fun fact about Paraguay: the country's main language is NOT Spanish! it's Guaraní, which is a native American language. it's spoken by the vast majority of the population as a first language, including white people. Spanish is a common second language though and it's generally taught in schools.
Here are some of my favourite facts about some of the countries mentioned in the video: 1. Suriname has the highest percentage of Muslims in the Western hemisphere at 14% 2. Kyrgyzstan has the longest epic poem IN THE WORLD, depicting the story of their national hero, Manas 3. North Macedonia was the only former Yugoslav state to break away completely peacefully 4. Brunei has the largest town in the world that is entirely built on water 5. Laos is known as the "land of a thousand elephants", as the animals are very prominent in Royal Lao symbology 6. The Comoros are the southernmost Muslim-majority country in the world. They are also one of the world's largest producers of vanilla despite the small area and population 7. Mauritania's capital city Nouakchott was built where a fishing village used to be, and was expected to house about 30,000 or so people. Now it is home to over a million 8. Tuvalu and Kiribati used to be one country, collectively known as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands under British colonisation 9. Equatorial Guinea is home to the largest frog species in the world (along with Gabon and Cameroon) 10. Paraguay once fought a war in the 19th century against the LITERAL rest of the world 11. Timor-Leste is the most catholic country in the world beside the Vatican City itself, as over 97% of the population is catholic 12. Dominica has the second largest hotspring in the world Thanks for reading
With #10 I believe you are referring to the War of the Triple Alliance . In which Paraguay fought a war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Interestingly, at the beginning of the war Paraguay’s army was twice as large as Brazil’s. It was the most deadly war in South American history. Most of the male population of Paraguay was killed, leaving a gender imbalance that lasted for decades.
I have heard of all of these countries. However, there were about three of them that if you had asked me to point to them on a map, I couldn’t have done it.
I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a bit. Maybe for the west, it is "unknown". However, to people in the Russosphere, it is a quite well-known vacation spot. Definetly a beautiful country
I think many other countries have never heard of these countries or barely know much about it. I lived in the country of Tajikistan for a year, right next to Kyrgyzstan. I'm from Australia and nobody I know has heard of this country before I had lived there. My parents are from Indonesia and so my background is Indonesian and I asked family, cousins and all that and none of them heard of Tajikistan. I also lived in the country of Georgia for a year, before I went to Tajikistan, yes I love to travel and even people I met there know barely anything about Tajikistan and they both were pretty much part of the same country (Soviet Union). So I don't think it's a "west" thing but more if you don't know you don't know and I guess media and all that dictates what we know. I've travelled extensively so I know many "unknown" countries and love geography as well.
@@AnonTriple I admire & appreciate your succinctly impressive commentary, all based on personal experiences 😳🥰. I also love the way you travel & live your life so inspiringly 🥳.
I honestly adore so much about the country, but one of my favorite things of my favorites is how the name is said. Causes 99.9% of english speakers to have a seizure or even stroke when they hear me say it and try to comprehend how the hell it's said the way it is. And then they find out how Kiribati is said and all the sudden they just about explode lmao
Yeah there is often a discussion about how Kyrgyzstan should be written in Russian. The sound combinations that "ky" and "gy" make are foreign to the Russian language, although any Russian can pronounce them without any problem, so it sometimes becomes "Kirgizstan"
An interesting thing about Suriname is that it’s a majority Indian country that’s 20% Hindu, speaks Dutch as an official language and is in South America. That to me sounds wild!
Suriname has produced a lot of great football players who’ve represented the Netherlands. Clarence Seedorf, Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit, Edgar Davids, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Patrick Kluivert. Suriname probably would have been one of the top teams in the world in 1998 had all their best players represented it.
And is very hard to get by land from any other place on south america, due to very poor roads in north of Brazil and Guyana or the problem with Visa to enter in French Guyana, the only place in all france that brazilians need visa.
Better fun facts for Dominica: The island's beauty was used as a backdrop for major sequences in the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie! Dominica's flag is one of two national flags to include purple (which is on its national bird; the critically endangered Imperial Amazon), the other one is Nicaragua. Dominica is the only Caribbean island with more than one active volcano, it has NINE of them! The indigenous people of Dominica still live there and are called the Kalinago or Island Caribs (Caribbean is derived from the Caribs). And Dominica isn't pronounced like the Dominican part of Dominican Republic, but rather da-muh-knee-kuh.
A few things to mention: North Macedonia is most famous not for its flag, but rather the fact it had a naming dispute with Greece because it used to be called just Macedonia. Greece didn't allow them to join NATO nor the EU unless it changed its name. Which both countries agreed to in 2018. The island nation of Comoros is made up of three islands, as the fourth one Mayotte overwhelmingly voted to remain French (as that one was French longer than the other three). And Paraguay doesn't have Iguazu Falls as it's on the border of Argentina and Brazil. Though Paraguay DOES have the beautiful Monday Falls/Saltos del Monday by Ciudad del Este.
I am a Timorese-American. I came over when I was 5 and spent every summer there. It was always fun to tell stories of my home country that no one has ever heard of, almost as if it's a mystical land. My cousins and I always had fun on our visits, as there's no drinking age. When you get your first facial hair, most establishments will serve you. It truly is a special place to call my home country. I feel like I have a major responsibility because I'm the only Timorese guy most people will ever encounter in their lives, so I have to represent my country well. I was part of the Brazillian clique in high school, I fit right in as a fellow dark skinned Portuguese speaker. We have a dark history and the country is plagued with problems, but I think most Timorese wouldn't trade their homes for anywhere else. And no, leaving Indonesia was not a mistake. Yes we may be poorer but at least we get to be ourselves. Indonesia tries too hard to make the archipelago into a first world cosmopolitan superpower. We Timorese prefer to be mountain and rainforest dwellers. Our capital city feels like 100 small villages lumped together more than one city. We're a much more simple society than Indonesia.
My experience in North Macedonia this year completely made me forget that it's rather unknown to most - but it's such beautiful country, especially the town of Ohrid and the city of Skopje. Definitely recommended!
fun fact about Dominica: the country's name has entered the English language fairly recently, directly from Spanish, whereas the name of the Dominican republic has entered the English language a lot earlier in a more anglicized context. as a result if someone is from the Dominican republic, than they're a doMInican, whereas someone from Dominica is a domiNIcan! same spelling but different pronounciation!
Suriname (pronounced Suri-nam like Vietnam; their airline is Surinam Airways) is a country known by those who keep dart frogs as pets (including myself) because many species in captivity like the famous blue/azureus dart frogs come from there. No, dart frogs in captivity aren't poisonous because dart frogs become poisonous through their diet so as long as you don't feed them their wild diet, they're harmless. That aside, an interesting fact about Suriname is that they have disputes with both Guyana and French Guiana (the country with its disputed borders looks pretty weird). Venezuela is another country that has a dispute with Guyana...both of these countries want to divide Guyana, basically making Guyana the Poland of South America. Sad fact about Laos: Because of the Vietnam War, Laos is the most bombed nation per capita in history. The US dropped more than two million tons of ordnance. The US didn't wanna do a ground war there because of its topography and so bombing Laos was seen as a safer means of cutting off communist supply lines into Vietnam before they could be used against American troops
With regards to Laos, I couldn't disagree more: it is a beautiful, scenic country.... great food, friendly people, relaxed atmosphere. Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng are great, Vientiane likewise
I haven’t been to Laos myself, but I recently met a young British man who had just returned from a trip across Southeast Asia and who said that Laos was his favorite country (out of all the countries he visited). That was interesting and noteworthy. Maybe there is a charm about it!
My uncle is from Tuvalu. He came to Australia in the 60s. Climate change is a huge concern there, as water levels keep rising and the islands are slowly disappearing. P.S. Timor is pronounced Tee-more. It's a developing nation with a very young population.
The government of Tuvalu is planning to make the whole country on the metaverse allowing people to see a virtual version of it so that the country wont be forgotten.
