List of statistically superlative countries
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Patriotic citizens of many nations believe that their country is the world's greatest, a belief repeated by many politicians. Whatever their criteria for making these inherently vague claims, they do raise the question of what countries have concrete and objective grounds to claim to be "greatest" according to a particular measure. Below is a list of such countries along with a description of what sort of "greatness" they may claim.
Contents |
[edit] Geography
- Largest total area: Russia, 17,098,242 km² [1]
- Largest land area: Russia, 17,075,200 km² [2]
- Largest water area: Canada, 891,163 km² [3]
- Most coastline: Canada, 243,792 km [4]
- Most coastline to area ratio: Micronesia, 8,706.553 m/km²[5]
- Most compact measured in circular ratio: Mauritius, 0.81425[6]
- Most countries bordered: Russia and China, 14 (16 for China if the two special administrative regions are counted)
[edit] Demographics
- Largest population (2006): China, 1,315,844,000 [7]
- Most densely populated (2004): Monaco, 23,660 per km²
- Highest murder rate (2000): Colombia, 61.7 murders per 100,000 people[8]
[edit] Quality of life
- Most years attaining the highest Human Development Index (HDI): Canada (10 out of 19 years)
- Highest Human Development Index (HDI) (2003): Norway[9]
[edit] Economy
- Highest GDP (nominal) (2005): United States, 12,485,726
- Highest GDP (nominal) per capita (2005): Luxembourg, 75,130
- Highest GDP growth rate (2005): Azerbaijan [10]
- Highest exports per capita: Liechtenstein, $90,000 (est. 2000)
- Most equal income distribution: Denmark (1997) [11]
- Most startup companies: United States [12]
- Most startup companies per capita: Israel [12]
- Largest labor force: China, 791,400,000 [13]
[edit] Military
- Largest military budget: United States, $ 518,100,000,000 (2005 est.) [14]
- Largest military budget as %GDP: Eritrea, 17.7% (2005 est.) [15]
[edit] Transportation
- Most railway lines (length): United States, 227,736 km (2003) [16]
- Most roadways (length): United States, 6,407,637 km (2004) [17]
- Most airports: United States, 14,893 (2005) [18]
- Largest merchant marine fleet: Greece, 30,186,624 GRT (52,943,968 DWT) (2005)
[edit] Tourism
[edit] Athletic achievement
- Total Olympic medals: United States, 2112 (2006) [20]
- Winner of most Football World Cups: Brazil, 5 (2006) [21]
- Winner of most Rugby World Cups: Australia, 2 (2006) [22]
- Winner of most Basketball World Championships: Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro, 5 (2006)[23]
[edit] Technology
- Most technologically advanced according to the UN's Technology Achievement Index: Finland, .744 (2001) [24]
- Most internet users: United States, 203,824,428, (2005) [25]
- Most mobile cellular phones: China, 334,824,000 [26]
- Most main line phones: China, 311,756,000 [27]
- Most internet users per capita: Iceland, 70.2 per 100 inhabitants (total) (2004)[28]; 26.7 per 100 inhabitants (broadband)(2005)[29]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13449
- ^ http://worldatlas.com/aatlas/populations/ctyareal.htm
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ca.html#Geo
- ^ http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa052500a.htm
- ^ List of countries by coast/area ratio
- ^ List of countries by compactness
- ^ http://www.cpirc.org.cn/en/eindex.htm
- ^ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention. Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 – 2000.
- ^ http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05_HDI.pdf
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2003rank.html
- ^ http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/hdr05_HDI.pdf
- ^ a b http://www.ishitech.co.il/0605ar1.htm
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2095rank.htm
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2067rank.html
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2121rank.html
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2085rank.html
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2053rank.html
- ^ http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0198352.html
- ^ http://www.aneki.com/olympic.html
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/brazil/4751387.stm
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/rugby_world_cup/history/3090865.stm
- ^ Men's World Championship Team History
- ^ http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2001/en/pdf/techindex.pdf
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2153rank.html
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2151rank.html
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2150rank.html
- ^ http://www.etforecasts.com/products/ES_intusersv2.htm
- ^ http://gigaom.com/2006/04/11/iceland-broadbands-new-king/
