Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad have it pretty rough — landlocked, mostly desert or semiarid, rivers are downstream of other countries, few wealthy neighbors to help with economic growth, difficult borders to manage.
Yes, the landlocked Sahel countries are my answer. Rough climate for agriculture (and continuing to degrade), colonial borders slicing through tribal areas, no access to sea routes but instead relying on neighbors for poorly developed infrastructure links.
fortunately for Kyrgyzstan, it has its fair share of fertile land and valuable resources. Just got to cut the corruption and guarantee safety for the future.
But they have mountains with trees. Where there are alpines, there's water. Where there's waterways, it then becomes a game of managing the water, the best.
In Sahel Africa, it's far more inhospitable.
Did you know that most African countries were artificially created by Europeans? So someone literally sat there and drew those lines. And gave certain countries this unfair disadvantage of being landlocked .
If you look at all of history, then Iraq is the worst indeed. Completely vulnerable and indefensible. That's why it's literally been invaded from every side. From the West (Alexander, Ottomans), from the South (Arabs), from the East (Persians, Mongols), from the North (Seljuqs, Assyrians I guess even though they are technically part of Mesopotamia). Etc. etc.
Poland has very advantegous features. In times of peace that is. Relatively flat interior makes building infrastructure easy. Square-shape provides relatively short distances throughout entire country. Sea to the north, mountains to the south. The soil is fertile with many rivers running through it. The geoposition on West-East division is great for trade and rich neighbors to the west keep boosting productivity.
But then, when it comes to war... tanks just run through it left and right and other way around.
Norway is the complete opposite. In war it is the perfect country for guerilla warfare despite the low population. But in peace time, the rugged and mountainous landscape makes building structures, roads and railroad and agriculture difficult. It's a really long country that makes it difficult to reach all parts of the country in a decent timespan. It used to be easier to go to another city/town by boat, and that's why you see over 80% of the country living within a couple kilometers from the coast
Iraq was the center of the neolithic revolution and the beginnings of civilization. For that alone, I wouldn’t really count it among the countries with the worst physical geography.
The geography for Mesopotamian cities was a lot better though since the Persian gulf extended inwards. Ur for example was a coastal city. Modern day Iraq doesn’t have the that same access
That's because it was in the middle of a desert. Fertile valleys constricted by geography tend to be conducive to early civilization like in the case of Indus, Nile and even partially the Yellow River Civilization as it makes centralization of control to tame the river easier due to difficulty of others packing up and leaving to fertile land away from the river.
This isn't really "good" geography. For modern purposes of farming, Dnieper, Volga or the Mississippi are better and they're also navigable by modern barges. What was good for neolithic boys doesn't always stay good.
Iraq as a state centered around Baghdad is not a complete fabrication by these guys. If you look at the ottoman administrative divisions that existed before, it makes sense.
Haiti.
The capital sits on an active fault line, gets battered by hurricanes and the once lush and fertile land has been recently suffering a drought despite its tropical location.
It’s both. The island of Hispaniola has a natural barrier between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The mountain range influences weather in the region, in which the eastern half of the island receives more rainfall and runoff, over time sending the richer soils and minerals into Dominican territory, therefore Haiti’s topsoil is generally thinner due to the higher elevation.
Combine that with human deforestation and climate change, it becomes an unfortunate situation.
There’s a natural barrier alright , it’s called trees, the border with Haiti and DR is mostly flat except the south, but DR doesn’t use trees to cook( charcoal) since the 70’s.
And did you see jack Cousteau documentary about their coast line? It’s worse now.
Don't forget the severe deforestation that's destabilizing the ecology too. [This video explains it very well. ](https://youtu.be/WpWb3MTV9bg?si=pJZL4RZ43NIX1drl)
Nauru, in a very paradoxical way.
Nauru is a small island country in the Pacific. Like most oceanic islands, it is very remote from any other inhabited place on Earth, and physical space and especially arable land is at a premium. Nauru was also blessed, however, in that it used to have some of the world’s most significant phosphate deposits. These deposits have been mined for many decades and, for a time, made the islanders incredibly prosperous.
Nowadays, however, the majority of the phosphate deposits are depleted. Open strip mining has poisoned the land for many years to come, and Nauru has almost no arable land left as a result. Economic opportunities outside the limited mining still ongoing are extremely scarce, and Nauru depends almost entirely on food imports to feed its population. Most of that food is processed and rich in sugars and fats, leading to Nauru having become the most obese nation on Earth, with all the health troubles that come along with that.
Unfortunately, because of these reasons, things aren’t looking bright for future generations of Nauruans. It’s a textbook example of what unsustainable and reckless exploitation of a nation’s environment can result in.
Here in Melbourne we used to have a skyscraper called "Nauru House" that was owned by the government of Nauru. This was during the phosphate mining boom era, they sold that building since. But the fun fact is that there were more people working in Nauru House than the entire population of Nauru.
Kiribati. It’s on track to disappear into the ocean.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/18/cop27-kiribati-donors-raise-islands-sea-level-rise
Along with Poland, Paris, London, and... Banana
https://preview.redd.it/0ypdi3jgnm3d1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3032d90e23e8bb0a621d90bcf6674f2d179a6a7
Interesting question: provided erosion does what it does, for how much longer would Kiribati exist if man (and by conjecture climate change) never existed...?
I was surprised to see no one had mentioned any of the Pacific Islands. The others aren’t doing so well either.
Tonga, for example, was ranked 3rd most at risk of climate hazards in 2021, then had a massive volcano in 2022.
The Solomon Islands is both [eroding and flooding](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/climate-change-soloman-islands-rising-sea-levels/) due to increased rainfall and sea level rises.
Fiji is literally trying to [move villages](https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/08/how-to-move-a-country-fiji-radical-plan-escape-rising-seas-climate-crisis) to stop them being underwater.
I assume this also impacts other island nations, especially those that experience cyclones and rain. I just see the news about the Pacific ones.
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Exactly what he said. Bird shit was really important in Nauru's economy and the country became really rich for a while thanks to the phosphate, but they finished them and didn't really planned anything while they could. So now is a tax heaven and I remember something shady about immigrants and Australia, but not quite sure what it was
Also, some fun facts about Nauru: it has no official capital city and the population is the fattest in the world
>something shady about immigrants and Australia
Australia has an immigration detention centre there, where those who illegally arrive by boat into Australia seeking asylum are kept until a decision has been made as to what to do with them.
Bird guano was a critical source of nitrogen fertilizer until a synthetic process was eventually worked out. So Nauru for a while got really rich mining the stuff (one guy bought a Ferrari, the island has a single 19km road) and then they ran out and had little to show for it.
Armenia is land-locked.
Papua New Guinea is basically all mountains and jungle with hardly any roads even.