Tuvalu is also well-know among IANA nerds, as its ISO country code of "TV" made its CC TLD of ".tv" popular for websites for US television shows. The government of Tuvalu currently contracts with GoDaddy to handle the .tv registry, but it's changed hands several times since the mid-1990s and so it occasionally shows up in the IT trade press when there's some sort of dispute. Tuvalu apparently has earned a decent portion of its national income from .tv registrations.
I spent most of my life growing up in Brunei, and I can sort of attest to how there isn't all that much to do there. There is quite a bit to see however, like Kampong Ayer (an entire water village of houses on stilts), and the experience of trekking in the rainforests and natural parks is another standout. The beaches are also quite nice!
You missed out Djibouti, a small east African country situated on the Horn of Africa in between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. It house two military bases for the U.S. and China.
Paraguay is not home to the Iguazú Falls, they are located in the border between Argentina and Brazil, not far from where both countries border Paraguay.
I am probably one of the few people that are from Kyrgyzstan or even the only one that has watched this video. But to "untouched beauty, that's all it has" I cannot agree. Still it was great to see my homeland be included!
I have visited Suriname and it's amazing. Something really interesting about Suriname is that almost all of its population lives in their coastal capitol Paramaribo. The small villages in the interior are made up largely of people who escaped the slave trade by heading far into the jungle.
Timor Leste used to be East Timor, once a Portuguese colony and then part of Indonesia. When it was part of Indonesia, it was in the news here quite a lot because of Indonesian human rights violations. You also keep mispronouncing Suriname; it's pronounced (and sometimes spelled) Surinam.
I was most surprised when I found out about Lesotho. I’m a big geography nerd myself so learning of a country entirely locked within South Africa like Vatican City & San Marino are in Italy was news to me about a year ago.
Rarely talked about countries: Djibouti Eritrea Gambia Antigua and Barbuda Burkina Faso Burundi Mauritania Marshall Islands Saint Kitts And Nevis Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Grenada Seychelles Sierra Leone Guinea-Bissau Sao Tome and Principe Cape Verde Comoros Togo Benin Tuvalu Kiribati Vanuatu Tonga
You could say most Caribbean countries are rarely talked about, there are more people that can name a African country than a Oceania or Caribbean island country.
@@filbao8113 Francisco Macías Nguema had soldiers dressed up as Santa execute nearly 190 dissidents as amplifiers played that song in the national stadium to hide their screaming (some were forced to bury themselves up to their necks and be eaten alive by red ants) on Christmas Eve 1969.
Laos is great. It's basically like a cultural extension of Thailand and we share a lot of history together (I don't believe the monoethnic Thai state as the Thai government wants and educates its citizens to believe). Laos and Thai are mutually intelligible and Lao often use Thai broadcast stations to watch Thai shows. Such a shame that they are the most bombed country on Earth (thanks to the US during the Vietnam War). If you ever go there (and are interested in history), go to Luang Prabang, the traditional capital of Laos for several hundred years where you'll find a picturesque, sleepy (and tourism-centered) town and with many old temples.
Hi, Indonesian here, are what you said true About thai government making those monoethnic "propaganda"? I'm Javanese live in Java island, in our history, ancient mainlan SEA are ruled by Khmer and Champa, Thai and Viet are considered new cultures from north, making Thai as monoethnic would erase history and cultures.
@@hull4bal00 Thailand's history is very diverse ethnically. Just like in Malaysia and Indonesia's history, a bunch of ethnicities from abroad migrated and settled in their respective countries over time: Chinese, Indians, Malay, Cham, Dutch, Portugese, Persian, Japanese, etc... ; mixing their cultures alongside the Tais and Mon-Khmer already living there to create a distinctive regional culture. Unfortunately, since the turn of the 20th century, the Thai elites decided that the European model of a nation state, one in which the "Thai" was a single ethnicity which existed a thousand years ago, was the one to implement in Thailand and to educate future Thais that unfortunately is still the mainstream curriculum used by mainstream Thai education, ignoring all the various ethnicities which shaped the region in what would become known as Thailand over time.
@@Urlocallordandsavior so it's kinda like Malaysia, they call all natives as malay even though comes from different ethics group, not to mention they claim all Indonesian as malay which kinda offensive for hundreds other ethics in Indonesia.
Suriname has a fast growing eco tourism industry. People are extremely friendly, food is gorgeous, colonial architecture is stunning, most of the people speak English. The people there are happy and respectful of others, specially if you consider that there are lots of different ethnic group coexisting pacifically.
Muritania was the only one I was not familiar with here, but it's difficult to keep up with all of Africa. I have actually visited most of the others.Thank you for this.
I often wondered this about the central asian countries (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirgisistan, Usbekistan) in general, why do we so rarely ever hear anything in western countries about these countries in the media? If you ask people here what they know about these countries, many would probably barely have anything to say about them. I kind of have a strange fascination with these "forgotten" countries. Simply because you hear so rarely about them, they feel like unknown adventurous places that have a lot to discover there. Central asian countries in have quite interesting cultures and beautiful landscapes.
I reside in a university town so have met a few Kazakh students. They are all incredibly well off from oil and the government pay their tuition fees. They also hate the alcohol laws in their country and do drink haaaaard!
I would say the scuba diving in Timor Leste does make it worth visiting. The island to the north of it’s capital Dili is called Atauro. It as the most marine diverse environment in the world.
I've been living in Timor Leste my whole life and never got to go to Atauro once 😭😭😭 thank you for this comment, I appreciate that you've visited the country
@@brontewcat bro nian tetum furak loss. Ita Ema nebe?? And thanks for appreciation of Timor Leste 🇹🇱 🙏. And that's true Timor Leste is very nice to scuba diving.
@@trumant1w057 Maun, ha’u la bro. Ha’u mana. Ha’u iha Australia. I really want go back to Timor Leste. I last visited in 2019. I would have gone back but COVID got in the way. Do you live in Dili?
@@brontewcat 😅🤣😅😅 so sorry mana. Yes,I'm at Dili. Yes covid took lot of our friends malaes back to home mana so sad 😔 😟. But hoppe you can come back to Timor Leste again. Tanba agora it's alot available fly from 🇦🇺 Australia to Timor Leste 🇹🇱 😀
Most unknown countries . Europe : North macedonia , Liechtenstein , moldova . Asia : Timor leste , Brunei , Oman , Bhutan . Americas : Grenada , belize , st Kitts and Nevis . Oceania : all of them except Australia and New Zealand. Africa : all of them except South africa , Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria . Kyrgyzstan and Paraguay are far more popular than many countries not mentioned . Actually Paraguay is relatively well known even among South American countries
As someone with African descent, I am familiar with most of the African countries and those in the Americas. I think the pacific ones are the only unknown to me. What’s unknown really depends on your background and location. I have met plenty of people from Suriname, Equatorial Guinea. Grenada, Belize, Kitts and Nevis, and Mauritania. My church is full of Caribbean and African immigrants, however, I don’t know anyone from North Macedonia or Moldova.
@Tee A I guess you are right . Though as a person with enough interest in geography I usually remember at least half of African countries names but never all of them . Of course they are also too many of them
Fun Fact: Tuvalu is planning on becoming the first country on the metaverse. Due to the unfortunate rising of sea waters, their cou try is at risk, so their government (knowing their country likely wont be around in 100 years as a result) is planning on creating a virtual museum of sorts to be able to see the whole country before (and after) it inevitably disappears.
Hey! I am actually watching this from Ohrid North Macedonia! I’m backpacking through the Balkans now and I would encourage anyone in the area to check out Ohrid. It is spectacularly gorgeous and very affordable! On another note, Paraguay does not own Iguazu Falls. The falls sit on the border between Argentina and Brazil (I know, I’ve been there!). Paraguay is close to, but not part of the falls. It’s like how Monaco is close to Italy or Slovenia is close to Venice.
@@Heavy-metaaal Iguazu falls are divided between Brazil and Argentina. The Paraguayan border is 10km or so from the falls, at the junction of the rivers Iguazu and Parana.
