How many countries can you name in 15 minutes?

[Smashingdoozy]

https://www.sporcle.com/games/g/world

[abc3643]

I've played this before. The problem is the typing because it is not merciful on misspellings. I knew them all; I simply ran out of time. Part of the problem is that the game obscures names and mixes them up a bit. For instance, in the screen snapshot of my results, Ivory Coast aka Cote d'Ivoire, is not shown as gotten when the countries surrounding it were, but, elsewhere, you can see that it was gotten.

I missed quite a few because my mind worked faster than my fingers and this obscuring prevented me from realizing I still needed to get ones in an area. For instance, Nicaragua. Also, I know all the "-stans" but missed two of them because I thought I already had them. The obfuscation prevented me from seeing that.

One of the frustrating things are "Is that a country or a territory?" For instance, French Guiana, which is between Suriname and Brazil, is not a country but an "overseas department" of France, so it wouldn't be listed. Many Carribean islands are like that - either independent countries or territories of either the UK, France, or the Netherlands. Saint Kitts and Nevis was an example of that. It's a country and I thought so so I tried typing that a half dozen times, but it never took and gave up thinking maybe it was a territory, so I wasted a lot of time.

[abc3643]

And "Palestine". There is no country "Palestine", so that should not have been listed.

[Smashingdoozy]

Palestine is considered a country...

[abc3643]

Good luck with that.
All that territory was seized in the 6 Day War. (My sister was born during that war.)
Gaza was part of Egypt and the West Bank part of Jordan, but Israel got it by winning the war.
There may be a "State of Palestine", but, if there really was, then there wouldn't be any fighting there and everybody would be hunky dory with a two-state solution. But we don't have that. Most of the area is "The West Bank" but Israel has about 3/4 of their forces in the West Bank. If Palestine was a true state, that wouldn't be the case.

I really wish everybody in that part of the world would get their shit together so we can all move on.

[Smashingdoozy]

Whatever is going on there currently doesn't change the fact Palestine is considered a country and has been since 1988

[abc3643]

Not exactly.
Plenty of "countries" are not recognized as such.
For example, the "Turkish Republic of North Cyprus".
Is that an independent nation?
Yes and No.
Only one other nation on Earth recognizes it as such: Türkiye (aka Turkey).
No other nation does; they view it as part of Cyprus.
But North Cyprus is a "de facto" nation independent of Cyprus.

The situation with Palestine is sort of the opposite.
Sure, many nations recognize and independent Palestine, but many nations - including the US - do not. And, it isn't truly independent because, if it was, 75% of Israel's military wouldn't be there. In fact, that land (the West Bank and Gaza) has been effectively a part of Israel since 1967 with the West Bank originally being part of Jordan and Gaza a part of Egypt.

There are many other examples of places that are "Is it is a nation or not?".
Kosovo is another example.
As is Taiwan.
As was the Republic of Artsakh.

While the majority of nations may recognize a state of Palestine, of the UN Security Council's 5 permanent members, only 2 do: Russia and China. The UK, US, and France do not. Each of those 5 has veto power over admission into the UN. Thus, until Israel and the Palestinian Authority come to an ultimate mutual resolution, there will never be a State of Palestine admitted to the UN, but remain a "Non-member Observer State".

[abc3643]

This may help give more insight into what I was trying to say...
en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_states_with_limited_recognition

[strateguy632]

to abc, correct, not a u. n. member but i guessed it n got a point.

[DarkLegacy]

Yeah you are right it does not exist

[NathanDavis]

geography was my favorite subject in elementary, so yeah... could have named all of them without the map... but you're giving me the map and the flags so it's WAY more easier, lol

oh, and also... Animaniac's song is barely two minutes long, and it's fairly accurate enough too, lol

https://www.youtube.com/embed/V1508wboZXk

[Smashingdoozy]

The game has the map on it but, I found you forget some simple ones when you're trying to think of all the more complicated ones

[NathanDavis]

I remember mixing up the little ones in Europe sometimes... lol

but then, I remembered by language association

[strateguy632]

i loved that song n they made rhymes.

[electromagnetic]

The traveller and geography nerd in me would have damn near lost my mind if I failed this. I missed the smaller islands thought. It’s easier to do a continent at a time

[KostasKouvalis]

That's what I did, I went as much as I could in geographical order, because otherwise I would have gotten lost. Having the map there definitely helped, as there were a few that I forgot. I had 196 and somehow managed to forget Samoa, so I went on Google Maps. 'Cuz I was like, WTF? What else is there in Oceania? The Pacific is the region that interests me the least, so I'm always forgetting something there. It's also damn near impossible to remember where all these small islands are, especially if you throw all the teeny colonies in there.