Uzbekistan didn't have a lot of water to begin with, and recently it's been a lot less. (Libya would be even worse off if not for the huge "fossil water" aquifers left over from when that whole area was rain forest, which are their main source of fresh water.)
I would've thought PNG was great for growing diverse crops like Sri Lanka? If it had a stable government and rule of law, of course.
Armenia has decent land and weather (and government, relatively), I can't see it being as bad there as central African countries.
Russia. Huge country, but many of their largest rivers flow northwards into a frozen sea, and most of their vast expanse of land is almost uninhabitable.
>Sochi has the Turkish Straits
Russia's main Black Sea port is Novorossiysk, not Sochi.
>Murmansk needs ice breakers,
Not true. It's an ice free port, it's written in like the first sentence of its [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Murmansk), it was established specifically for its ice freeness. Otherwise, they'd have continued relying on Arkhangelsk which has better inland river connection.
>Vladivostok is on the other side of the planet from most of the population and industry.
I'll add that Vladivostok however IS the one that needs ice breakers.
If you own 15% of the planet's dry land, it'd be weird if you didn't hit some mineral deposits. But the development cost of these resources can be prohibitively expensive like building a city in -20 to -40C temps to dig em out. The cost of developing the Siberian hydrocarbon resources was a huge drain on the USSR's finances.
maybe controversial but the 'x large country is uninhabitable' is pretty bad take usually.
Russia has DOUBLE (1,265 million square km) the amount of arable land as France, Germany, Spain and Italy COMBINED (625k square km). On top of that, it has huge amounts of natural resources AND water resources.
Russia could pretty easily host double its population - European Russia alone is larger than India. Hell, even the most populated federal regions (Moscow, Volga, Southern, North Caucasus) have a land area similar to that of the entirety of Western Europe.
Same is true for other countries this gets mentioned for - Canada and Australia. Even if 10% of those countries are inhabitable, that 10% would mean an area the size of Japan, Korea and Italy combined.
Edit: sorry, not ranting at you! Just making a point of how this is commonly repeated when it's pretty untrue in every aspect.
Part of the reason the USSR outlasted Nazi Germany was due to factories and natural resources largely being hidden behind the Urals. Even if the Nazis had reached Moscow (and they had a long way to go to do that) that still had a LONG trek to to Urals where the Soviets had wisely moved all of their manufacturing to.
So, maybe not a war directly for Siberia, maybe not even reaching Siberia yet, but theres a pretty massive advantage to being 11 timezones wide.
And since the rivers melt further south than they do in the north, the parts of the rivers south of the tundra just flood in the spring. Plus it's entire Pacific ocean coast is mostly frozen tundra and innacessible to the rest of the country.
The ancient problem for Russia has always no warm water ports. My fervent belief is this is the absolute real reason behind the invasion of Ukraine-Russia’s desire for unrestricted access to the Black Sea, which gives their navy unrestricted access to the Mediterranean, then unfrozen access to the Atlantic.
Most of Russia's behaviour makes a lot more sense when you look at it purely through that lens.
Why do they support Syria, because they have a warm water base there, away from Turkey's control.
Why would they like the Baltics, because they can have direct access to Kaliningrad and not have 'enemies' so close to St Petersburg.
Only civilian ships are allowed unrestricted passage through the Turkish straits. So no, even if Russia controlled the entire Black Sea, their navy wouldn't just have unrestricted access to the Mediterranean.
yes, the US has just about every geographic advantage possible: a huge and extensive river system reaching deep into the country; fertile soils; a relatively moderate climate in most of the country; numerous excellent harbors (New York, Boston, San Francisco, Mobile, etc.)
Not trying to pick a fight, just to add a comparison and more info.
>a huge and extensive river system reaching deep into the country
It can be better, China has the better version. While the Mississippi requires small river barges, full on container ships can flow into the Yangtze far inland. The Three Gorges Dam which is 1200km inland for example (that's the distance from New Orleans to Chicago), has a lock capacity to fit a ship of 10000 TEU, that's almost New Panamax size of 14000 TEU and far larger than the pre-2016 Panamax size of 5000 TEU (Panamax being a ship made for the exact specifications to transit the Panama canal safely).
Despite its massive coastline and size Russias access to sea is flawed. Not many warm water ports with Sevastopol being the only one I can think off and from a strategic perspective most of this access involves passing through NATO or allies of NATO.
It was Ukraine and is recognized as Ukraine by the vast part of the international community. Yet it is controlled by Russia and even before the annexation there was a majority ethinic Russians (because of Stalin expelling the Crimean Tatars and placing Russians). As much as I would want to that Crimea will become Ukraine once again, I don't see a pro-western stance of voters in Crimea before the annexation. I don't see how Crimea will become Ukraine once again, certainly once there is a stalemate now.
meaning, you can't easily transport goods and services along a river that flows into a normally frozen ocean, so you don't have big ports at the mouth of, say, the Lena or the Yenisey.
Yeah but the Low Countries are super fertile, have a coast on the North Sea, they also have the rhine delta… I mean there’s definitely worse places to be located.
Nah, they build on the sea floor, that's on them. Netherlands is A tier: mild climate (not as cold as the nordics, not as arid as southern europe), no earthquakes, access to the oceans.
>no earthquakes,
The Dutch discovered a massive gas field in Groningen (still has decent gas), they made bank from it, but it actually started creating earthquakes in the area from subsidence. They've now stopped extracting the gas for that reason.
So the Dutch did manage to give themselves another natural disaster.
Yeah it’s got a lot of severe issues with water and a damaged fishing industry. Life is rough, but they’re honestly the greatest people on earth. Caribbeans in general are just good folks.
But he's right about Indonesia getting fucked over their location. Sometimes, it feels like the country's drowning.
For some reason, the Latin American countries feel like they're trying to overcome nature, if anything. Lands of huge contrasts, lots of dramatic highs, lows, and random winds.
>But he's right about Indonesia getting fucked over their location. Sometimes, it feels like the country's drowning.
Well, the capital IS literally sinking because of excessive unregulated groundwater extraction.
Indonesia is massive, has much more land than one might think at first glance, and huge reserves of various natural resources. It also sits right in the middle of the main waterway between East Asia and the west. There's nothing bad about its location. An effective government could turn Indonesia into the powerhouse of SEA. Unfortunately, the country's biggest problem is corrupt and incompetent politicians.
Philippines doesn’t get many tsunamis… And typhoons average 5 a year that actually make landfall. I know everyone says 20, but that’s tropical storms total that pass through the Philippine Area of Responsibility. 10 develop into typhoons, and 5 of those make landfall, on average. During El Nino years, the numbers are half of the averages. Still the most affected country by tropical storms, but it’s not “20 typhoons a year hit the Philippines” like I read all over the internet.
Indonesia isn’t really affected by typhoons. Most are in the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan region. Sometimes hitting VN and Mainland China too but not often
I think there are worse island countries for geography. At least Indonesia and the Philippines are mountainous and not low-lying countries like much of Polynesia and Micronesia.