@@Heavy-metaaal go look at a map. The Paraguay border is about 5-10 km away. I was in Argentina (never Paraguay and never Brazil) and I have been to the falls.
@@joeypatapas8840 , It's very close. There are two different places that caused me confusion. There is a power plant called Itaipú divided between Brazil and Paraguay. It's very close to Iguazu falls between Brazil and Argentina. That's caused me confusion.
Regarding Equatorial Guinea and the "not having the capital on the mainland" bit, that's supposed to be changing in the next decade. A planned capital called "Ciudad de la Paz" is under construction and was designated as the country's new capital (of course, the announcement was made in 2017 with construction to be done by 2020 or so but it hasn't been finished).
Nobody ever talks about Belize, Central African Republic, Malawi, Slovakia, Estonia, Luxembourg, Bhutan, Oman, Djibouti, São Tomé and Príncipe, and West Virginia.
Anyone who has ever been a collector or researcher into postal history and postage stamps knows all of these countries. Collecting picked up again when people were shut in during the pandemic. I've been to Paraguay. The Rio Paraguay is navigable well into the country for smaller ocean-going ships. Timor-Leste's main problems for independence weren't with Portugal, but rather with Indonesia.
During Indonesian occupation Portugal was the only allie to East Timor cause. In fact, as long as I know, there was never a war during portuguese occupation like in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique and they got the independence as those after the Carnation Revolution.
Not really. For most of us Indonesians, Timor Leste is just the same as the rest of us. Another province that just really tired of being colonized, and they were a part of Indonesia when we gained independence. Then for some reason they didn't like us anymore since around a few decades ago, and won't stop yelling about it. So we let them go. It's as simple as that, and we don't bother them anymore. It's surprising to see what the outside contries think about all of this.
@@jordanjames3194 You need to research that better. What is now Timor Leste was an overseas territory of Portugal beginning in the 1700s, going through 1975.
I have been to Dominica via a Windjammer Barefoot cruise. Charming. I visited Laos in 2016. The slow boat floating down the Mekong was a relaxing time. The capital is the smallest and sleepiest in Asia was fun to explore
Some countries don't care about popularity. They love their privacy and poor influences... Suriname is a highly significant country in the Caribbean...
I'm laughing a bit here, as I live in northern Thailand not too far from Laos which I have visited many times, either by bus or minivan or on a motorbike, and I hitch hiked a few times. While I agree there isn't a lot on the bucket list of "must-do" activities it definitely is worth at least a couple weeks. Start with a slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang and visit the caves, waterfalls and night market, then a perilous bus ride up and over the 1400m mountain pass and down to Vang Vieng for caving, kyaking, swimming in the river, etc. then down to the capital Vientiane, see the Buddha statue park, Patuxai monument, and That Luang temple plus have sunset meals along the Mekong. It's nice that it doesn't attract millions of tourists like Thailand, and can be a bit like stepping back in time and just slow down.
Recently returned from North Macedonia and have been 3 times so far. It's a beautiful country with great food and people. I would highly recommend more people visit, it's only a 2.5 hour flight from Luton.
Indonesia almost exterminate all the people in Timor, sadly many people don't know that, and it was recently. VIVA TIMOR LOROSAE. Just a fact, they speak PORTUGUESE.
Something I will say on Kyrgyzstan is that it has one of the coolest country shapes in the world; the shape looks like an alien and the name is definitely unique (at least in english) for the other -stans.
Well, the name isn't particularly unique for the Stan countries, most of them aside from Pakistan and formerly Afghanistan are just the countries main ethnicity plus -stan.
Kyrgyzstan is well known to a select group of people from the USA, it was one for a while the primary hub you went through if you were being deployed in Afghanistan during the war so I and others like me have spent at least a small amount of time there though we clearly didn't get to see much of it.
Dominica is awesome. It's very mountainous and hard to navigate, which makes it less of a tourist destination than the surrounding small Caribbean nations. However, if you want unspoilt wilderness and great scuba diving then Dominica is the place to go.
A fact that I've heard about suriname is that around a quarter of its population is connected to Javanese people. Because apparently hundred of years ago, the dutch sent javanese people there to do extra work.
as someone from the caribbean its so wild to me you started with suriname lmao everyone who lives in the caribbean learns about them in elementary school, i distinctly remember learning about their forests and logging being the primary industry
unfortunately the US isn't taught this. I grew up on the coast of Florida which is not that much further than Suriname than the Caribbean, yet anytime I mention this country I'm called a geography nerd because literally no one in the US is taught about it and only know about it if they actively seek out information about countries themselves.
Im from northern brazil and i think i know about them because of its proximity and being part of the amazon, like where i live. Also find their capital name funny sounding lol but i dont think most Brazilians would know much about them anyway including me
@@Goombario37don’t beat yourself or the school curriculum up. You come from a giant country whose geography alone is so fascinating it dwarfs everything else. I won’t blame any American who doesn’t know Belize is a hop and skip away from them in Central America
I enjoyed Laos when I was there in 2014. We took the night train from Bancock (I love trains!) and had a comfortable sleeper compartment for a very low price. We took a minibus to the capital, which was much more quiet and quaint than Bancock. We stayed in a modern hotel in Viangchan. It had more of a rural feel. I had delicious quiche repeatedly, and my daughter loved their pad Thai. We stayed a few nights and didn’t run out of things to see. I’d recommend it if you want a more quiet, less-travelled place.
malta. literally havent heard of it before i saw a youtuber move there. visited it in july and it is awesome. its super underrated and extremely beautiful.
@@C0lon0 still it counts, then would you count Mexico and Spain as the only flags with pink?one is litterally 3 flowers and one is just a lion,both are much smaller than the bird
i have heard all the names earlier, know their locations. Also i know a little bit about most of these countries. I think Paraguay shouldn't be in this list as they appeared in World Cup football several times.
Fun Fact for Suriname 🇸🇷 It Borders French Guyana to the East. This Territory is Part of the European Union. So technically Suriname is besides Brasil the one of only two South American Countries that have borders with the actual European Union. Would have been nice if this were mentioned
One of my favorites: Bhutan: the small Himalayan Buddhist kingdom. It's an almost entirely mountainous country of roughly ~600,000 or so people sandwiched right in between the two giants that are India and China. Seems like a wonderful place to visit
I grew up in the Netherlands with a lot of Surinam neighbours. Birthdays were always a delight with the best food I've ever had. Fun fact about Tuvalu: Television broadcasters paid good money for a .tv inernet domain.
I always love videos I see on this channel because they are always energetic and full of adventure, adventures are always good for the mind it’s too bad that most times lack of finance makes them virtually impossible
That’s nice, most times to be successful in life we all need professional guidance and assistance, please tell me how this mr Robert David guy who helped you improve your financial situation
@@skippitysmithsonshortsit is not about caring, it is about knowing and having the knowledge that the country exists. For fun fact MANY Dutch and Belgian visit Suriname due to the language (Nederlands). That u do not know that country is ur problem. If u were a native Dutch speaker u would def know
An interesting fact about Tuvalu: its designated country code is "TV", so the country's GDP received a nice supplement during the internet age from websites that wanted to use the ".tv" domain that is supposed to be reserved for the Tuvalan government.
Suggestion: Don't say that a country is not worth visiting. Literally every nation on earth is worth visiting and has at least something going for it. The way you undersell these countries is astonishing. I don't live in kyrgyztan or suriname so I just shrugged and accepted what you said since I don't know much about these countries, but when you mentioned paraguay I realized how much you are underselling these countries. I live in argentina, so obviously I know something about paraguay, and you quite literally forgot to mention everything that make Paraguay such a beautiful and unique country. You did not even mentioned that is the only country in the americas where a native language is spoken by the majority. After realizing this, I looked up these other countries I did not know much about and was surprised that they actually have interesting things.
I'm so thankful I caught your comment because less than a minute into the video, I picked up on this vibe that you critique very well and so I stopped watching and read the comments instead 🤦🤷🙄. It was more worthwhile for me to read your comment rather than to finish the video 😅.
