Country of the Week

Uzbekistan

This week I’ve got guest blogger @JetSetStephen helping me out, with some interesting facts about Uzbekistan. Thanks Stephen!

Uzbekistan - officially the Republic of Uzbekistan - is a country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Prior to 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union.

In the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire began to expand and spread into Central Asia. By 1912, Russians living in Uzbekistan numbered 210,306.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Central Asia was firmly in the hands of Russia and, despite some early resistance to Bolsheviks, Uzbekistan and the rest of Central Asia became a part of the Soviet Union. On October 27, 1924 the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was created. On August 31, 1991, Uzbekistan declared independence, marking September 1 as a national holiday.

The country is now the world’s third-largest exporter of cotton, and it is developing its mineral and petroleum reserves.

Uzbekistan is also a “doubly landlocked” country (a country surrounded only by other landlocked countries - a person in such a country has to cross at least two borders to reach a coastline); one of only two such countries in the world. The other is Liechtenstein in Central Europe, which is surrounded by Switzerland and Austria.

Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and is the 56th largest country in the world by area, and the 42nd by population. Major cities include Andijan, Bukhara, Samarkand, Namangan and the capital Tashkent.

Burma week

Or, alternatively, Myanmar week. It took me a couple of confused Wikipedia searches to work out that Myanmar is another name for Burma. 

Flickr is now my favourite way to learn about new countries, in conjunction with Wikipedia. There are some absolutely amazing images there. 

More tomorrow.

Georgia week

Yes, Georgia the country, not the US state. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those countries that I’m going to misplace later. It’s located pretty much in the middle part of where Europe, Asia and the Middle East all meet up. 

I’m really trying to find something fascinating about Georgia, but so far all I’ve learned is that it has over 6500 species of fungi. I feel a bit bad about it to be honest. 

Apparently if you’re conducting business in Georgia, you should shake hands with everyone upon arrival, and the person with the higher status should initiate the handshake. You should maintain eye contact to show trust.

It’s possible that wine was invented in Georgia.

Belize week

It’s time to learn about Belize, which is a small country in Central America. I really had no idea where it was until a few seconds ago, so this week is paying off already. 

The Spanish tried to settle in Belize (like they tried to do in every other country in Central and South America from what I’ve read so far), but the Mayans kicked them out. Somehow, the British managed to settle in instead, with plans to attack the Spanish from there. After a while they started chopping down lots of trees instead. The Spanish, who I guess had finally taken over the area by then, let the British stay there and chop down trees if they promised to stop all the piracy. 

Eventually they gained independence from the British without even having to have horrible wars about it.

So, that’s why Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language.

Portugal facts

Paulo Magalhaes says:

• It’s the Western most country in Europe.
• It was one of the last empires, stopped being one officially when it gave Macau back to China in late 90s.
• Has the most number of roller hockey trophies ever.

Portugal week

I did promise a friend I would learn about Portugal this week, so here we go. I used to think Portugal was in South America for some mad reason. Actually it turns out it’s in Europe. 

There are a lot of gastropods in Portugal and it’s an important stopover for birds. Maybe because the birds like eating all the gastropods. Which makes it a bit like that servo in Gin Gin on the way from Rocky to Kingaroy.

The Fandango is one of the most popular regional dances.

(Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_heinrich/4404439448/)

In 2003, Niue became the world’s first “WiFi nation”, in which free wireless Internet access is provided throughout the country by The Internet Users Society-Niue.

Niue means “behold the coconut”. 

The pink taro is an intellectual property of Niue.

It’s the home of the coconut crab, which is a pretty fascinating creature. Wikipedia has this to say:

It is a common perception that the coconut crab cuts the coconuts from the tree to eat them on the ground. The coconut crab can take a coconut from the ground and cut it to a husk nut, take it with its claw, climb up a tree 10 m (33 ft) high and drop the husk nut, to access the content inside. They often descend from the trees by falling, and can survive a fall of at least 4.5 metres (15 ft) unhurt. Coconut crabs cut holes into coconuts with their strong claws and eat the contents, although it can take several days before the coconut is opened

Niue

Yep.