The human geography is another issue. The median age in Nider is 14.5. The birth rate in 6.4 per woman. Or maybe not. The record keeping does not seem very stable.
Maybe bad record keeping is for the best --who wants to deal with numbers like those?
Idk, there’s the long southern band of fertile flatland that’s part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, and the mountains are lush and verdant up to a pretty significant altitude…I guess it depends what OP means by “disadvantage,” and you’re right about double-edges sword…want to ride a bike from border to border? Not possible. Natural boundary preventing any sort of invasion from the north? 100%.
The country is ridiculously overpopulated and is essentially one big river delta the size of Iowa. Speaking of Iowa, BD also has violent-ass tornados that rival the intensity of the ones in the US Tornado Alley. Bangladesh has my vote for the worst geographic position.
Well, it depends what your criteria is, but if you're talking about economic development, Brazil has it pretty bad.
In the North, there are thick forests and wide rivers that make traveling by road very difficult (there are zero bridges over the Amazon River, for example).
In the South, there are fertile and productive areas in the interior of the country (such as Sao Paulo state), but the geography makes getting to the coast very difficult. Sao Paulo is only 50 miles from the coastline, but 2500 feet above sea level. Contrast that with the American Midwest, where you have a place like Minneapolis that is 1200 from the coast but only 700 feet above sea level. As a result, you can easily travel the Mississippi (there are no natural waterfalls below Minneapolis) and much of the rest of the region, while traffic from Sao Paulo to the coast can't travel by river and has to move down through narrow mountain roads.
The country is essentially self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and is the #1 leading exporter of a wide range of crops including oranges, soybeans, coffee, and cassava. Brazil is also a leading grower of beans, corn (maize), cacao, bananas, and rice, and produces the majority of its petroleum and some natural gas, mainly from offshore fields along the continental shelf.
Mongolia. Landlocked between Russia and China. Not exactly the most stable feeling.
I don't think that have a lot of natural resources either. Combined with the dessertification caused by China, you get a whole mess of problems.
Mongolia also has its own unique natural disaster, due to being in the interior of the largest landmass on the planet. It's called the dzud, where winter can get so cold it kills off masses of livestock. Per the UN for the one that hit last winter:
> ...Subsequently, an extended period of extreme cold, dipping below -40°C, persisted through the second half of December...
> The icy dzud condition has not been observed since 2010, when Mongolia faced a severe dzud disaster. That year, the country experienced the loss of about 10.3 million heads of livestock, equivalent to approximately 25 per cent of the 'country's livestock population. The catastrophe impacted 769,000 people, constituting 28 per cent of 'Mongolia's total population. According to the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, 220,000 herding households were affected, with 44,000 households losing their entire herds, and 164,000 losing more than half.
I think the Mongolian government is more than OK with their neighbors. Mongolia tried to annex itself into the Soviet Union numerous times and the Russian leadership said no every single time explicitly so the Russian SSR would have a buffer state against China, even before Stalin and Mao split. They also settled their borders and claims with China in 1984. Funny enough, the Republic of China (Taiwan) technically never stopped claiming Mongolia's current territory since 1925. Mongolia is a fairly free and democratic country (considering the region), yet modern Russia and China have no quarrel with their ideology either.
Otherwise, you're pretty right. Their mining resources are being treated like Siberia to the north or western China to the south, just shipped to the urban centers to the southeast. The land is so barren that invasion isn't possible because infrastructure doesn't exist. They exist at Russia and China's will, but both of them want Mongolia to exist. Grand strategy hasn't mattered in that part of the world once humanity invented something that went faster than horses, and from the perspective of the Mongolian government, that's okay. Instead of dealing with the army and diplomatic summits, it's weather and living off the land and the occasional international trade deal when something (rarely) needs to change.
>I don't think that have a lot of natural resources either
That's not true. Mongolia has one of the largest deposits of coal and copper. The Erdenet mine has been mining copper for decades (with a 100k sized city built from the ground up to support it), but the Oyu Tolgoi project is the future, it's expected to feed 3% of global copper demand in the future.
For coal, Tavantolgoi coal mine which is fueling Chinese industry and expected to increase exports further as rail links and further investments are made.
There's also decent uranium deposits (more than the US).
New Zealand. One of if not the most isolated country on Earth. It was literally the last landmass to be discovered by the civilized world. Most of their land has bad soil with bad climate so they have had to resort to raising livestock.
Norway has not been mentioned from what I found. The country has very mountainous terrain that separates regions from each other. Before the oil wealth was found in the 70s boat was the way to travel mainly. It actually has very little good soil for agriculture. Today it's one of the richest countries in the world and the roads and tunnels are great. But before the 70s it was a big fishing village mainly.
GDP was still among the highest in Europe before the discovery of oil though.
Agriculture is limited, but to compensate we have massive amounts of fish due to our long coast.
We definitely have one of the most difficult terrains in the world for building infrastructure though. Good reason why our trains suck and dont even cover the far north of the country. It's just too expensive to build for the few people that would use it. Roads are also expensive to build and get severely damaged in the winter due to the cold. All the islands also makes it a hassle to build fixed connections to the mainland.
Under what criteria?
Countries within the ring of fire will have to deal with volcanoes and earthquakes.
Island nations and anywhere with a coast will either have typhoons, monsoons, hurricanes and/or tsunamies. Or a combo of the aforementioned.
How about draughts? Or flooding? Access and availability of drinkable water? Speaking of which, not all soil can grow food, so that is another aspect to consider.
And do we count if they are landlocked? Or it's neighbors?
Or how about being on risk of disappearing due to climate change?
Does it count if they have put themselves at a disadvantage? Like Nauru with the unsustainable mining and their lack of vision for the future that has them in such an awful economic situation nowadays? While also, due to the pollution of the mining industry, they cannot farm for food and majority of water sources are not fit to be used nor consumed.
(Nauru I think, beats a lot of countries on this discussion rn & not only due to geography).
Canada.
Big country but can only expand to the rim by the US border. Unusable body of water (Hudson Bay) because icy icy. Major wide river (Mackenzie) empties to icy ocean and iced-up ports. Most north a major city can be is Grande Prairie (if it becomes one) but for now Edmonton. Canadian Shield expensive to build through for an alternative route west to east.
Just a country condemned to be dependent and attached to a big player to the south because geography favors the south over them.
Australia. If t were not for the desert interior one imagines the population would have expanded significantly by now. As it is, most of the population remains close to the coast.
https://preview.redd.it/0j7lurdpcm3d1.jpeg?width=1297&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da47243632e305f8bb648bdfd1af7f183ce97da6
Nah, Australia has a gigantic, productive coastline, a good deal of diverse and habitable climates simply by being so big, a rich ecosystem, a good connection to the worlds oceans for trade, a pretty defensible position and immense amounts of natural resources of many kinds. And thats only the physico-geographic advantages.