@@GoldenBoyDims We are talking about interest, not safety. Some countries are indeed too dangerous to travel to, but we are not talking about that. It's how interesting a country is. For example, North korea is dangerous and no one visits for that reason, but if one's safety was garanteed, i think everyone would take the chance to visit it.
@@akai4942 if its interest theres nothing in Mauritania except desert and more desert so I don't think a country like that is worth visiting at all except you just want to visit every country in the world as a goal
Laos, your kidding me! Anybody who grew up during the 60’s and early 70’s heard that country’s name mentioned on the news almost every evening during the Vietnam war. Paraguay, your kidding me again! Apparently when the schools quit teaching geography in the 90’s forward young people cannot know where Paraguay is and that it’s in a continent right under our nose.
Hello from Russia! Thanks for the video. Several errors made. 1) Paraguay does have 2 official languages. 2) Spanish is an, not "the" official language of Equatorial Guinea. Two other are Portuguese and French. 3) Tuvalu is pronounced with the second, not the first, syllable stressed. 4) Dominica is indeed often confused with Dominican Republic but not with the island of Dominican Republic for no such island exists. The island the bigger part of which is occupied by Dominican Republic is called Hispañola. Incompleteness in the comments where they concern the official languages in South America: not only Brasil, Guyana and Surinam have official tongues other than Spanish but Bolivia has 36 official languages. Check also Peru. With Quechua and Aimara. In Moscow, which is Europe's biggest city (for part of Istanbul is in Asia), there many Kyrgyz people who come for employment. They work as taxi drivers, couriers, builders, etc.
Malaysian here. When I lived in Europe, I found that among our closest neighbour my country isn't that well known. Brunei for its rich monarch, Singapore as economic powerhouse, Thailand as a tourist hot-spot even Indonesia most people knows about Bali.
European here. As someone who never went outside of Europe, I know Malaysia for 2 facts : The Petronas Twin Towers (I know they're in KL) and the Sepang International Circuit. Just wanted to share my POV ^^
@@TiqaShuib IDK. For business people Singapore is like Hong-Kong of SEA. Militarily they are like Taiwan and Saudi. They bought alot of military hardware from the US including apaches. Even among lay person they might know Singapore from their no chewing gum rule 😂. They used to be part of Malaysia till the 60s. Maybe someone still reading an old geography book
It appears your podcast is targeted at the western world. We in Asia are familiar with all of these countries, in fact we are acquainted with people from all these countries. We have friends and family employed or associated with these countries.
I spent 6 months in East-Timor between september 1999 and March 2000. I was part of the canadian army detachement that went there as part of the Interfet. During the wet season, everything get flodded there.
Most Australians know Timor because our government bugged them during negotiations for oil after assisting them gain independence from Indonesia, then raided reporters and news agency buildings that published the news on the bugging, then held secret trials. I was worried for a while that someone from the government was going to get in trouble for it, but of course l had nothing to worry about, bugging friendly countries is all above board!
Brunei used to rule a vast empire that even included much of the Phillipines, but it gradually declined in size, with the White Sultans of Sarawak nearly finishing it off in the Victorian Era, making the modern state perhaps the best example of a rump state in the modern world.
![Mariah Carey - We Belong Together [American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UnO2m2BEXDU/mqdefault.jpg)
fun fact about Paraguay: the country's main language is NOT Spanish! it's Guaraní, which is a native American language. it's spoken by the vast majority of the population as a first language, including white people. Spanish is a common second language though and it's generally taught in schools.
thought this was common knowledge
Love Paraguay from Philippines..😍
@@TheTaylord153 ah yes knowing the official language of a random small country in South America, everyone knows that!
@@TheTaylord153 first time to read that fun fact about Paraguay
I thought all Latin America are speaking Spanish except Brazil
Love Paraguay from Brazil
Here are some of my favourite facts about some of the countries mentioned in the video:
1. Suriname has the highest percentage of Muslims in the Western hemisphere at 14%
2. Kyrgyzstan has the longest epic poem IN THE WORLD, depicting the story of their national hero, Manas
3. North Macedonia was the only former Yugoslav state to break away completely peacefully
4. Brunei has the largest town in the world that is entirely built on water
5. Laos is known as the "land of a thousand elephants", as the animals are very prominent in Royal Lao symbology
6. The Comoros are the southernmost Muslim-majority country in the world. They are also one of the world's largest producers of vanilla despite the small area and population
7. Mauritania's capital city Nouakchott was built where a fishing village used to be, and was expected to house about 30,000 or so people. Now it is home to over a million
8. Tuvalu and Kiribati used to be one country, collectively known as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands under British colonisation
9. Equatorial Guinea is home to the largest frog species in the world (along with Gabon and Cameroon)
10. Paraguay once fought a war in the 19th century against the LITERAL rest of the world
11. Timor-Leste is the most catholic country in the world beside the Vatican City itself, as over 97% of the population is catholic
12. Dominica has the second largest hotspring in the world
Thanks for reading
I've read these facts and they are indeed fascinating!
Interesting information, thanks for the time you took to research each nation
With #10 I believe you are referring to the War of the Triple Alliance . In which Paraguay fought a war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Interestingly, at the beginning of the war Paraguay’s army was twice as large as Brazil’s. It was the most deadly war in South American history. Most of the male population of Paraguay was killed, leaving a gender imbalance that lasted for decades.
I have heard of all of these countries. However, there were about three of them that if you had asked me to point to them on a map, I couldn’t have done it.
Ty
I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a bit. Maybe for the west, it is "unknown". However, to people in the Russosphere, it is a quite well-known vacation spot. Definetly a beautiful country
I think many other countries have never heard of these countries or barely know much about it.
I lived in the country of Tajikistan for a year, right next to Kyrgyzstan.
I'm from Australia and nobody I know has heard of this country before I had lived there. My parents are from Indonesia and so my background is Indonesian and I asked family, cousins and all that and none of them heard of Tajikistan.
I also lived in the country of Georgia for a year, before I went to Tajikistan, yes I love to travel and even people I met there know barely anything about Tajikistan and they both were pretty much part of the same country (Soviet Union). So I don't think it's a "west" thing but more if you don't know you don't know and I guess media and all that dictates what we know. I've travelled extensively so I know many "unknown" countries and love geography as well.
@@AnonTriple I admire & appreciate your succinctly impressive commentary, all based on personal experiences 😳🥰. I also love the way you travel & live your life so inspiringly 🥳.
I honestly adore so much about the country, but one of my favorite things of my favorites is how the name is said. Causes 99.9% of english speakers to have a seizure or even stroke when they hear me say it and try to comprehend how the hell it's said the way it is. And then they find out how Kiribati is said and all the sudden they just about explode lmao
I know of Turkmenistan because of that weird horse-loving dictator Gubanguly ...medhov something. Maybe you need something weird to attract attention.
Yeah there is often a discussion about how Kyrgyzstan should be written in Russian. The sound combinations that "ky" and "gy" make are foreign to the Russian language, although any Russian can pronounce them without any problem, so it sometimes becomes "Kirgizstan"
An interesting thing about Suriname is that it’s a majority Indian country that’s 20% Hindu, speaks Dutch as an official language and is in South America. That to me sounds wild!
certified slavery moment
With lots of Javanese people from Java island, Indonesia that were being brought up to Suriname during colonial.
Colonialism be like
They speak that useless language?
@@jimmy2tron Hindi? dutch? or bahasa indonesia>? or ALL? 🤣💀
Suriname has produced a lot of great football players who’ve represented the Netherlands. Clarence Seedorf, Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit, Edgar Davids, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Patrick Kluivert. Suriname probably would have been one of the top teams in the world in 1998 had all their best players represented it.
