these sort of distinctions. If this is an unimportant distinction why do we have quizzes that feature 50 US states and leave out all the territories that belong to the US? If it's an unimportant distinction then why does the CIA World Factbook use it to decide which countries border which other countries? Why does it say that France borders Suriname and Brazil, but not that the UK borders Spain (via Gibraltar)? If you want to include these territories as bonus answers for a quiz on bordering countries, I've no objection to that. In face, I include such bonus answers in my quizzes involving borders. But to pretend that there's no difference in status between Reunion and French Polynesia, is to be less than accurate and I don't see how that furthers the learning process. |
US States
Countries of Europe
Countries of the World