[Dinklex3]

Well… I’d just like to say I would’ve been able to get more as a kid since leapfrog was my life. Also didn’t know Greenland wasn’t a country 💀

[Smashingdoozy]

Greenland is a part of Denmark 😊

[Dinklex3]

Yeah, I got mad and googled it after lol.

[AviatorTom]

Funny you should ask. The other day I did a similar online quiz where you were shown the country on a map and had to name each one. Of the approximately 200 countries in the world, I successfully named about 175 of them, I don't recall the exact numbers. I had problems in Africa and the island countries of the Pacific.. Without h as ving to link them on a map, I can probably name a few more.

[strateguy632]

in raw numbers i failed 47% but in area i got all but 7 big ones. most of countries by area.

my excuse is they changed MANY since i was in scool , Yugoslavia south sudan country names differed in spelling, no ivory coast! didn't accept my answer different from scool n old map books almanac.

[exitseven]

I ran out of countries before I got to 7 minutes. I had 58 of them. It reminded me of this song.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pyjia-uobh0

[strateguy632]

the 40 biggest are 70% areas so you, 60 knew plenty. also when we were in scool we had zaire but test won't accept zaire nor ivory coast n more.
imagine buying plane tickets to visit all 200 cuntry,
ugh!

[exitseven]

@strateguy632 We have gotten illegal aliens from over 215 countries so far. I did not even know there were that many.

[menina]

I love geography and learning about other cultures but I got a poor score, 96 out 197. I'm disappointed, I should know more. 😒😒

[strateguy632]

nah, who can remember a hundred islands. knowing more than 70 big ones is impressive!

[menina]

@strateguy632 Well, I'm not expecting anyone to know all of them, but I could at least get to 100.

Either way, thank you for the compliment.

[NewUser22]

Holy shit that is an impressive score. I don’t even know if I could name 100

[Smashingdoozy]

Have a try

[NewUser22]

Haha I am too scared to see the results

[NewUser22]

Oh jeeze and I have to not just name them but know where they are on the map? Yikes 😂 now I’m even more impressed at your score.

[Smashingdoozy]

No you just have to name them

[NewUser22]

Ohhhh… still. I’m too scared 😂

[Smashingdoozy]

Spelling some of them right is the most difficult part

[NewUser22]

Oh yeah I would have no chance.

[MemeSupreme]

i got 110

there was shit in asia and africa i couldn't name

[lightbulb27]

Cocamami states of americaca.

Canadian Maple Oil Drillers

Switzer-expenservland

German-heil-we're smarter than you.. y

Russia Freeza U Butta Offa

You go Slavia... apparently not a

[Joshydavid25]

I didn't do great.. I got 61/197.. I know a lot of countries I just forgot a lot of them, their exact names anyway.. And, I didn't spell some right... But that was fun though..

[strateguy632]

on a cell phone you can mis spell n it suggested tunisia etc.

[Joshydavid25]

@strateguy632 Yeah, I was trying to take advantage of that.. But phones sometimes just do whatever they want.. LOL..

[petitedollbabee]

I was tempted to cheat, but wanted to see how many I could actually get in 15 minutes. I got 37/197. Yikes. Geography was never my strong suit.

[molonski2]

Id get all of Asia , and Australia , USA , Great Britain , then I'd start to loose interest , I'm sure plenty can do it , certain.

[KostasKouvalis]

Fooooooo, that was quite a rush...

[strateguy632]

2 minutes? running a cmd is cheating!

[strateguy632]

oops you had 2 minutes left. that is possible.

[jahaims]

We had to memorize every country and capitol in school. I probably retained 80% of them

[KostasKouvalis]

I learned them all my own. I know all the capitals, except for a few in Oceania.

[Smashingdoozy]

@KostasKouvalis maybe I should get you to name all of those next

[KostasKouvalis]

Do it

[jamesgoldman]

88, not bad not great

[Siri137]

I can name all of them in less than ten.

[ChicoFromThe305]

I'd fail this miserably

[Smashingdoozy]

Give it a go

[ChicoFromThe305]

36/197

I don't think I'm ever getting those 15 mins of my life back

[avery58]

I got 137/197

[gorydetails]

this quiz sucks ass on an iOS device, lol.

[Jmmmfi4]

DEFINITELY WOULDN'T TAKE 15 MINUTES

[Smashingdoozy]

What? It's a timer. You name as many as you can in 15 minutes

[renodnol32]

I got 167

[FuqUFggt]

Both of them.

[BLP11520]

Probably 75