Van Dijk and Wijnaldum as well
Hola
the lead singer of the dutch band 'Urban dance squad' is from surinam. seems to common in the nwtherlands
Sheraldo Becker!
exactly, i think about football players when i think of surinam
Suriname is a really popular tourist destination for Dutch people and is in my opinion very underrated
And is very hard to get by land from any other place on south america, due to very poor roads in north of Brazil and Guyana or the problem with Visa to enter in French Guyana, the only place in all france that brazilians need visa.
French Guiana definitely would have made the list, too 👍
(That is, if he was a country).
Better fun facts for Dominica: The island's beauty was used as a backdrop for major sequences in the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie! Dominica's flag is one of two national flags to include purple (which is on its national bird; the critically endangered Imperial Amazon), the other one is Nicaragua. Dominica is the only Caribbean island with more than one active volcano, it has NINE of them! The indigenous people of Dominica still live there and are called the Kalinago or Island Caribs (Caribbean is derived from the Caribs). And Dominica isn't pronounced like the Dominican part of Dominican Republic, but rather da-muh-knee-kuh.
A few things to mention: North Macedonia is most famous not for its flag, but rather the fact it had a naming dispute with Greece because it used to be called just Macedonia. Greece didn't allow them to join NATO nor the EU unless it changed its name. Which both countries agreed to in 2018. The island nation of Comoros is made up of three islands, as the fourth one Mayotte overwhelmingly voted to remain French (as that one was French longer than the other three). And Paraguay doesn't have Iguazu Falls as it's on the border of Argentina and Brazil. Though Paraguay DOES have the beautiful Monday Falls/Saltos del Monday by Ciudad del Este.
I am a Timorese-American. I came over when I was 5 and spent every summer there. It was always fun to tell stories of my home country that no one has ever heard of, almost as if it's a mystical land. My cousins and I always had fun on our visits, as there's no drinking age. When you get your first facial hair, most establishments will serve you. It truly is a special place to call my home country. I feel like I have a major responsibility because I'm the only Timorese guy most people will ever encounter in their lives, so I have to represent my country well. I was part of the Brazillian clique in high school, I fit right in as a fellow dark skinned Portuguese speaker.
We have a dark history and the country is plagued with problems, but I think most Timorese wouldn't trade their homes for anywhere else. And no, leaving Indonesia was not a mistake. Yes we may be poorer but at least we get to be ourselves. Indonesia tries too hard to make the archipelago into a first world cosmopolitan superpower. We Timorese prefer to be mountain and rainforest dwellers. Our capital city feels like 100 small villages lumped together more than one city. We're a much more simple society than Indonesia.
My experience in North Macedonia this year completely made me forget that it's rather unknown to most - but it's such beautiful country, especially the town of Ohrid and the city of Skopje. Definitely recommended!
Is that where Skopje is! Only seen it on airport boards.
@@larrygrimaldi1400 Yes, Skopje is the capital of North Macedonia ^^
I live in macedonia and (not to brag) I can say it is beautiful.
I'm really glad that you enjoyed my country. Greetings from Skopje, N.Macedonia. I hope you come and visit again.
Trust me, I sure will :) There is still so much to see. Love from Denmark!
Suriname is in fact very popular in my country, Indonesia, due to the historical ties between the two
The pride I feel for knowing about all these nations 😇
I only watch these for peoples comments that know about the country. Thank you!
fun fact about Dominica: the country's name has entered the English language fairly recently, directly from Spanish, whereas the name of the Dominican republic has entered the English language a lot earlier in a more anglicized context. as a result if someone is from the Dominican republic, than they're a doMInican, whereas someone from Dominica is a domiNIcan! same spelling but different pronounciation!
Dominica is not Spanish speaking but french Creole, like the islands of st. Lucia . Dominican republic is Spanish speaking
directly from spanish? they dont speak spanish my boy
@@ericktellez7632 The name of the country is in Spanish. Much like Antigua, Trinidad, Grenada, and other Caribbean islands.
Dominica island and Dominican republic are too different countries, RepDom is latin and Dominica isn't part of latin america
@@john-rosselliott6161 Dominica is English speaking, not french or other languages you are saying there
Suriname (pronounced Suri-nam like Vietnam; their airline is Surinam Airways) is a country known by those who keep dart frogs as pets (including myself) because many species in captivity like the famous blue/azureus dart frogs come from there. No, dart frogs in captivity aren't poisonous because dart frogs become poisonous through their diet so as long as you don't feed them their wild diet, they're harmless. That aside, an interesting fact about Suriname is that they have disputes with both Guyana and French Guiana (the country with its disputed borders looks pretty weird). Venezuela is another country that has a dispute with Guyana...both of these countries want to divide Guyana, basically making Guyana the Poland of South America.
Sad fact about Laos: Because of the Vietnam War, Laos is the most bombed nation per capita in history. The US dropped more than two million tons of ordnance. The US didn't wanna do a ground war there because of its topography and so bombing Laos was seen as a safer means of cutting off communist supply lines into Vietnam before they could be used against American troops
With regards to Laos, I couldn't disagree more: it is a beautiful, scenic country.... great food, friendly people, relaxed atmosphere. Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng are great, Vientiane likewise
Not to mention it's a country King of the Hill fans like myself have heard of.
I haven’t been to Laos myself, but I recently met a young British man who had just returned from a trip across Southeast Asia and who said that Laos was his favorite country (out of all the countries he visited). That was interesting and noteworthy. Maybe there is a charm about it!
.....and opium production, don’t forget one of its attributes
My uncle is from Tuvalu. He came to Australia in the 60s. Climate change is a huge concern there, as water levels keep rising and the islands are slowly disappearing. P.S. Timor is pronounced Tee-more. It's a developing nation with a very young population.
Sadly it's the islands sinking, not the sea level rising. I'm a surveyor who specialises in this area.
The government of Tuvalu is planning to make the whole country on the metaverse allowing people to see a virtual version of it so that the country wont be forgotten.
Tuvalu is also well-know among IANA nerds, as its ISO country code of "TV" made its CC TLD of ".tv" popular for websites for US television shows. The government of Tuvalu currently contracts with GoDaddy to handle the .tv registry, but it's changed hands several times since the mid-1990s and so it occasionally shows up in the IT trade press when there's some sort of dispute. Tuvalu apparently has earned a decent portion of its national income from .tv registrations.
I spent most of my life growing up in Brunei, and I can sort of attest to how there isn't all that much to do there. There is quite a bit to see however, like Kampong Ayer (an entire water village of houses on stilts), and the experience of trekking in the rainforests and natural parks is another standout. The beaches are also quite nice!
Where did you move to? Just out of curiosity 😅
@@Otterstone Malaysia, for uni lol
I’ve heard the only thing Brunei is good at is human rights violations.
You missed out Djibouti, a small east African country situated on the Horn of Africa in between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. It house two military bases for the U.S. and China.
They are not forgotten or ignored. They are quite known for being a military base for various global powers.
I think they could have stayed in Africa for this entire video if they wanted to. There's also Togo, Benin, Chad, Niger, Mozambique, etc
But if it has a military base, it is likely to be talked about
Paraguay is not home to the Iguazú Falls, they are located in the border between Argentina and Brazil, not far from where both countries border Paraguay.
The name Iguazú means "Big Water" in Tupi-Guarani
East Timor/Timor Leste is talked about quite frequently in Australia.
cuz it's their oil field
Cuz they milked them
@@zerooneyt2326 Yes, and it was wrong. A lot of the media coverage has been about that and govt mending that relationship.
@@kristianaaberg7882 you put the journalist who broke the story about how Australia tapped the TL PM office, into the prison dont you?
@@harukrentz435 Not something i would support.
I am probably one of the few people that are from Kyrgyzstan or even the only one that has watched this video. But to "untouched beauty, that's all it has" I cannot agree. Still it was great to see my homeland be included!
I have visited Suriname and it's amazing. Something really interesting about Suriname is that almost all of its population lives in their coastal capitol Paramaribo. The small villages in the interior are made up largely of people who escaped the slave trade by heading far into the jungle.