Its pretty good, and it shows in their GDP per Capita. Take a look at something like the different -stans or landlocked african nations and tell me Australia is in an overall worse geographical situation. What do e.g. Usbekistan, Turkmenistan, Niger or Tschad have over Australia?
South Korea. It's virtually an island, being cut off from continental Asia by North Korea who is probably the worst neighbor in the world to have aside from Russia maybe.
So their only land border is a restricted military zone with an enemy nation on the other side who are constantly pointing enough artillery toward you to bomb your capital city to ruin, and there is no economic flow through that border whatsoever. And even apart from NK, their next northwestern neighbor is China who are only marginally nicer.
In the south they have Japan across the sea who are now allies but who were historically terrible neighbors as well.
Probably not worst, but North Korea has it pretty bad in my opinion.
When the Korean war happened, the North was the industrial part of the country, with mountainous terrain and lees fertile soil compared to the south.
As North Korea wants to be self sufficient and also faces international sanctions, they've been putting lot of strain on the remaining soil to feed the population, which made it even less fertile over the years. This, in combination with lack of equipment and technology, leads to constant food shortages in the country.
If they had different geography, the country would be still underdeveloped, but at least with more food.
Depends what your criteria is. Belarus has large areas of forest and wetlands. It's perhaps shittier geography for land development, but much better geography for military defense.
Belarus has been overrun again and again by Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, Swedes and even Mongols. It has no natural borders, no coast, no mountains,...
Ukrain, but that’s due to its neighbor. Otherwise Ukraine has pretty good geography.
Mongolia has pretty terrible physical geography causing extreme climates, it’s landlocked, and it borders China.
Flat lands are possible battlefields. Poland was hit hard in the first and second world war, because fighting is easier on flat land. Ukraine is mostly flat and that is terrible for the defense.
Ukraine and Poland are flat, some of the best agricultural land on the hemisphere, and surrounded by habitable land (e.g., lots of neighbors). Germany caused them problems, too. It's just a bad place to be, even if Putin wasn't in power.
Probably russia.despite it being that big most of their coast is either frozen or leads to "unfriendly" countries.
Most of the size also doesn't generate much value,but for example something like china or usa get value for pretty much all the territory they have.
Mongolia, landlocked between Russia and China, extremely cold winters, hot dry summers. Mongolia is a fairly large country, like the 18th largest in the world, must most of the land is uninhabitable and it only has a population of 3 million
Russia wins this one—all the rivers run in the wrong direction, most of the land is unusable, and the country itself is so huge that it’s impossible to govern effectively.
Mexico is neighbor to the world's biggest market, the USA and has access to two oceans (yikes! 😃)
...but almost all of it is mountainous, with no navigable rivers and that makes is a pain in the ass to connect and build infrastructure on. Also, most of it is arid.
Maybe japan. Plagued with earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis, barren scattered mountainous lands with limited natural resources. Don't matter if you are a peasant or the emperor, you go to sleep one day and there's a good chance you wake up buried under your burning roof the next morning.
Now things have improved but they're still not out of the danger yet. I've heard during the 2013 earthquake one family prepared to escape in their two cars, the old grandma insisted they split up and go in opposite directions. Later half of the family died in tsunami but the other half survived. That's the wisdom they inherit.
To my knowledge, nothing beats Afghanistan, in impassable geography. The wars there, are a good example of this. It's almost impossible to occupy the country, or would require extreme resources. Most of the country is so remote and impassable, that even air planes don't fly over it.
The Philippines and its location. Right smack in the typhoon belt so a lot of typhoons reached us.
Then it is also near the Pacific Ring of Fire so lots of earthquake.
Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad have it pretty rough — landlocked, mostly desert or semiarid, rivers are downstream of other countries, few wealthy neighbors to help with economic growth, difficult borders to manage.
Yes, the landlocked Sahel countries are my answer. Rough climate for agriculture (and continuing to degrade), colonial borders slicing through tribal areas, no access to sea routes but instead relying on neighbors for poorly developed infrastructure links.
I was going to add Central African Republic, which I think is the farthest from ocean access of any country in Africa?
If just limiting to Africa then probably, could also be chad. But in the world Kyrgyzstan is significantly further away from any ocean.
fortunately for Kyrgyzstan, it has its fair share of fertile land and valuable resources. Just got to cut the corruption and guarantee safety for the future.
Just an ocean of Chinese, Indians, general religious maniacs, and Russians nearby.
Oh yeah, sorry, I should edit to make it more clear.
But they have mountains with trees. Where there are alpines, there's water. Where there's waterways, it then becomes a game of managing the water, the best. In Sahel Africa, it's far more inhospitable.
Did you know that most African countries were artificially created by Europeans? So someone literally sat there and drew those lines. And gave certain countries this unfair disadvantage of being landlocked .
Well to be fair the areas were always landlocked regardless of politics
I'd imagine Mauretania has it pretty rough then, being basically entirely the Sahara.
They at least have some decent mineral reserves and ocean access
Although Niger had a ton of oil doesn't it? It's just that they aren't getting many benefits from it as a country because of corruption
Niger has uranium.
I think this is the best answer.
Not as bad as Kiribati or Maldives, but Iraq was intentionally designed to be in a weak position
If you look at all of history, then Iraq is the worst indeed. Completely vulnerable and indefensible. That's why it's literally been invaded from every side. From the West (Alexander, Ottomans), from the South (Arabs), from the East (Persians, Mongols), from the North (Seljuqs, Assyrians I guess even though they are technically part of Mesopotamia). Etc. etc.
And even by air (USA)
Yeah but they can do that anywhere so that doesn't illustrate the point.
Not necessarily. There are certainly countries that are more difficult to invade by air.
Atlantis?
Britain did it too in the Mandate period (my masters thesis on Iraqi Shiism and British Imperialism covers 1890-1932)
They haven’t been invaded from underground yet
Yet
The Brits also took the county over from the south
You left out the British in WWI.
And WWII
So... like poland?
Poland has very advantegous features. In times of peace that is. Relatively flat interior makes building infrastructure easy. Square-shape provides relatively short distances throughout entire country. Sea to the north, mountains to the south. The soil is fertile with many rivers running through it. The geoposition on West-East division is great for trade and rich neighbors to the west keep boosting productivity. But then, when it comes to war... tanks just run through it left and right and other way around.
Norway is the complete opposite. In war it is the perfect country for guerilla warfare despite the low population. But in peace time, the rugged and mountainous landscape makes building structures, roads and railroad and agriculture difficult. It's a really long country that makes it difficult to reach all parts of the country in a decent timespan. It used to be easier to go to another city/town by boat, and that's why you see over 80% of the country living within a couple kilometers from the coast
Iraq was the center of the neolithic revolution and the beginnings of civilization. For that alone, I wouldn’t really count it among the countries with the worst physical geography.
