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And a lot of places on the list which aren't even countries.
Northern Cyprus (recognised only by Turkey), Nagorno-Karabak, Pridnestrovie, South Ossetia (not recognised by anyone); Ashmore and Cartier Islands (uninhabited, FFS!); Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey (dependencies of the Crown); Svalbard (part of Norway); Ascension, Tristan da Cunha (dependency of the Crown, via St Helena); Antarctica (?!), Kosovo (part of Serbia); Palestine; Australian Antarctic Territory, Ross Dependency, Peter I Island, Queen Maud Land, British Antarctic Territory
I mainly tried to visualize maps of continents. Did you use a strategy like that, 'pode, or try to use the alphabet, or something else entirely? I mostly went for the map-based approach, but I think that strategy let me down a little bit when it comes to island nations, and Central Africa, and the formerly-Communist parts of Eurasia. Within those regions, I'd've probably been better off trying an alphabetical approach. And I'm a fairly fast typist, which probably helped. It's too bad that one can't really take it again without wildly skewing the results.
yeah box, I mainly did continents. Let a country pop into my mind and then did all the ones around it. Although, embarrassingly, I forgot Canada the first time around.
I didn't even try and do the various -stans because I'm a terrible speller.
I think a case could be made for Greenland and the Faroe Islands.... no, they're not independent nation-states, but do have distinct cultures and considerable autonomy (and their own soccer teams).
Scotland and Wales are referred to as 'countries', even though they aren't distinct nation-states either. It could be as much a definition of culture and identity as having a UN seat.
I only had time to do about 30 seconds of it, and I hate that my spelling counts. I wasted a good 10 secons trying to figure out what spelling of the US would count, and I still never got it.
Because 'country' can mean several things. In this case, it means that all these, including the non-countries, are separate geographical entities. Not all of them are independent nation states. Some of them - like Northern Cyprus, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabak - are de facto independent, but haven't been internationally recognized as such.
77. About 30 seconds of it spent trying unsuccessfully to spell "Venezuela," so I could probably do considerably better if I were going to try again, which I'm not.
96, using the continent technique that box did. It helps that I can do the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere (minus a lot of those Caribbean Island-states) pretty much north to south. Africa tripped me up, but I probably could've gotten ten or so more with an extra minute and a half.
I got 90, but i was having trouble spelling...didn't even get USA which is kind of ironic. I think that if i tried much harder i could get about 110, but i think that is my upper limit...
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