Timor Leste used to be East Timor, once a Portuguese colony and then part of Indonesia. When it was part of Indonesia, it was in the news here quite a lot because of Indonesian human rights violations. You also keep mispronouncing Suriname; it's pronounced (and sometimes spelled) Surinam.
I was most surprised when I found out about Lesotho. I’m a big geography nerd myself so learning of a country entirely locked within South Africa like Vatican City & San Marino are in Italy was news to me about a year ago.
oddly, I have always known that south Africa had a country inside it. it always looked like a block of Swiss cheese on the map.
Lesotho is so mysterious 🧐
If you are interested in geography enough to watch this video you certainly know these countries
Rarely talked about countries:
Djibouti
Eritrea
Gambia
Antigua and Barbuda
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Mauritania
Marshall Islands
Saint Kitts And Nevis
Saint Vincent and The Grenadines
Grenada
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Guinea-Bissau
Sao Tome and Principe
Cape Verde
Comoros
Togo
Benin
Tuvalu
Kiribati
Vanuatu
Tonga
Djibouti shouldn't be on this list.
Malawi, Chad!
Uruguay is a a country nobody talks about.
You could say most Caribbean countries are rarely talked about, there are more people that can name a African country than a Oceania or Caribbean island country.
It's "The" Gambia
Equatorial Guinea is literally the only country in the world where the song "Those Were the Days" by Mary Hopkins is terrifying.
How
@@filbao8113 Francisco Macías Nguema had soldiers dressed up as Santa execute nearly 190 dissidents as amplifiers played that song in the national stadium to hide their screaming (some were forced to bury themselves up to their necks and be eaten alive by red ants) on Christmas Eve 1969.
Laos is great. It's basically like a cultural extension of Thailand and we share a lot of history together (I don't believe the monoethnic Thai state as the Thai government wants and educates its citizens to believe). Laos and Thai are mutually intelligible and Lao often use Thai broadcast stations to watch Thai shows. Such a shame that they are the most bombed country on Earth (thanks to the US during the Vietnam War). If you ever go there (and are interested in history), go to Luang Prabang, the traditional capital of Laos for several hundred years where you'll find a picturesque, sleepy (and tourism-centered) town and with many old temples.
Hi, Indonesian here, are what you said true About thai government making those monoethnic "propaganda"?
I'm Javanese live in Java island, in our history, ancient mainlan SEA are ruled by Khmer and Champa, Thai and Viet are considered new cultures from north,
making Thai as monoethnic would erase history and cultures.
@@hull4bal00 Thailand's history is very diverse ethnically. Just like in Malaysia and Indonesia's history, a bunch of ethnicities from abroad migrated and settled in their respective countries over time: Chinese, Indians, Malay, Cham, Dutch, Portugese, Persian, Japanese, etc... ; mixing their cultures alongside the Tais and Mon-Khmer already living there to create a distinctive regional culture. Unfortunately, since the turn of the 20th century, the Thai elites decided that the European model of a nation state, one in which the "Thai" was a single ethnicity which existed a thousand years ago, was the one to implement in Thailand and to educate future Thais that unfortunately is still the mainstream curriculum used by mainstream Thai education, ignoring all the various ethnicities which shaped the region in what would become known as Thailand over time.
@@Urlocallordandsavior so it's kinda like Malaysia, they call all natives as malay even though comes from different ethics group, not to mention they claim all Indonesian as malay which kinda offensive for hundreds other ethics in Indonesia.
@@hull4bal00 Yeah.
Suriname has a fast growing eco tourism industry. People are extremely friendly, food is gorgeous, colonial architecture is stunning, most of the people speak English. The people there are happy and respectful of others, specially if you consider that there are lots of different ethnic group coexisting pacifically.
Muritania was the only one I was not familiar with here, but it's difficult to keep up with all of Africa. I have actually visited most of the others.Thank you for this.
It's pronounced mauritania.
There were once huge ancient empires in this area, long before European countries with advanced technologies started colonization.
It has population of only 2.5 Billion...
@@justinarzola4584 written
I often wondered this about the central asian countries (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirgisistan, Usbekistan) in general, why do we so rarely ever hear anything in western countries about these countries in the media? If you ask people here what they know about these countries, many would probably barely have anything to say about them.
I kind of have a strange fascination with these "forgotten" countries. Simply because you hear so rarely about them, they feel like unknown adventurous places that have a lot to discover there.
Central asian countries in have quite interesting cultures and beautiful landscapes.
I reside in a university town so have met a few Kazakh students. They are all incredibly well off from oil and the government pay their tuition fees. They also hate the alcohol laws in their country and do drink haaaaard!
I was just in Kyrgyzstan last September. It’s soooo beautiful. Incredible country.
I would say the scuba diving in Timor Leste does make it worth visiting. The island to the north of it’s capital Dili is called Atauro. It as the most marine diverse environment in the world.
I've been living in Timor Leste my whole life and never got to go to Atauro once 😭😭😭 thank you for this comment, I appreciate that you've visited the country
@@MyLordSirEsqOfDrChief Ha’u hela iha Timor ba fulan 18. Hau hadomi rai doben
Descupla,my tetun is rusty.
@@brontewcat bro nian tetum furak loss. Ita Ema nebe?? And thanks for appreciation of Timor Leste 🇹🇱 🙏. And that's true Timor Leste is very nice to scuba diving.
@@trumant1w057 Maun, ha’u la bro. Ha’u mana. Ha’u iha Australia. I really want go back to Timor Leste. I last visited in 2019. I would have gone back but COVID got in the way. Do you live in Dili?
@@brontewcat 😅🤣😅😅 so sorry mana. Yes,I'm at Dili. Yes covid took lot of our friends malaes back to home mana so sad 😔 😟. But hoppe you can come back to Timor Leste again. Tanba agora it's alot available fly from 🇦🇺 Australia to Timor Leste 🇹🇱 😀
Most unknown countries . Europe : North macedonia , Liechtenstein , moldova . Asia : Timor leste , Brunei , Oman , Bhutan . Americas : Grenada , belize , st Kitts and Nevis . Oceania : all of them except Australia and New Zealand. Africa : all of them except South africa , Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria .
Kyrgyzstan and Paraguay are far more popular than many countries not mentioned . Actually Paraguay is relatively well known even among South American countries
As someone with African descent, I am familiar with most of the African countries and those in the Americas. I think the pacific ones are the only unknown to me. What’s unknown really depends on your background and location. I have met plenty of people from Suriname, Equatorial Guinea. Grenada, Belize, Kitts and Nevis, and Mauritania. My church is full of Caribbean and African immigrants, however, I don’t know anyone from North Macedonia or Moldova.
@Tee A I guess you are right . Though as a person with enough interest in geography I usually remember at least half of African countries names but never all of them . Of course they are also too many of them
Proud to say I visited almost all in this list! 🥳🥳
Fun Fact: Tuvalu is planning on becoming the first country on the metaverse. Due to the unfortunate rising of sea waters, their cou try is at risk, so their government (knowing their country likely wont be around in 100 years as a result) is planning on creating a virtual museum of sorts to be able to see the whole country before (and after) it inevitably disappears.
i can tell you i screamed when you said Suriname is a small country bc i'm from Belgium so a very small country hahaha
Hey! I am actually watching this from Ohrid North Macedonia! I’m backpacking through the Balkans now and I would encourage anyone in the area to check out Ohrid. It is spectacularly gorgeous and very affordable!
On another note, Paraguay does not own Iguazu Falls. The falls sit on the border between Argentina and Brazil (I know, I’ve been there!). Paraguay is close to, but not part of the falls. It’s like how Monaco is close to Italy or Slovenia is close to Venice.
Hi. Iguazu falls are divided between Brazil and Paraguay. I'm Brazilian.
@@Heavy-metaaal Iguazu falls are divided between Brazil and Argentina. The Paraguayan border is 10km or so from the falls, at the junction of the rivers Iguazu and Parana.
@@vcvera_channel , Thank you.
@@Heavy-metaaal go look at a map. The Paraguay border is about 5-10 km away. I was in Argentina (never Paraguay and never Brazil) and I have been to the falls.