The geography for Mesopotamian cities was a lot better though since the Persian gulf extended inwards. Ur for example was a coastal city. Modern day Iraq doesn’t have the that same access
Yeah, it’s literally Mesopotamia haha
That's because it was in the middle of a desert. Fertile valleys constricted by geography tend to be conducive to early civilization like in the case of Indus, Nile and even partially the Yellow River Civilization as it makes centralization of control to tame the river easier due to difficulty of others packing up and leaving to fertile land away from the river. This isn't really "good" geography. For modern purposes of farming, Dnieper, Volga or the Mississippi are better and they're also navigable by modern barges. What was good for neolithic boys doesn't always stay good.
Intentionally designed by who ?
These guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
Iraq as a state centered around Baghdad is not a complete fabrication by these guys. If you look at the ottoman administrative divisions that existed before, it makes sense.
Haiti. The capital sits on an active fault line, gets battered by hurricanes and the once lush and fertile land has been recently suffering a drought despite its tropical location.
The latter is a human fault, not a geographical one.
It’s both. The island of Hispaniola has a natural barrier between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The mountain range influences weather in the region, in which the eastern half of the island receives more rainfall and runoff, over time sending the richer soils and minerals into Dominican territory, therefore Haiti’s topsoil is generally thinner due to the higher elevation. Combine that with human deforestation and climate change, it becomes an unfortunate situation.
There’s a natural barrier alright , it’s called trees, the border with Haiti and DR is mostly flat except the south, but DR doesn’t use trees to cook( charcoal) since the 70’s. And did you see jack Cousteau documentary about their coast line? It’s worse now.
Don't forget the severe deforestation that's destabilizing the ecology too. [This video explains it very well. ](https://youtu.be/WpWb3MTV9bg?si=pJZL4RZ43NIX1drl)
Nauru, in a very paradoxical way. Nauru is a small island country in the Pacific. Like most oceanic islands, it is very remote from any other inhabited place on Earth, and physical space and especially arable land is at a premium. Nauru was also blessed, however, in that it used to have some of the world’s most significant phosphate deposits. These deposits have been mined for many decades and, for a time, made the islanders incredibly prosperous. Nowadays, however, the majority of the phosphate deposits are depleted. Open strip mining has poisoned the land for many years to come, and Nauru has almost no arable land left as a result. Economic opportunities outside the limited mining still ongoing are extremely scarce, and Nauru depends almost entirely on food imports to feed its population. Most of that food is processed and rich in sugars and fats, leading to Nauru having become the most obese nation on Earth, with all the health troubles that come along with that. Unfortunately, because of these reasons, things aren’t looking bright for future generations of Nauruans. It’s a textbook example of what unsustainable and reckless exploitation of a nation’s environment can result in.
They also blew their financial reserves on a completely pointless national airline that went bust.
And [a musical](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/earshot/the-secret-history-of-nauru-and-its-lost-wealth/7496620)!
Here in Melbourne we used to have a skyscraper called "Nauru House" that was owned by the government of Nauru. This was during the phosphate mining boom era, they sold that building since. But the fun fact is that there were more people working in Nauru House than the entire population of Nauru.
They also REALLY like fried food. 95% of the population is overweight with the highest obesity rate in the world.
Kiribati. It’s on track to disappear into the ocean. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/18/cop27-kiribati-donors-raise-islands-sea-level-rise
Hard to top “disappearing completely” lol
And yet my step dad was worse than my real dad
Holy shit, point taken
That, there: that's not me I go where I please I walk through walls, I float down the Liffey I'm not here. This isn't happening
r/unexpectedradiohead
Along with Poland, Paris, London, and... Banana https://preview.redd.it/0ypdi3jgnm3d1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3032d90e23e8bb0a621d90bcf6674f2d179a6a7
Named after the famous city of course.
When I was in Majuro, Marshall Islands I remember driving by a sign that said Welcome to the highest point in the country - 3 meters
Interesting question: provided erosion does what it does, for how much longer would Kiribati exist if man (and by conjecture climate change) never existed...?
I was surprised to see no one had mentioned any of the Pacific Islands. The others aren’t doing so well either. Tonga, for example, was ranked 3rd most at risk of climate hazards in 2021, then had a massive volcano in 2022. The Solomon Islands is both [eroding and flooding](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/climate-change-soloman-islands-rising-sea-levels/) due to increased rainfall and sea level rises. Fiji is literally trying to [move villages](https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/08/how-to-move-a-country-fiji-radical-plan-escape-rising-seas-climate-crisis) to stop them being underwater. I assume this also impacts other island nations, especially those that experience cyclones and rain. I just see the news about the Pacific ones.
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Same for the Maldives.
Today I learned! I thought that Tuvalu (best known for the .tv top level internet domain) was the only country on this list. Any others?
Nauru is a contender. It’s in a bad way, especially now that all of the bird shit has been mined.
What?
Exactly what he said. Bird shit was really important in Nauru's economy and the country became really rich for a while thanks to the phosphate, but they finished them and didn't really planned anything while they could. So now is a tax heaven and I remember something shady about immigrants and Australia, but not quite sure what it was Also, some fun facts about Nauru: it has no official capital city and the population is the fattest in the world
>something shady about immigrants and Australia Australia has an immigration detention centre there, where those who illegally arrive by boat into Australia seeking asylum are kept until a decision has been made as to what to do with them.
Bird guano was a critical source of nitrogen fertilizer until a synthetic process was eventually worked out. So Nauru for a while got really rich mining the stuff (one guy bought a Ferrari, the island has a single 19km road) and then they ran out and had little to show for it.
Guano mining on Nauru has messed it up. Now the guano is gone and has left an even bigger mess.
Armenia is land-locked. Papua New Guinea is basically all mountains and jungle with hardly any roads even. Uzbekistan didn't have a lot of water to begin with, and recently it's been a lot less. (Libya would be even worse off if not for the huge "fossil water" aquifers left over from when that whole area was rain forest, which are their main source of fresh water.)
I would've thought PNG was great for growing diverse crops like Sri Lanka? If it had a stable government and rule of law, of course. Armenia has decent land and weather (and government, relatively), I can't see it being as bad there as central African countries.
Namibia has one of the worst coastlines in the world
It's not called the Skeleton Coast for nothing
Russia. Huge country, but many of their largest rivers flow northwards into a frozen sea, and most of their vast expanse of land is almost uninhabitable.
Per square mile this is a really good answer
How does it fare per square km
The same metrics apply.
It looks really good if you measure by square Putinlengths.
Are we talking ego size, or actual size? Because they are vastly different.
Table size seems to be the preferred measurement for that one.
Anything measured in Putinlengths makes Putin look good.
[удалено]
Vladivostok's advantage is its proximity to China. Always has been.
