Anjasaurus

New Zealand

new_zealand_location_mapIt was a while since I wrote about a country, Easter and uni has taken much of my time lately. But now it’s time! Today, it’s New Zealand, a country I feel I know more about beforehand, but there are also big gaps in my knowledge.

New Zealand has been a quite isolated country, located in the south-west of the Pacific Ocean and 2000 km from the east coast of Australia. Due to this, much of its flora and fauna is unique, and especially their birds. The Maori are the biggest minority group on New Zealand and also the indigenous people, although the majority of the population is now of European descent.

New Zealand is also one of the countries where people last settled, and it was not until about 700 to 2000 ears ago that humans first arrived there. The first Europeans to reach New Zealand were Dutch and it was as early as the mid 17th century, but the crew was killed and it was not until James Cook arrived in the 18th century that the islands were explored and mapped (by Europeans).

It has been a British colony, but it now mostly independent. There is no set date for when New Zealand became independent, since it was a steady development of the cositutional state. Elisabeth II (of the United Kingdom) still remains a symbolic Head of State though.

flag_of_new_zealandThe capital is Wellington, although the largest city is Auckland, and the main language is English. Before English colonization, the Maori tribes created a flag with a white background and a red cross and the upper left corner being blue with a red cross and stars. This symbolized the united tribes of New Zealand. As it became a British colony, the Union Jack (UK flag) was included and the flag reworked. The current flag was adopted in 1902.

Papua New Guinea

Map of Papua New GuineaPapua New Guinea is the second country in Oceania I’m going to summarize. It is the eastern part of New Guinea, an island shared with Indonesia, and it also includes several smaller islands off the east coast of New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most diverse countries. The population is just below 6 million people, and there are over 850 different languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. This is one of the few countries where Tok Pisin is an official language, which is a created language based on English during the colonization period. Papua New Guinea is also one of the least explored countries in the world, and a lot of undiscovered plants and animals are thought to live in the deeper parts.

Flag of Papua New GuineaThe geography of Papua New Guinea is also very diverse, ranging from highlands and extremely rugged areas at the spine of mountains through the New Guinea island, to dense rainforests in the lowlands and coast areas. The 20 provinces are the main administrative parts of the country, and each province has its own provincial government, although they are only branches of the national government.

The capital of Papua New Guinea is Port Moresby and the country only gained independence in 1975, from Australia. It is still a part of the Commonwealth.

Indonesia

Indonesia is a transcontinental country, lying on the border between Southeast Asia and Oceania. The name Indonesia originates from Indus (Latin for India) and nesia (Greek for island) and is confirmed to have been used at least since the 18th century, well before Indonesia formed an independent country.

Map of IndonesiaIndonesia also consists of 17,508 islands, which makes it the biggest archipelagic state in the world, and the five largest islands are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The Javanese are also the largest ethnic group, and the capital, Jakarta, lies on Java. Indonesia holds a population of about 237 million people, making it a densely populated area and the 4th most populated country in the world.

Flag of IndonesiaThe dominating religion is Islam, although it is not declared in official documents. The amount of natural resources available in Indonesia has made it a natural target for foreign powers and it has been influenced by several different cultures. Not until after the second World War did Indonesia finally gain independence, after centuries of being a Dutch colony.

Country posts

I’m not sure if I should link up my country posts to Wikipedia (or anything else relevant), or if that is just unnecessary. I’m so used to using wikis, I want to link every interesting word, but that might simply be too much. Links might disrupt reading, but linking is great when just summarizing, as I’m doing. Maybe I should change my link color to a less disruptive one..?

Malaysia

Malaysia mapNext up, Malaysia. Malaysia consists of two parts, one located on the Malay Peninsula and one as the northern part of the island of Borneo. To the west of the Malay Peninsula is the Strate of Malacca, and to the east is the South China Sea. Malaysia also borders Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines. It has not existed as a country until 1963, and before that it was several kingdoms unified in different settings, and also some parts were British Colonies. Now, it has 13 federal states.