@@joeypatapas8840 , It's very close. There are two different places that caused me confusion. There is a power plant called Itaipú divided between Brazil and Paraguay. It's very close to Iguazu falls between Brazil and Argentina. That's caused me confusion.
Good video! just a minor correction: the Iguazu falls are located between Brazil and Argentina, not in Paraguay.
@@joao-paulo-santos2 No -- he says it's "home" to Iguacu Falls 9:12 (which is definitely wrong.)
Nice list. I’ve been to North Macedonia, Brunei (several times), Paraguay, Laos, and hope to visit the rest. Love the obscure.
you should go to somaliland, ukraine and burkina faso
Regarding Equatorial Guinea and the "not having the capital on the mainland" bit, that's supposed to be changing in the next decade. A planned capital called "Ciudad de la Paz" is under construction and was designated as the country's new capital (of course, the announcement was made in 2017 with construction to be done by 2020 or so but it hasn't been finished).
Nobody ever talks about Belize, Central African Republic, Malawi, Slovakia, Estonia, Luxembourg, Bhutan, Oman, Djibouti, São Tomé and Príncipe, and West Virginia.
Anyone who has ever been a collector or researcher into postal history and postage stamps knows all of these countries. Collecting picked up again when people were shut in during the pandemic. I've been to Paraguay. The Rio Paraguay is navigable well into the country for smaller ocean-going ships. Timor-Leste's main problems for independence weren't with Portugal, but rather with Indonesia.
Yup, basically after gained independence from portugal it got annexed by indonesia lol
During Indonesian occupation Portugal was the only allie to East Timor cause. In fact, as long as I know, there was never a war during portuguese occupation like in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique and they got the independence as those after the Carnation Revolution.
america and its allies pushed indonesia to take timor, because they were afraid that the communism in timor could spread in indonesia.
Not really. For most of us Indonesians, Timor Leste is just the same as the rest of us. Another province that just really tired of being colonized, and they were a part of Indonesia when we gained independence. Then for some reason they didn't like us anymore since around a few decades ago, and won't stop yelling about it. So we let them go. It's as simple as that, and we don't bother them anymore. It's surprising to see what the outside contries think about all of this.
@@jordanjames3194 You need to research that better. What is now Timor Leste was an overseas territory of Portugal beginning in the 1700s, going through 1975.
I have been to Dominica via a Windjammer Barefoot cruise. Charming. I visited Laos in 2016. The slow boat floating down the Mekong was a relaxing time. The capital is the smallest and sleepiest in Asia was fun to explore
Some countries don't care about popularity. They love their privacy and poor influences... Suriname is a highly significant country in the Caribbean...
Nobody talks about Togo to the point that not even this video mentions it 😂
Togo is mentioned in Thailand because to-go meals are relevant to most Thais in 2020.
Timor leste YES!
I'm laughing a bit here, as I live in northern Thailand not too far from Laos which I have visited many times, either by bus or minivan or on a motorbike, and I hitch hiked a few times. While I agree there isn't a lot on the bucket list of "must-do" activities it definitely is worth at least a couple weeks. Start with a slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang and visit the caves, waterfalls and night market, then a perilous bus ride up and over the 1400m mountain pass and down to Vang Vieng for caving, kyaking, swimming in the river, etc. then down to the capital Vientiane, see the Buddha statue park, Patuxai monument, and That Luang temple plus have sunset meals along the Mekong. It's nice that it doesn't attract millions of tourists like Thailand, and can be a bit like stepping back in time and just slow down.
I've been to Vietnam several times and Cambodia. Haven't made it to Laos yet. Thanks for the information
Timor Leste is actually one of my fav country names, but I never looked into what goes on there somehow
east east
East part of East island
Come and visit us. You can stay for free
"Don't you just love the sound of it? It's so...timorous!"
Great Information.. Thank you
Recently returned from North Macedonia and have been 3 times so far. It's a beautiful country with great food and people. I would highly recommend more people visit, it's only a 2.5 hour flight from Luton.
Very interesting video. Will definitely be checking out other videos.
Indonesia almost exterminate all the people in Timor, sadly many people don't know that, and it was recently. VIVA TIMOR LOROSAE. Just a fact, they speak PORTUGUESE.
Fortunately... I am a geography nut and know all these places.
Something I will say on Kyrgyzstan is that it has one of the coolest country shapes in the world; the shape looks like an alien and the name is definitely unique (at least in english) for the other -stans.
Well, the name isn't particularly unique for the Stan countries, most of them aside from Pakistan and formerly Afghanistan are just the countries main ethnicity plus -stan.
kyrgyzstan looks like a crow about to fly
I think Chad has the coolest shape, not only it's named Chad but the shape is also like those Chad meme face
Your content never disappoints! Thanks for making learning fun! 😄📘
Kyrgyzstan is well known to a select group of people from the USA, it was one for a while the primary hub you went through if you were being deployed in Afghanistan during the war so I and others like me have spent at least a small amount of time there though we clearly didn't get to see much of it.
Ok boomer
@@LevisH21 lol ok
thanks for mentioning the waterfalls! I love waterfalls!
Dominica is awesome. It's very mountainous and hard to navigate, which makes it less of a tourist destination than the surrounding small Caribbean nations. However, if you want unspoilt wilderness and great scuba diving then Dominica is the place to go.
A fact that I've heard about suriname is that around a quarter of its population is connected to Javanese people. Because apparently hundred of years ago, the dutch sent javanese people there to do extra work.
as someone from the caribbean its so wild to me you started with suriname lmao everyone who lives in the caribbean learns about them in elementary school, i distinctly remember learning about their forests and logging being the primary industry
unfortunately the US isn't taught this. I grew up on the coast of Florida which is not that much further than Suriname than the Caribbean, yet anytime I mention this country I'm called a geography nerd because literally no one in the US is taught about it and only know about it if they actively seek out information about countries themselves.
Im from northern brazil and i think i know about them because of its proximity and being part of the amazon, like where i live. Also find their capital name funny sounding lol but i dont think most Brazilians would know much about them anyway including me
Was thinking the same... LOL
@@Goombario37don’t beat yourself or the school curriculum up. You come from a giant country whose geography alone is so fascinating it dwarfs everything else. I won’t blame any American who doesn’t know Belize is a hop and skip away from them in Central America
I enjoyed Laos when I was there in 2014. We took the night train from Bancock (I love trains!) and had a comfortable sleeper compartment for a very low price. We took a minibus to the capital, which was much more quiet and quaint than Bancock. We stayed in a modern hotel in Viangchan. It had more of a rural feel. I had delicious quiche repeatedly, and my daughter loved their pad Thai. We stayed a few nights and didn’t run out of things to see. I’d recommend it if you want a more quiet, less-travelled place.
At 9:20 Iguazu Falls are in the Brazil-Argentina border, far from Paraguay, the most iconic thing in that country is the Bi-national Itaipu Dam.
Iguazú Falls is along the border with Brazil and Argentina. Paraguay is very close, but cannot claim the falls as theirs
Depending on where you live you'd hear more or less of anyone or anything for that matter...
Indeed
I actually have a macedonian background, my grandparents were actually both born in macedonia
malta. literally havent heard of it before i saw a youtuber move there. visited it in july and it is awesome. its super underrated and extremely beautiful.
Alot of people in the uk know about it because its a popular holiday destination
I've been there on a cruise shop stop, nice cafes and history
Malta is very well known and extremely popular as a holiday destination for people living in the UK
Suriname known for Olympic swimmer Anthony Nesty - first black male to win a gold medal in 1988. He is the head coach at the University of Florida
FunFact about Dominica, Dominica has the only flag that contains the colour purple
And Nicaragua
@@deadhandof9108 Nicaragua is only a dot, dominica is a full bird
@@C0lon0 still it counts, then would you count Mexico and Spain as the only flags with pink?one is litterally 3 flowers and one is just a lion,both are much smaller than the bird
Qatar flag is purple. 🇶🇦
@@sanjoydatta3277 it is maroon,like latvia and Sri lanka
Timor Leste,my country
Lol I did my 8th grade geo projects on Paraguay then switched it up and did Seychelles instead😃😆
You missed out- Bhutan
A country that deliberately keeps tourist number regulated
As someone who lives in the Philippines. You missed our neighbor, Palau.