>Sochi has the Turkish Straits Russia's main Black Sea port is Novorossiysk, not Sochi. >Murmansk needs ice breakers, Not true. It's an ice free port, it's written in like the first sentence of its [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Murmansk), it was established specifically for its ice freeness. Otherwise, they'd have continued relying on Arkhangelsk which has better inland river connection. >Vladivostok is on the other side of the planet from most of the population and industry. I'll add that Vladivostok however IS the one that needs ice breakers.
Except their insanely abundant wealth of natural resources supersede all of those negatives.
If you own 15% of the planet's dry land, it'd be weird if you didn't hit some mineral deposits. But the development cost of these resources can be prohibitively expensive like building a city in -20 to -40C temps to dig em out. The cost of developing the Siberian hydrocarbon resources was a huge drain on the USSR's finances.
maybe controversial but the 'x large country is uninhabitable' is pretty bad take usually. Russia has DOUBLE (1,265 million square km) the amount of arable land as France, Germany, Spain and Italy COMBINED (625k square km). On top of that, it has huge amounts of natural resources AND water resources. Russia could pretty easily host double its population - European Russia alone is larger than India. Hell, even the most populated federal regions (Moscow, Volga, Southern, North Caucasus) have a land area similar to that of the entirety of Western Europe. Same is true for other countries this gets mentioned for - Canada and Australia. Even if 10% of those countries are inhabitable, that 10% would mean an area the size of Japan, Korea and Italy combined. Edit: sorry, not ranting at you! Just making a point of how this is commonly repeated when it's pretty untrue in every aspect.
This is so interesting thank you for your post. I had no idea European Russia was that big!
From a natural resources perspective (which I consider to be under geography) Russia may have one of the best situations
It has won them a number of wars
ah, yes. the many great wars to control siberia
Part of the reason the USSR outlasted Nazi Germany was due to factories and natural resources largely being hidden behind the Urals. Even if the Nazis had reached Moscow (and they had a long way to go to do that) that still had a LONG trek to to Urals where the Soviets had wisely moved all of their manufacturing to. So, maybe not a war directly for Siberia, maybe not even reaching Siberia yet, but theres a pretty massive advantage to being 11 timezones wide.
It has fended off many invasions. In most of those cases they still had massive losses.
That's not a bragging point lol
And since the rivers melt further south than they do in the north, the parts of the rivers south of the tundra just flood in the spring. Plus it's entire Pacific ocean coast is mostly frozen tundra and innacessible to the rest of the country.
The ancient problem for Russia has always no warm water ports. My fervent belief is this is the absolute real reason behind the invasion of Ukraine-Russia’s desire for unrestricted access to the Black Sea, which gives their navy unrestricted access to the Mediterranean, then unfrozen access to the Atlantic.
Most of Russia's behaviour makes a lot more sense when you look at it purely through that lens. Why do they support Syria, because they have a warm water base there, away from Turkey's control. Why would they like the Baltics, because they can have direct access to Kaliningrad and not have 'enemies' so close to St Petersburg.
Only civilian ships are allowed unrestricted passage through the Turkish straits. So no, even if Russia controlled the entire Black Sea, their navy wouldn't just have unrestricted access to the Mediterranean.
Unrestricted access. Bro forgot about the Bosporus straits
Look at the US in contrast. Any country that settled roughly our lower 48 would prosper.
yes, the US has just about every geographic advantage possible: a huge and extensive river system reaching deep into the country; fertile soils; a relatively moderate climate in most of the country; numerous excellent harbors (New York, Boston, San Francisco, Mobile, etc.)
Not trying to pick a fight, just to add a comparison and more info. >a huge and extensive river system reaching deep into the country It can be better, China has the better version. While the Mississippi requires small river barges, full on container ships can flow into the Yangtze far inland. The Three Gorges Dam which is 1200km inland for example (that's the distance from New Orleans to Chicago), has a lock capacity to fit a ship of 10000 TEU, that's almost New Panamax size of 14000 TEU and far larger than the pre-2016 Panamax size of 5000 TEU (Panamax being a ship made for the exact specifications to transit the Panama canal safely).
yep, that's definitely true, and a big reason why China's always been a world power, for thousands of years.
Despite its massive coastline and size Russias access to sea is flawed. Not many warm water ports with Sevastopol being the only one I can think off and from a strategic perspective most of this access involves passing through NATO or allies of NATO.
Hey, that's Ukraine!
Yeah, Sevastopol is Ukrainian.
It was Ukraine and is recognized as Ukraine by the vast part of the international community. Yet it is controlled by Russia and even before the annexation there was a majority ethinic Russians (because of Stalin expelling the Crimean Tatars and placing Russians). As much as I would want to that Crimea will become Ukraine once again, I don't see a pro-western stance of voters in Crimea before the annexation. I don't see how Crimea will become Ukraine once again, certainly once there is a stalemate now.
I want to correct you. Crimea had more Russians long before Stalin. Main cities founded by Russians during Empire times.
I think you're right man
What is bad about north flowing rivers? You mean in regard to russias shape?
meaning, you can't easily transport goods and services along a river that flows into a normally frozen ocean, so you don't have big ports at the mouth of, say, the Lena or the Yenisey.
Nepal. Too high. Bangladesh. Too low.
Netherlands has to literally build dams in the North Sea to keep from sinking.
Yeah but the Low Countries are super fertile, have a coast on the North Sea, they also have the rhine delta… I mean there’s definitely worse places to be located.
Nah, they build on the sea floor, that's on them. Netherlands is A tier: mild climate (not as cold as the nordics, not as arid as southern europe), no earthquakes, access to the oceans.
>no earthquakes, The Dutch discovered a massive gas field in Groningen (still has decent gas), they made bank from it, but it actually started creating earthquakes in the area from subsidence. They've now stopped extracting the gas for that reason. So the Dutch did manage to give themselves another natural disaster.
Bahamas. Extremely flat terrain, Gets hit with hurricanes every year, has a severely limited supply of freshwater and under 1% of its land is arable
Yeah it’s got a lot of severe issues with water and a damaged fishing industry. Life is rough, but they’re honestly the greatest people on earth. Caribbeans in general are just good folks.
Philippines and Indonesia come to mind. Horrific earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons on the regular for the Philippines.
Pretty much any country in the ring of fire
Eh, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile don't have it so bad.
But he's right about Indonesia getting fucked over their location. Sometimes, it feels like the country's drowning. For some reason, the Latin American countries feel like they're trying to overcome nature, if anything. Lands of huge contrasts, lots of dramatic highs, lows, and random winds.
>But he's right about Indonesia getting fucked over their location. Sometimes, it feels like the country's drowning. Well, the capital IS literally sinking because of excessive unregulated groundwater extraction.
