Talk:List of countries and dependencies by area

message: You should not use Taliban flag on this list until the government is officially recognised by UN. Taliban are a terrorist group forced to take the power in Afghanistan where the people will never accept it except a particular tribe who are called Pashtuns (Taliban are all Pashtun). Zaki Frahmand 15 September 2021, 10:04 UTC
:But they are running the country at the moment, so.... 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 14:29, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Afghanistan 

message: Please Change Yemen Area to 527,968km2 (203,850 sq mi), as its not listed correctly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.231.157.168 (talk)  
:According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the area of Yemen is only 455,000 km2.
:Link: https://www.britannica.com/facts/Yemen 2001:8003:900C:5301:6D42:D85:B2AB:41FE (talk) 07:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yemen Area 

message: What do you think are the top 5 disputes in how the table should be set up are?? The order of China and the United States appears to be one of them. Georgia guy (talk) 12:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top 5 

message: It appears that the numbering (which is automatically generated?) falls apart at entry 11. DR Congo (#11) is obviously larger than Greenland, and Saudi Arabia (#12) is clearly smaller than Greenland. Thus, Greenland does not get its own number because it is/isn't part of Denmark (#130). Paulehoffman (talk) 23:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Greenland is considered a dependent territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. For this article, all dependent territories and de facto states are included but unnumbered in the ranking. 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 14:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Unlike the US territories, Greenland is officially considered a integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark, just that it's not correct to call it sovereign state nor a dependent territory ThePurgatori (talk) 01:53, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbering is wrong starting at 12 

message: Doesn't Western Sahara have a flag? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Sahrawi_Arab_Democratic_Republic.svg is the file 73.170.116.64 (talk) 05:43, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, it has two flags depending on who you ask. Morocco says it has Morocco's flag, and the SADR government says it has SADR's flag. Wizmut (talk) 22:14, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

text: Comment It is for WP:NPOV reasons. Western Sahara is a disputed territory. If we list Kashmir separately, we should avoid using either Chinese, Indian or Pakistani flag too. 2001:8003:900C:5301:D32:8998:E83:7BBB (talk) 12:06, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would just remove all of the flags. They add nothing except a reason to argue — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 12:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Flags serve as a good representation for countries though. 2001:8003:900C:5301:A0E0:6166:1B20:389F (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Western Sahara Flag 

message: For note 21, some more info could be "Largest Shi'a majority country on Earth." and also "Largest Iranian-speaking country" since Iran is the largest country that speaks an Iranian language. Stuffmaster1000 (talk) 04:03, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Support Also, Iran's area is wrong. 1,745,150 km² is the correct figure. 2001:8003:900C:5301:D32:8998:E83:7BBB (talk) 12:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iran 

message: The table claims Barbados has more land area than total area (431 sq km compared to 430 sq km), which is impossible. Even if the numbers were accidentally switched around, the table also claims those two numbers are equivalent to 170 sq mi and 166 sq mi respectively, which do not match up (170 sq mi is about equal to 440 sq km). Finally, the table also claims barbados has 0 sq km of water area, so that suggests the two numbers shouldn't be different at all. TurkeyCookTime (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. --Lasunncty (talk) 19:26, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Barbados numbers are wrong 

message: I went over all the uses of templates and made sure everything was exact (fixed uneven spacing and use of commas).
I then also took a bigger step of making a new template for use on this page and others: Template:km2 mi2. This makes the markup a lot easier to edit and proofread, and reduced the file size by about 25% without removing any content.
I will fix the rounding problems this created for the smallest ten entries on the table, but I also found that those entries had a lot of varying answers when doubling checking them. For some the answer differs by as much as 100%, so 1 sig fig is probably appropriate.
If anything is broken, feel free to revert, but also discuss here! Wizmut (talk) 18:32, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template cleanup 

message: The two bar charts at the bottom of the page use data from 2005 (reportedly). But luckily, they don't show their results with the kind of precision on the table. And they don't have the clarity of the map. If nobody can find a unique purpose they serve, they can probably be removed. Wizmut (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charts? 

message: I don't know how to fix it, but clicking on some column headers either fails to sort correctly, or does nothing at all.  Clicking on the Rank header works but the results are wrong because too many places have a hyphen as the rank. 伟思礼 (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: This broke because I added a zero-width non joiner to the template. So, I removed it, which will break the template when used with text notes. So, I will now replace the conversion templates in the notes with plain text, and remove the square miles (many figures in notes are already given in square kilometers anyways). If there's demand for it I may add conversions back, but for all figures in notes, although in my opinion it's easier to read the notes without the square miles. Wizmut (talk) 19:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-sorting functions broken 

message: Svalbard and Jan Mayen are considered distinct from Norway, but Norway disagrees. To them and their law, Svalbard is an integral part of the country, just like Alaska or Corsica.
Although I like inclusion and think the "mainland" distinction is neat, it really doesn't seem to fit into the criteria for this list. This is the same category as large but integral islands or exclaves of the US, France, Italy, Australia, China, Russia not to mention Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand and probably many more.
A similar discussion has recently occurred on the population density list talk page which favored exclusion, but points in favor of including Svalbard were made in previous discussion on this page. Wizmut (talk) 10:46, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only Svalbard and Jan Mayen, other territories such as Åland, the Australian external territories, the Caribbean Netherlands, the French overseas regions, and the Special administrative regions of China (Hong Kong and Macao) are also considered integral parts by their respective administering state. Further discussion is needed to come up with an agreed inclusion criteria. Otherwise, we will have this kind of debate forever. 2001:8003:900C:5301:80DE:9FBE:80BE:AD01 (talk) 07:56, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inclusion of Svalbard 