Surinam is the only country in the world where a synagogue, a church, and a mosque are on the same plaza. And they are very proud on that fact.
I think New Caledonia would have been worth a mention - literally very few people have heard of it
But it's not a country
I've been to New Caledonia several times. It's not a country but a French Overseas Territory with the French flag and part of the European Union
Dominica is the only Caribbean island nation to still have an indigenous population living there .
i have heard all the names earlier, know their locations. Also i know a little bit about most of these countries. I think Paraguay shouldn't be in this list as they appeared in World Cup football several times.
Agree with you.
They are quite famous in pageant world too.
Fun Fact for Suriname 🇸🇷
It Borders French Guyana to the East.
This Territory is Part of the European Union.
So technically Suriname is besides Brasil the one of only two South American Countries that have borders with the actual European Union.
Would have been nice if this were mentioned
One of my favorites: Bhutan: the small Himalayan Buddhist kingdom. It's an almost entirely mountainous country of roughly ~600,000 or so people sandwiched right in between the two giants that are India and China. Seems like a wonderful place to visit
My wife's mother was from Paraguay. She is a first born American. She has been there and told me a lot about that country.
Let's gooo! Macedonia was on the list! I live there and not a lot of people know about it but it's a beautiful country! 🇲🇰
It really is!
Loved the food and the people especially😊
Alexander is from there right ?
@@Xdalz27 Yepper. He's from Macedonia, he's not Greek
@@davidjordanoski801 Macedonia is a Bulgarian region, right?
@@marioanastasov333 Is Ukraine a part of a Russian region? No. Same thing.
I grew up in the Netherlands with a lot of Surinam neighbours. Birthdays were always a delight with the best food I've ever had.
Fun fact about Tuvalu: Television broadcasters paid good money for a .tv inernet domain.
I always love videos I see on this channel because they are always energetic and full of adventure, adventures are always good for the mind it’s too bad that most times lack of finance makes them virtually impossible
That’s nice, most times to be successful in life we all need professional guidance and assistance, please tell me how this mr Robert David guy who helped you improve your financial situation
I love the year videos. I wish you talked faster. But anyway, thank you so much for the great video
Suriname produced Anthony Nesty, gold medalist for the 100m Butterfly in the Seoul 1988 Olympics.
but still very few people cares about suriname
@@skippitysmithsonshortsit is not about caring, it is about knowing and having the knowledge that the country exists. For fun fact MANY Dutch and Belgian visit Suriname due to the language (Nederlands). That u do not know that country is ur problem. If u were a native Dutch speaker u would def know
An interesting fact about Tuvalu: its designated country code is "TV", so the country's GDP received a nice supplement during the internet age from websites that wanted to use the ".tv" domain that is supposed to be reserved for the Tuvalan government.
Suriname is an absolute demographical anomaly, which makes it very intriguing to learn more about it's history
Thanks for beautiful video and clear voice.
Suggestion: Don't say that a country is not worth visiting. Literally every nation on earth is worth visiting and has at least something going for it. The way you undersell these countries is astonishing. I don't live in kyrgyztan or suriname so I just shrugged and accepted what you said since I don't know much about these countries, but when you mentioned paraguay I realized how much you are underselling these countries. I live in argentina, so obviously I know something about paraguay, and you quite literally forgot to mention everything that make Paraguay such a beautiful and unique country. You did not even mentioned that is the only country in the americas where a native language is spoken by the majority. After realizing this, I looked up these other countries I did not know much about and was surprised that they actually have interesting things.
That is not true at all some countries are legit a huge safety risk to visit so why would it be worth visiting them
I'm so thankful I caught your comment because less than a minute into the video, I picked up on this vibe that you critique very well and so I stopped watching and read the comments instead 🤦🤷🙄. It was more worthwhile for me to read your comment rather than to finish the video 😅.
@@GoldenBoyDims We are talking about interest, not safety. Some countries are indeed too dangerous to travel to, but we are not talking about that. It's how interesting a country is. For example, North korea is dangerous and no one visits for that reason, but if one's safety was garanteed, i think everyone would take the chance to visit it.
@@akai4942 if its interest theres nothing in Mauritania except desert and more desert so I don't think a country like that is worth visiting at all except you just want to visit every country in the world as a goal
Laos, your kidding me! Anybody who grew up during the 60’s and early 70’s heard that country’s name mentioned on the news almost every evening during the Vietnam war. Paraguay, your kidding me again! Apparently when the schools quit teaching geography in the 90’s forward young people cannot know where Paraguay is and that it’s in a continent right under our nose.
Sadly Paraguay, while very close to Iguazú, does not border it, only Brazil and Argentina do and hence get much of the tourist dollars 😢
Hello from Russia! Thanks for the video. Several errors made. 1) Paraguay does have 2 official languages. 2) Spanish is an, not "the" official language of Equatorial Guinea. Two other are Portuguese and French. 3) Tuvalu is pronounced with the second, not the first, syllable stressed. 4) Dominica is indeed often confused with Dominican Republic but not with the island of Dominican Republic for no such island exists. The island the bigger part of which is occupied by Dominican Republic is called Hispañola. Incompleteness in the comments where they concern the official languages in South America: not only Brasil, Guyana and Surinam have official tongues other than Spanish but Bolivia has 36 official languages. Check also Peru. With Quechua and Aimara. In Moscow, which is Europe's biggest city (for part of Istanbul is in Asia), there many Kyrgyz people who come for employment. They work as taxi drivers, couriers, builders, etc.
I can name all these off by heart. Less challenging then I thought
Malaysian here. When I lived in Europe, I found that among our closest neighbour my country isn't that well known. Brunei for its rich monarch, Singapore as economic powerhouse, Thailand as a tourist hot-spot even Indonesia most people knows about Bali.
European here. As someone who never went outside of Europe, I know Malaysia for 2 facts : The Petronas Twin Towers (I know they're in KL) and the Sepang International Circuit. Just wanted to share my POV ^^
Yet the US always mistakes Singapore as a Malaysian state
@@TiqaShuib IDK. For business people Singapore is like Hong-Kong of SEA. Militarily they are like Taiwan and Saudi. They bought alot of military hardware from the US including apaches. Even among lay person they might know Singapore from their no chewing gum rule 😂. They used to be part of Malaysia till the 60s. Maybe someone still reading an old geography book
It appears your podcast is targeted at the western world. We in Asia are familiar with all of these countries, in fact we are acquainted with people from all these countries. We have friends and family employed or associated with these countries.
I spent 6 months in East-Timor between september 1999 and March 2000. I was part of the canadian army detachement that went there as part of the Interfet. During the wet season, everything get flodded there.
I’d say North Macedonia is known for the name dispute
I guess so Greece objected both to its original name and its original flag .
Most Australians know Timor because our government bugged them during negotiations for oil after assisting them gain independence from Indonesia, then raided reporters and news agency buildings that published the news on the bugging, then held secret trials.
I was worried for a while that someone from the government was going to get in trouble for it, but of course l had nothing to worry about, bugging friendly countries is all above board!
Many of us military veterans who deployed to Afghanistan are very familiar with the nation of Kyrgyzstan.
Yep! Good friend was unofficially stationed there back in the day.
Brunei used to rule a vast empire that even included much of the Phillipines, but it gradually declined in size, with the White Sultans of Sarawak nearly finishing it off in the Victorian Era, making the modern state perhaps the best example of a rump state in the modern world.
Actually Sir James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak, received the concession after helping the Sultan of Brunei put down a rebellion.
@@nztrekker Sort of like how the US received Florida from Spain after helping put down a Indian war... In Florida.