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How Old Is the Average Country?
Daniel_Stuckey writes with a snippet from his piece at Vice: "I did some calculations in Excel, using independence dates provided on About.com, and found the average age of a country is about 158.78 years old. Now, before anyone throws a tizzy about what makes a country a country, about nations, tribes, civilizations, ethnic categories, or about my makeshift methodology, keep in mind, I simply assessed 195 countries based on their political sovereignty. That is the occasion we're celebrating today, right?"
A cursory look at the Wikipedia article indicates that Egypt has spent time under the rule of a few empires here and there over history, but it and Greece have both been their own societies for several thousand years in spite of this. I figure that both countries are closer to the age of China than they're listed...but that's just me.
"England" may be 1000+ years old but 1) it's far from certain that it's the same "England" as today, and 2) it was a subsidiary of Normandy, Inc. for quite some time, pardon my Middle French.
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm happy here in the UK, enjoying the thousands of years of history.
Speaking of history, you obviously didn't pay attention in class. The UK is only 306 years old (Acts of Union in 1706 and 1707). And you folks complain about Americans not understanding the difference between England/Scotland/Wales, Britain and the UK.
P.S. If you see the queen, say happy Independence Day for me.
You inadvertently put your finger on the point of this article: yet another "see, us Americans are better than most countries." But the more the Americans go on and on about how much better they are proves the point of how immature they are, like the 12 year old who insists his dad can beat anybody else's dad.
Yeah. If a country merged with some other country, or was temporaly invaded by another, then for these guys its as if this country did not exist beforehand. I mean just look at the Iberian Peninsula or France. The borders have been mostly stable for yonks and look at the claimed age. Just pathetic.
So dear US readers... Please explain to me why the UK is as old as the Act of Union while you did not measure the age of your country starting with the annexation of Texas or some other quaint date like that.
if you're looking for average lifespan of a country, you have to actually look at countries that are no longer around. since ones that are alive you have no idea of how long they will continue to be alive. maybe one day, maybe a thousand years. if all the countries you sampled are still around then your sample size - as far as survival time is concerned - is effectively zero. you could assume an exponential probability distribution and try to compose a maximum likelihood estimate based on they all will live longer than they have been around, or on average their expectation is twice as long as they've been around, but still... why make such extrapolations when you can use actual samples from countries that are no longer around?
The Norman invasion didn't create England. England was created through the uniting of the Saxon kingdoms by Aethelstan in 927.
You consider it the same country even after the Normans trounced you, completely changed the government and aristocracy, and even started to change the language almost beyond recognition. Yeah, right.
On the other hand, this site lists Austria as 1037 years old, Hungary as 1012. Please remind me, what country did that guy named Franz Joseph rule?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The 17th Amendment changes the US government vis-à-vis federalism, but doesn't make it any less a republic. You could eliminate the states and federalism entirely and still have a republic. Many countries, such as France, have such an arrangement.
European here living in the States.
And I truly find the saying "the English think 100
miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time" to be really accurate!
Adolescence is actually an excellent metaphor for the US. A mix of overconfidence and insecurity, for the wrong reasons in both cases.
Aren't they forgetting the Anschluss in 1938? Do we the independence date for France to 1944, when the Germans were kicked out and they got control of their coutnry back? When do you set a date for Italy? Unification in 1870, or with the establishment of the Roman Empire 2000 years earlier? How old is China? Was it established in 1949, 1919, 216BC or 2100 BC? How old is Egypt? 3 days, two years or 5000 years?
I'm happy here in the UK, enjoying the thousands of years of history.
Speaking of history, you obviously didn't pay attention in class. The UK is only 306 years old (Acts of Union in 1706 and 1707). And you folks complain about Americans not understanding the difference between England/Scotland/Wales, Britain and the UK.
You also didn't pay attention in that class. The UK is not a country rather it's an amalgamation of individual countries. The name is not the "United Kingdom" it's the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". It consists of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland whom each have their own parliaments. It's like saying the US is only as old as NATO because it's a member of NATO.
I would have pointed this out nicely, but you acted like such an pompous arse (yes, propper spelling, there is an R in there, an ass is a donkey) I couldn't help myself.
P.S. The Queen, her majesty Elizabeth the second, being a polite, proper and fair person would wish you and you nation well on this day of celebration, despite your ignorance and disrespectful attitude.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Rationalize all you want - we beat you. As for those religious fanatics, you should have known better than to go up against them]
So a bad idea to go against religious fanatics?
Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it