The capital is Kuala Lumpur, although the federal government was recently moved to Putrajaya. The governmental system of Malaysia is also very much inspired by the parliamentary system of Westminster. The majority of the people in Malaysia are Malays, but the country also has significant Chinese and Indian communities. The official religion is islam, and the language is Malay. English is often used in education though.

Flag of MalaysiaMalaysia has a tropical climate, and was once one of the biggest producers of tin, rubber and palm oil in the world. International trade is still a big part of its economy, since it’s one of the three countries controlling the Strate of Malacca.

The Malaysian flag has 14 red and white stripes, and also a 14-point star, symbolising the 13 states and the federal government. It also features a crescent, representing the official religion, islam.

Vietnam

vietnam-mapVietnam, another interesting country in Southeast Asia. It borders Cambodia, Laos and China, and is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula (which Cambodia and Thailand also belong to).

The capital is Hanoi, but the largest city is Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam has had at least 7 different names since its foundation, but since it started already before 3000 BC it’s not very surprising. The current name, Vietnam or Viet Nam, seems to have been adopted somewhere around the start of the 19th century. Viet is the name of the largest ethnic group in Vietnam, and Nam means “the South”, indicating south of China.

flag_of_vietnamVietnam is quite big, almost the size of Germany, and divided into 58 provinces. As much as 40% of of the land is mountains, and only about 20% could be considered level land. Vietnam also holds two World’s Natural Heritages, Halong Bay and Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park.

Cambodia

CambodiaCambodia lies to the east of Thailand. The country is is interesting to me, since I recognise the name from history lessons, but never really had anything else to connect the country with.

Cambodia has been a French colony, during the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, but it also has a rich history before that. Cambodia was also known as Kampuchea during the Khmer Rouge years, which is the most (in)famous part of Cambodian history. While the Khmer Rouge has brought bad reputation to the word khmer, the khmer people is the largest (90%) ethnic group in Cambodia.

flag_of_cambodiaApart from Thailand, Cambodia also shares borders with Laos and Vietnam. The capital is Phnom Penh and the official language is called khmer. The Mekong river runs through the country, and it is divided into twenty provinces and four muncipalities. The Cambodian flag has pictured Angkor Wat in some way since about the 1850s, but in different forms. The current flag was adopted in 1948 as Cambodia became independent, but it was replaced during the turbulent years with several other designs. In 1993, the current flag was readopted.

Thailand

ThailandAs I promised, I will now write a little about Thailand. I decided to start with Southeast Asia, since it’s one of the areas I know the least about, but Thailand is the one most familiar to me. An easy start in a hard area, you could say :)

Flag of ThailandThailand, the Swedes’ aboslute favourite when it comes to vacations. To the right, you find the map of Thailand, isolated from the neighbouring countries. It has a quite unique shape and I would say it’s quite easy to recognise. The capital is Bangkok, which is both the economical and political centre, and Thailand is a monarchy. It is roughly the same size as Spain and currently has a population of about 63 million, and it is also divided into 75 provinces.

The current flag was adopted in 1917, before that it had been solid red (first used in the 17th century), and red with a white elephant (19th century).

Less useful knowledge

I think we all have a few areas where we have knowledge and skills which are generally considered less useful, like party tricks or silly facts. You might know all of the US presidents and their wives and children, how you build a boat out of matches etc etc. It’s pointless, and really fun. One of my favourites is countries; I take pride in knowing their shape on a map, their flag and, most importantly, their capital.

I took a quiz today and I realised I didn’t even know the capital of Canada (you don’t have to google it, it’s Ottawa), and it was horrifying, so I decided to change this. I could just have started reading about random countries, but as I am a teacher, I know you need to repeat things to learn them. You need to see them, hear them, write them and preferably touch them. I can’t touch the countries, but the rest I’m going to do by writing a post about a country each week :) I will of course include shape, flag and capital, but also try to find some more interesting facts about the country.

My plan was to use Sundays for this, but as it’s already Monday now, I think it will be a bit flexible. Fri-Mon, somewhere around there should be good. Expect to find the first country-post soon!