message: can you please change the link from France to Metropolitan France in the table section France (metropolitan)? thank you 143.44.165.26 (talk) 11:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I kept the link to France but changed the (metropolitan) text to have the link as (metropolitan). Is this satisfactory? Wizmut (talk) 20:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes 143.44.165.26 (talk) 08:04, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 6 August 2023 

message: San Andrés and its smaller Colombian neighbors in the Caribbean should be listed. Isn't their relationship to Colombia similar to the relationship of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to the United States? Pascalulu88 (talk) 14:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colombian Caribbean Islands 

message: The figures (currently) cited for the numbered countries add to (km²);
:Total. 133,914,266. Land. 129,394,655.   Water. 4,494,443.
The US is cited as 
:Total. 9,833,517. Land. 9,147,593. Water. 685,924.
Better values are
: Total. 9,572,900. Land. 9,147,593. Water. 425,307.
:… since the cited figure seems to be the only one to include territorial waters. 
Note: There are 45 discrepancies where Total does not equal Land plus Water.
:The 6 largest are: Ecuador (13752), Venezuela (4395), New Zealand (3629), Colombia (2838), Mozambique (2210), South Africa (1947).
:The 6 smallest are: Namibia (-100), Norway (-270), Tajikistan (-1000), United Kingdom (-1115), Tanzania (-2213), France (-3122).
:There are 5 out by 1 km². Fiji and Seychelles are odd. 
There are 66 territories listed. I’ve checked the major ones: if the page says it’s not included in the "owner" country, then I’ve added them. They are Antarctica (14,200,000), 
Greenland (2,166,086), 
Taiwan (36,193), 
UK territories (18,874), 
US territories (10,681). 
I've used the values cited in this article: the last 2 differ (a bit) from British Overseas Territories,
Crown Dependencies and List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area. The water area for US territories is the major difference. Svalbard is not added. I assume Hong Kong is included in China. I assume Halaib Triangle (20,580 km²), Bir Tawil (2,060 km²), Ilemi Triangle (1,000 km²), have been included in one of the "numbered countries". 
Adjusting for US and the 5 territories above it makes;
:Total. 150,085,483. Land. 145,821,888. Water. 4,233,971. 
:Making that Total equal 29.42% of 510,072,000 km².
MBG02 (talk) 17:42, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discrepancies and Summary  

message: @Just a random geography fan I wanted to thank you for your attention towards this article, with the caveat that any figures which deviate from the default source (the UN) need to have a citation each to back them up, which can be placed in the last column (the notes column). This holds even when copying from other articles, because those articles may have mistakes or errors.
I would also say that it's good to be bold and improve things, but if you genuinely think that your edits may require some extra explanation or may be in some way contentious, it's no problem to drop a line on this page or any talk page. The majority of us do not bite and are happy to help :)
Also wanted to say more specifically that your recent edit to add French Guiana may be reverted for the technical reason that it is not considered separate from France by their government or by the ISO 3166-1 standard. It is in some sense more similar to Hawaii or Aland than Gibraltar or Greenland. It may seem arbitrary, but using an outside standard has proved more resilient than holding a referendum on each region for each list. If you look at the discussion archives on this page and the pages for other country lists, you can see that it doesn't stop discussion entirely, but it does help. Wizmut (talk) 06:18, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: *I support the inclusion of all five French overseas regions. The UN includes them in their list of countries and territories and assigned country codes to all of them. Being so far away from their mainland, there are some good reasons to list these regions separately. N. Mortimer (talk) 10:52, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good faith contributions 

message: This has gone back and forth a few times, but I don't believe there's ever been a discussion about it.  For territories without a flag (or with a disputed status) should we use
* Flag.svg
*
*or neither?
To me, flag.svg indicates that there is a flag that is either unknown or under dispute, while noflag (or the neither option) indicates that there is no flag (no claims, and no government of their own).  --Lasunncty (talk) 04:30, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're correct about what each option indicates, and I also think that's what was being used until a few days ago. Western Sahara is ambiguous, but Antarctica is not - it has no flag (discounting fan suggestions). Wizmut (talk) 04:38, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag.svg vs noflag 

message: The true surface of Uganda is not correct. If we consider World Bank collection of development indicators it has a surface of 241 550 sq km. So you should modify its position above Ghana, so Uganda will become 81th. 82.77.193.119 (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2024 

message: Could the description be updated to clarify that ice and as frozen water is not included in the figures? 144.6.37.169 (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question.  I'm not sure how to word it, though.  Frozen lakes and rivers still count as water area, while glaciers and snow cover count as land.  --Lasunncty (talk) 07:41, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liquid water 

message: Why doesn't Norway have a rank? woo (talk) 05:41, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: There are two entries for Norway. The mainland entry is not ranked. Wizmut (talk) 06:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norway 

message: The various Territorial claims in Antarctica have usually not been included in WP country lists because they aren't recognized much by other countries and the ISO 3166-1 doesn't even recognize them as dependencies. It's not really held territory in any practical or political sense. "Claim" is the real word for these, not territory, and this list doesn't include mere claims. Wizmut (talk) 03:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antarctic claims 

message: It seems weird that Phillippines' total area in km^2 is just the triple of that in mi^2 45.146.232.57 (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: This occurs because there's a low number of significant figures. Wizmut (talk) 19:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phillippines