san marino

tiny country that is basically just an independent city surrounded by italy. its people are ethnic italians, but when italy was unified in the 1870s, san marino refused to join. it's actually been an independent nation since 301 AD. nowadays, they are famous for producing special coins and postage stamps marketed directly at tourists.

san marino has a F-1 race ever year.

29👍 20👎

seychelles

africa's only wealthy country, it's made up of a number of tiny islands spread out over the indian ocean. the portuguese, british, and french all came here to trade (and conquer). in the 1970s, it became independent and drew up a constitution guaranteeing a one party state. 15 years later, a coup changed that. now this nation is doing ok because of tourism and fishing. and it's a good tax haven too. the swiss love to put their money here.

seychelles has a pretty big divide between rich and poor, but for an african country, it's doing damn good.

54👍 51👎

mozambique

mozambique is a country in africa. it was a long time posession of portugal, but was basically owned through most of the 1800s and early 1900s by a corpoartion known as the nissa company. this organization, of course, ran mozambique into the ground. portugal held on this place until their own upheaval in the 1970s. since then, mozambique has been typical africa with coups, civil wars, aids, and poverty.

mozambique is trying to fix it's economy.

56👍 56👎

palau

palau is a tiny island nation in the pacific, with a population of only about 20,000 people. it was colonized by various powers between the 1600s and late 20th century, including the Spanish, Germans, British, Japanese, and Americans. however, no foreign power really did anything to help or harm the region. a huge WWII battle occured here, and following the end of the war, the US was put in charge of the region. palau refused to join the country of micronesia when it was formed in the 1970s. after political chaos, it finally became independent in 1994.

palau has many coral reefs.

105👍 19👎

saint kitts and nevis

one of the carribbean's many tourist countries. a former british colony, it was the last nation in the region to actually attempt to keep its sugar industry. eventually, it succumbed to pressure and is now just a tourist destination for americans, canadians, and euros.

alexander hamilton was born in saint kitts and nevis

15👍 3👎

são tome and principe

são tome and principe is an island nation off the coast of africa. modern slavery unfortunately began on these islands, as portuguese merchants in the 1400s brought thousands of african mainlanders to these once uninhabited islands. the result was a successful sugar colony and later equally profitable coffee and cocoa plantations. the island received independence in the 1970s and since the late 1980s have had a stable and real democracy, with only one failed coup attempt.

in são tome and principe, things are going better than in most of africa

4👍 8👎

turkmenistan

an asian nation that everyone seemed to trample on throughout history: alexander the great, genghas kahn, the turks, the soviets. the nation finally became independent after soviet collapse, but things got no better. instead, a former communist big shot, a mr. nayazov, took power and created a crazy cult of personality. he recently died, so things are pretty unstable.

in turkmenistan, nayazov's cult of personality forced his picture to be on everything from cereal boxes to watches.

92👍 25👎