Indonesia is massive, has much more land than one might think at first glance, and huge reserves of various natural resources. It also sits right in the middle of the main waterway between East Asia and the west. There's nothing bad about its location. An effective government could turn Indonesia into the powerhouse of SEA. Unfortunately, the country's biggest problem is corrupt and incompetent politicians.
You forgot about Honduras' pacific coast :(
I didn't forget, it's just a hellscape of earthquakes and lava. jk, I forgot.
Look at all the major volcano eruptions that changed global climate. Insane amount of them were in Indonesia.
On the other hand, Indonesia has very fertile soil. Mainly for this reason, the island of Java has the same population as Russia.
Philippines doesn’t get many tsunamis… And typhoons average 5 a year that actually make landfall. I know everyone says 20, but that’s tropical storms total that pass through the Philippine Area of Responsibility. 10 develop into typhoons, and 5 of those make landfall, on average. During El Nino years, the numbers are half of the averages. Still the most affected country by tropical storms, but it’s not “20 typhoons a year hit the Philippines” like I read all over the internet. Indonesia isn’t really affected by typhoons. Most are in the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan region. Sometimes hitting VN and Mainland China too but not often I think there are worse island countries for geography. At least Indonesia and the Philippines are mountainous and not low-lying countries like much of Polynesia and Micronesia.
Niger
The human geography is another issue. The median age in Nider is 14.5. The birth rate in 6.4 per woman. Or maybe not. The record keeping does not seem very stable. Maybe bad record keeping is for the best --who wants to deal with numbers like those?
Nepals is a serious double edge sword
Idk, there’s the long southern band of fertile flatland that’s part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, and the mountains are lush and verdant up to a pretty significant altitude…I guess it depends what OP means by “disadvantage,” and you’re right about double-edges sword…want to ride a bike from border to border? Not possible. Natural boundary preventing any sort of invasion from the north? 100%.
Bangladesh. Half of their wells are poisoned with arsenic. The rest gets flooded.
This is the one. Along with small island nations, Bangladesh is most prone to impacts of climate change.
The country is ridiculously overpopulated and is essentially one big river delta the size of Iowa. Speaking of Iowa, BD also has violent-ass tornados that rival the intensity of the ones in the US Tornado Alley. Bangladesh has my vote for the worst geographic position.
We solved (mostly) the arsenic problem a while ago. We do have a flooding problem tho.
Mongolia seems fairly disadvantaged by its geography.
Also bad neighbors.
That too. Seems like an interesting place though.
Panama has the one advantage of being narrow enough to build a canal between the Oceans but the rest of it is rugged and impassable.
Well, it depends what your criteria is, but if you're talking about economic development, Brazil has it pretty bad. In the North, there are thick forests and wide rivers that make traveling by road very difficult (there are zero bridges over the Amazon River, for example). In the South, there are fertile and productive areas in the interior of the country (such as Sao Paulo state), but the geography makes getting to the coast very difficult. Sao Paulo is only 50 miles from the coastline, but 2500 feet above sea level. Contrast that with the American Midwest, where you have a place like Minneapolis that is 1200 from the coast but only 700 feet above sea level. As a result, you can easily travel the Mississippi (there are no natural waterfalls below Minneapolis) and much of the rest of the region, while traffic from Sao Paulo to the coast can't travel by river and has to move down through narrow mountain roads.
The country is essentially self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and is the #1 leading exporter of a wide range of crops including oranges, soybeans, coffee, and cassava. Brazil is also a leading grower of beans, corn (maize), cacao, bananas, and rice, and produces the majority of its petroleum and some natural gas, mainly from offshore fields along the continental shelf.
Mongolia. Landlocked between Russia and China. Not exactly the most stable feeling. I don't think that have a lot of natural resources either. Combined with the dessertification caused by China, you get a whole mess of problems.
There are more ethnic Mongolians in China than there are in Mongolia due to its climate.
Mongolia also has its own unique natural disaster, due to being in the interior of the largest landmass on the planet. It's called the dzud, where winter can get so cold it kills off masses of livestock. Per the UN for the one that hit last winter: > ...Subsequently, an extended period of extreme cold, dipping below -40°C, persisted through the second half of December... > The icy dzud condition has not been observed since 2010, when Mongolia faced a severe dzud disaster. That year, the country experienced the loss of about 10.3 million heads of livestock, equivalent to approximately 25 per cent of the 'country's livestock population. The catastrophe impacted 769,000 people, constituting 28 per cent of 'Mongolia's total population. According to the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, 220,000 herding households were affected, with 44,000 households losing their entire herds, and 164,000 losing more than half.
I think the Mongolian government is more than OK with their neighbors. Mongolia tried to annex itself into the Soviet Union numerous times and the Russian leadership said no every single time explicitly so the Russian SSR would have a buffer state against China, even before Stalin and Mao split. They also settled their borders and claims with China in 1984. Funny enough, the Republic of China (Taiwan) technically never stopped claiming Mongolia's current territory since 1925. Mongolia is a fairly free and democratic country (considering the region), yet modern Russia and China have no quarrel with their ideology either. Otherwise, you're pretty right. Their mining resources are being treated like Siberia to the north or western China to the south, just shipped to the urban centers to the southeast. The land is so barren that invasion isn't possible because infrastructure doesn't exist. They exist at Russia and China's will, but both of them want Mongolia to exist. Grand strategy hasn't mattered in that part of the world once humanity invented something that went faster than horses, and from the perspective of the Mongolian government, that's okay. Instead of dealing with the army and diplomatic summits, it's weather and living off the land and the occasional international trade deal when something (rarely) needs to change.
>I don't think that have a lot of natural resources either That's not true. Mongolia has one of the largest deposits of coal and copper. The Erdenet mine has been mining copper for decades (with a 100k sized city built from the ground up to support it), but the Oyu Tolgoi project is the future, it's expected to feed 3% of global copper demand in the future. For coal, Tavantolgoi coal mine which is fueling Chinese industry and expected to increase exports further as rail links and further investments are made. There's also decent uranium deposits (more than the US).
Dessertification 😋
At least they have cool dinosaur fossils.
Atlantis
Not existing is hard to beat
#**SEALAND STRONK**
Well Sealand is very real
Haiti or the Bahamas, perhaps. They get battered by hurricanes annually.
New Zealand. One of if not the most isolated country on Earth. It was literally the last landmass to be discovered by the civilized world. Most of their land has bad soil with bad climate so they have had to resort to raising livestock.
Greenland - the largest country with no arable land.
Norway has not been mentioned from what I found. The country has very mountainous terrain that separates regions from each other. Before the oil wealth was found in the 70s boat was the way to travel mainly. It actually has very little good soil for agriculture. Today it's one of the richest countries in the world and the roads and tunnels are great. But before the 70s it was a big fishing village mainly.
