The Thursday Quiz XIX

No matter where you live, it's

The Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is, as always, a "Is It or Isn't It" game. From the list of twelve items, your job is to determine whether each IS or ISN'T a true example of the week's category.

Remember always the law of the land:

No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. The Thursday
Quiz is a POP quiz. Violators will owe a pound of flesh.

This Week's Category will put your internal atlas to the test:

Small Countries

Some of the following are bona fide independent countries, and the information presented about them is true. The others are NOT countries, and the information presented about this is a delicious brew of plausible untruth and devious misdirection. Your task is to identify which are honest-to-goodness, generally recognized sovereign countries.

Sorry there's so much text this week.

1. Benin. Independent since 1960. It's kind of sad that Benin is remarkable as a "model democracy" in Africa. It had the distinction among the sub-Saharan African countries (excepting South Africa) of having the first president to actually step down after losing an election – and this happened as recently as 1991. In 2006, the sitting president did not change the constitution to allow himself to run for another term; this was considered another triumph for the rule of law. Benin's 5%/year rate of economic growth sounds great! Unfortunately, since the population growth rate is also about 5%/year, progress is pretty limited.

2. Bermuda. Independent since 1892. Famous for the cheesy "Bermuda Triangle" mythology, Bermuda's position in the mid-Atlantic made it a important shipping point in the age of sail. The thriving warehousing and transportation sector boomed again in the early days of flight, when the country's international airport served as a stopover and refueling point for planes traveling between Europe and the Americas. The long economic decline resulting from the loss of this traffic after direct transatlantic flight became the norm has led to depopulation, a decline in standards of living, and chronic political instability.

3. Brunei. Independent since 1984. This sultanate no longer controls all of Borneo and half of the Philippine Islands, like it did in the 15th Century, but it still remains a good old-fashioned absolute monarchy. The royal line remains unbroken for over five centuries, a hundred years as a British protectorate notwithstanding. Oil and gas reserves give Brunei a very high GDP, and this has actually translated into a pretty good quality of life for most citizens. Best to keep your opinion of the Sultan tightly under wraps, though. Oh, and alcohol is illegal.

4. Equatorial Guinea. Independent since 1959. It's the smallest country in continental Africa in both size and population, and one of the few places on that continent where Spanish is the dominant language. Enormous oil reserves give Equatorial Guinea the second highest level of wealth per capita in the world by some measures, but with a vast portion of this money flowing directly to the spooky president and his pals, most citizens live in relative squalor.

5. Fiji. Independent since 1970. This Pacific island state may sound like paradise, but it has regularly been destabilized by military coups over the last two decades. This is perhaps a hazard that comes with having a powerful, active military. Stop snickering; Fiji's military expenditures are on a par with, say, Nicaragua and Tajikistan, countries with ten times its population.

6. French Guyana. Independent since 1989. Poor French Guyana. Despite having been independent for almost two decades, and despite perennially hostile relations with its former imperial power, it has not been possible for it to drop the "French" from its name – there is already a country named Guyana! Though most adults still speak French, new ties to Brazil and the United States are shown by the large numbers of children who are now being educated in Portuguese and English. Significantly, French Guyana has no currency of its own; it uses the U.S. dollar.

7. Greenland. Independent since 1963. After centuries as the much larger but much less populous colony of Iceland, Greenland petitioned successfully for independence during the wave of decolonization that followed World War II. In this case, though, sovereignty had more to do with economics than nationalism; full independence allowed Greenland fishermen rights to a larger swath of the great Grand Banks fisheries of the North Atlantic. Today, even with fishing in decline, Greenland prospers from a surprisingly robust tourist trade. Due to global warming, it has recently become agriculturally self-sufficient for the first time since the early Middle Ages.

8. Macedonia. Independent since 1991. One of the countries to emerge from the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia's biggest controversy has been its very name. Many ethnic Macedonians live in northern Greece, and the Greek state protested vehemently that having a country named "Macedonia" on its borders was both an insult to Greek Macedonians and a provocation to radical Greek Macedonian nationalists. Due to these protests, the country is recognized by the United Nations as "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." Greece would not allow the Macedonian delegation to be seated by "M" in the General Assembly (which is arranged alphabetically), and they themselves refused to be seated by "F" for "Former." The compromise? They are seated by "T," for "The." Next to Thailand.

9. Nauru. Independent since 1980. The smallest independent country on Earth, Nauru's economy was historically based on the mining of rich phosphate deposits from guano, or in other words seagull poop. This very lucrative source of income led to radical government and personal overspending and a near-total destruction of not only the island's 21 square kilometer land environment, but also much of the offshore marine ecology. With phosphate nearly tapped out, the future appears grim for Nauru. Unemployment already stands at 90%, as does another unhealthy product of the binge years: adult obesity.

10. Razjistan. Independent since 1991. When Razjistan was the first Central Asian province of the Soviet Union to declare its independence, western media heaped praise on the scrappy new country's national aspirations. Seventeen years later, this mountainous, semi-arid country is mired in a nightmarish totalitarian dictatorship. Officially, its level of wealth per capita is among the world's lowest, but off the record Razjistan is widely suspected of being the main source of uranium for Iran, its neighbor to the southwest. Some of the money from this illicit trade likely pays for the many heroic statues of the president-for-life that grace the boulevards of the capital.

11. Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Independent since 1947. The small island nation of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is not even shown on most American maps, which is surprising considering it is a North American country but understandable considering that its population is about 6000. Tucked just to the south of Newfoundland, this former French colony prospered after World War II due to its location on the North Atlantic fisheries. Modern "SPM" thrives by sale of geothermal electric power; it is also a leader (it its inevitably small way) in the development of wind energy technology.

12. St. Kitts and Nevis. Independent since 1983. The smallest of the many small Caribbean countries, St. Kitts and Nevis was until recently a British colony. Life there is by all accounts quite pleasant. The main economic base? Tourism. The biggest problem? Hurricanes.

Submit your answers by diplomatic pouch, or in the comments.