Countries We Don't Need

There are almost 200 countries; that's way too many.

Do you know how many countries there are?

Well, if you would think off the top of your head, you’d say there is the U.S., obviously, and next to us are Canada and Mexico. In the far, faraway lands, there’s England and Germany and China and Russia and Japan and Australia and Brazil and Israel and South Africa, and presumably, North Africa. If you had to think hard, you could probably name a few more countries, so a good guess would be there are about two dozen countries, which seems about right for the size of the Earth.

Wrong. There are 195 different countries.

What? How does that make any sense? I mean, there’s already this massive dropoff in quality when you go from the U.S. to any other countries that you wonder why they even bother to exist, but this means the vast majority of countries are ones no one has even heard of. You have to wonder if the people living in them have even heard of them.

I’m just going to state the obvious: That’s way too many countries, and most of them have no reason to exist. To make the foreign world more organized and less confusing, it’s time to start pairing them down. So I’m going to make a few suggestions for countries to get rid of.

Countries No One Needs

Trinidad and Tobago

Okay, let’s start with the obvious question: Are you Trinidad or Tobago?

“Well, we’re Trinidad and Tobago.”

Sorry, but an actual country has one name. It does not have an “and” in its name. This is bush league stuff. This tells me you don’t even take your own status as a country seriously. Some actual country with only one name should just go ahead and own those islands.

Belgium

There are a few strong personalities in Europe. You have England, a former empire and now a tourist island. And you have France, which irritates everyone. And Italy with its pasta. And Germany, which is evil. And Spain, which I guess used to be something. But what’s Belgium? I guess it has something to do with chocolate and waffles, but that doesn’t seem like enough of a justification to have a whole country. It really just seems like an off-brand France. It’s just another obscure country to keep track of, and no one needs that.

Ivory Coast

This is another country where it just feels like they’re not taking being a country very seriously. Ivory Coast is not a country name; it sounds more like a soap brand or something.

French Guiana

So you know that regular Guyana you know nothing about it? Well, this is the French version — except they spelled Guyana slightly differently for some reason. Why are you playing second fiddle to a country already no one cares about? If you have no self-respect, then I have no respect.

Georgia

No, the place with the big airport isn’t its own country; this is one of those former Soviet States. But what’s the point of a country being the second most famous place named that? If you’re going to be a country, get an original name.

Kyrgyzstan

But not that original. This one looks like someone just mashed the keyboard and added “stan” after it. And there are so many stans, but basically, it’s Pakistan and a bunch of obscure trivia questions. If you’re going to be a stan, at least try and be pronounceable so there’s some chance someone will remember you.

Switzerland or Sweden

Sorry, but I just can’t keep these two countries straight. I guess my brain only has room for one European country that starts with SW. Maybe merge these two; are they close enough to each other to do that? Again, I’m not great at geography.

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So, that’s just a partial list of countries to get rid of. Again, there are nearly 200 countries, and the problem is some are so obscure I never even heard of them to know to add them to a list of pointless countries.

So, what countries do you think we should get rid of?

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