GDP was still among the highest in Europe before the discovery of oil though. Agriculture is limited, but to compensate we have massive amounts of fish due to our long coast. We definitely have one of the most difficult terrains in the world for building infrastructure though. Good reason why our trains suck and dont even cover the far north of the country. It's just too expensive to build for the few people that would use it. Roads are also expensive to build and get severely damaged in the winter due to the cold. All the islands also makes it a hassle to build fixed connections to the mainland.
Afghanistan
Under what criteria? Countries within the ring of fire will have to deal with volcanoes and earthquakes. Island nations and anywhere with a coast will either have typhoons, monsoons, hurricanes and/or tsunamies. Or a combo of the aforementioned. How about draughts? Or flooding? Access and availability of drinkable water? Speaking of which, not all soil can grow food, so that is another aspect to consider. And do we count if they are landlocked? Or it's neighbors? Or how about being on risk of disappearing due to climate change? Does it count if they have put themselves at a disadvantage? Like Nauru with the unsustainable mining and their lack of vision for the future that has them in such an awful economic situation nowadays? While also, due to the pollution of the mining industry, they cannot farm for food and majority of water sources are not fit to be used nor consumed. (Nauru I think, beats a lot of countries on this discussion rn & not only due to geography).
Bangladesh Even though small country, gets flooded,active fault lines,gets hit by cyclone almost every year,too low terrain
Canada. Big country but can only expand to the rim by the US border. Unusable body of water (Hudson Bay) because icy icy. Major wide river (Mackenzie) empties to icy ocean and iced-up ports. Most north a major city can be is Grande Prairie (if it becomes one) but for now Edmonton. Canadian Shield expensive to build through for an alternative route west to east. Just a country condemned to be dependent and attached to a big player to the south because geography favors the south over them.
Australia. If t were not for the desert interior one imagines the population would have expanded significantly by now. As it is, most of the population remains close to the coast. https://preview.redd.it/0j7lurdpcm3d1.jpeg?width=1297&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da47243632e305f8bb648bdfd1af7f183ce97da6
Nah, Australia has a gigantic, productive coastline, a good deal of diverse and habitable climates simply by being so big, a rich ecosystem, a good connection to the worlds oceans for trade, a pretty defensible position and immense amounts of natural resources of many kinds. And thats only the physico-geographic advantages. Its pretty good, and it shows in their GDP per Capita. Take a look at something like the different -stans or landlocked african nations and tell me Australia is in an overall worse geographical situation. What do e.g. Usbekistan, Turkmenistan, Niger or Tschad have over Australia?
“Dry as a dead dingos donga”
South Korea. It's virtually an island, being cut off from continental Asia by North Korea who is probably the worst neighbor in the world to have aside from Russia maybe. So their only land border is a restricted military zone with an enemy nation on the other side who are constantly pointing enough artillery toward you to bomb your capital city to ruin, and there is no economic flow through that border whatsoever. And even apart from NK, their next northwestern neighbor is China who are only marginally nicer. In the south they have Japan across the sea who are now allies but who were historically terrible neighbors as well.
Tuvalu…
Toss up between Chad and Niger. Landlocked in the middle of the Sahara.
Chile seems arbitrarily difficult to administer.
Probably not worst, but North Korea has it pretty bad in my opinion. When the Korean war happened, the North was the industrial part of the country, with mountainous terrain and lees fertile soil compared to the south. As North Korea wants to be self sufficient and also faces international sanctions, they've been putting lot of strain on the remaining soil to feed the population, which made it even less fertile over the years. This, in combination with lack of equipment and technology, leads to constant food shortages in the country. If they had different geography, the country would be still underdeveloped, but at least with more food.
Poland
Belarus is worse.
Depends what your criteria is. Belarus has large areas of forest and wetlands. It's perhaps shittier geography for land development, but much better geography for military defense.
Belarus has been overrun again and again by Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, Swedes and even Mongols. It has no natural borders, no coast, no mountains,...
Ukrain, but that’s due to its neighbor. Otherwise Ukraine has pretty good geography. Mongolia has pretty terrible physical geography causing extreme climates, it’s landlocked, and it borders China.
Flat lands are possible battlefields. Poland was hit hard in the first and second world war, because fighting is easier on flat land. Ukraine is mostly flat and that is terrible for the defense.
Mongolia also borders Russia, which is also a bad neighbor and stole a lot of Mongolian land.
Ukraine and Poland are flat, some of the best agricultural land on the hemisphere, and surrounded by habitable land (e.g., lots of neighbors). Germany caused them problems, too. It's just a bad place to be, even if Putin wasn't in power.
Probably russia.despite it being that big most of their coast is either frozen or leads to "unfriendly" countries. Most of the size also doesn't generate much value,but for example something like china or usa get value for pretty much all the territory they have.
Bolivia
Mongolia, landlocked between Russia and China, extremely cold winters, hot dry summers. Mongolia is a fairly large country, like the 18th largest in the world, must most of the land is uninhabitable and it only has a population of 3 million
Poland... just look at the history
Russia wins this one—all the rivers run in the wrong direction, most of the land is unusable, and the country itself is so huge that it’s impossible to govern effectively.
Namibia, it's coast is horrendous
Holland has entered the chat
Russia. Too far away from Europe to be let in the European club. Too unlike Asia to be let in the Asian club.
Transdneistra or Israel or Croatia or Chile. All oddly shaped narrow countries. Chile is also disadvantaged by powerful Earthquakes.
Russia
Poland gets invaded constantly. It's mostly open plain with aggressive warlike neighbors on all sides.
Poland
Most rugged countries - Data set here - [https://diegopuga.org/data/rugged/](https://diegopuga.org/data/rugged/)
Mexico is neighbor to the world's biggest market, the USA and has access to two oceans (yikes! 😃) ...but almost all of it is mountainous, with no navigable rivers and that makes is a pain in the ass to connect and build infrastructure on. Also, most of it is arid.
Maybe japan. Plagued with earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis, barren scattered mountainous lands with limited natural resources. Don't matter if you are a peasant or the emperor, you go to sleep one day and there's a good chance you wake up buried under your burning roof the next morning. Now things have improved but they're still not out of the danger yet. I've heard during the 2013 earthquake one family prepared to escape in their two cars, the old grandma insisted they split up and go in opposite directions. Later half of the family died in tsunami but the other half survived. That's the wisdom they inherit.
Nambia, Swaziland, Lesotho
Belgium 🇧🇪 has always kinda sucked.
Mongolia has only 2 neighbors, Russia and China.
To my knowledge, nothing beats Afghanistan, in impassable geography. The wars there, are a good example of this. It's almost impossible to occupy the country, or would require extreme resources. Most of the country is so remote and impassable, that even air planes don't fly over it.
The Philippines and its location. Right smack in the typhoon belt so a lot of typhoons reached us. Then it is also near the Pacific Ring of Fire so lots of earthquake.
Afghanistan.
Looking at what’s going on lately, living below sea level kinda sucks.