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Author | Topic: Top 10 Country Populations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
While contemplating the ignominy of Iceland making the World Cup and the US not even though the US has a population a thousand times larger, I suddenly realized that none of the three largest countries in population made it: China, India and the US. Then I began wondering what the top 10 countries in population were, so I looked it up and was surprised at about half of them - would never have guessed. Just for fun, anyone want to give it a try without Googling it?
I'll give a hint. Only one European country is in the top 10. --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Well China and India are likely nearly half of the world's population so the other eight must just be bit players.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
This is a shot in the dark in terms of population without Googling
1. China2. India 3. U.S. 4. Indonesia 5. Brazil 6. Mexico 7. Germany 8. Russia 9. United Kingdom 10. France I don’t think that’s right, but maybe close? Pretty confident on the first 5.... wild guesses for the remaining 5. Edit to add no spoilers *** Ugh, now I looked it up and there’s a few that were very surprising but others I’m kicking myself for not thinking about. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1025 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
So I thought this would be easy off the top of my head; but found myself getting unsure about halfway through. Here's my best guess.
1. China2. India 3. USA 4. Indonesia 5. Brazil 6. Pakistan 7. Mexico 8. Bangladesh 9. Russia 10. Japan With regards to the World Cup - it's not Iceland that should bother you. Iceland qualify through a different confederation so it's not directly comparable. You should be ashamed about Costa Rica and Panama - tiny countries with shit football teams who directly outcompeted the USA - that's the humiliating part. China I've always found odd. Given the huge investment in making the country competitive at the Olympics it surprises me that they cannot find 11 quality footballers to impress on the world stage in the world's most popular support. People have tried to explain this based around culture in East Asia not being into football, or with explanations based on the average physical characteristics, but both fall flat to me. Football is enormously popular in East Asia - look how many of the advertising boards in the World Cup, Premier League or Champions League are in Chinese. And the real baffler is why much smaller countries in Asia have better football teams than China. North Korea has a better football team than China. It makes no sense to me.
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
I had the same top 5 as everyone else but thought Mexico would make the top ten.
also guessed Nigeria correctly. Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1025 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
I had the same top 5 as everyone else but thought Mexico would make the top ten. also guessed Nigeria correctly. I thought Mexico had more as well. I didn't even think about Nigeria; which is stupid of me, as just a couple of weeks ago I remember the commentator at the World Cup mentioning that Nigeria makes up about a quarter of the population of Africa (although now I check that's apparently not true - more like a 6th)/
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Taq Member Posts: 9973 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7 |
caffeine writes: With regards to the World Cup - it's not Iceland that should bother you. Iceland qualify through a different confederation so it's not directly comparable. You should be ashamed about Costa Rica and Panama - tiny countries with shit football teams who directly outcompeted the USA - that's the humiliating part. China I've always found odd. Given the huge investment in making the country competitive at the Olympics it surprises me that they cannot find 11 quality footballers to impress on the world stage in the world's most popular support. People have tried to explain this based around culture in East Asia not being into football, or with explanations based on the average physical characteristics, but both fall flat to me. Football is enormously popular in East Asia - look how many of the advertising boards in the World Cup, Premier League or Champions League are in Chinese. And the real baffler is why much smaller countries in Asia have better football teams than China. North Korea has a better football team than China. It makes no sense to me. The problem in the US is that access to the best training in youth leagues is determined by how much their parents are willing to spend. Some of the MLS teams have started academies, but they are way behind their European counterparts. As far as I am aware, most of the big international stars came up through the European academy system which is a meritocracy instead of being a pay-to-win system like the US. As to China, I am also confused as to how they don't have a dominant football team. They could set up one of the premier youth academy systems if they chose to. After googling world populations, what I am most surprised at is Brazil's population. I feel a bit silly because I had no idea there were that many people in Brazil. Now I see why they do so well in so many different sports, given the population they have to draw from. I have also heard people talking about Brazil being the next big economic upstart, and now I am starting to see why.
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1025 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
Then I began wondering what the top 10 countries in population were, so I looked it up and was surprised at about half of them - would never have guessed. So now we've left this thread for some time for people to guess; I'm curious what you were surprised by and what countries you thought were bigger? I always used to love pub quizzes, so spent a lot of time looking at things like Olympic host cities and biggest countries in the world; so for me this was familiar and more just an memory exercise than anything involving reasoning. I'm curious how you thought differently and also why, in case there was any conscious logic involved.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Thanks for reminding me, after the weekend I forgot to come back to this thread.
So here are the 10 largest countries in population, 2017 numbers:
So, to bore people with the details of what I didn't know:
If I hadn't already seen the list and tried to list the top 10 countries I would have gotten the first three correct, but probably would have been wrong about the rest of the top 10 except for Russia. --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined:
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For me it was a reminder of just how much more populous India and China are compared to the US. They each have four times the population of the US and together they have almost twice the population of the next eight nations combined.
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1025 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined:
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I wouldn't have put Mexico in the top 10. Maybe I would have guessed around 30. The US government's estimates say that Mexico's about 3 million people less, putting it in 11th place behind Japan. Seems like time to break out one of my favourite viral images:
This is even more astonishing when you think that a lot of that circle is occupied by seas, mountains, deserts and dense jungle. Most of the world's population is actually crammed into a few small places. Another nice graphic below showing the distribution of population within East Asia, China is huge, but much of it is basically empty of people.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Your post made me curious about density, so here's my top 10 population table again, but this time with densities added and reordered:
--Percy
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Most of China is empty? Why?
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Partly lots of deserts and mountains and just plain rock surfaces.
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1025 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
Most of China is empty? Why? What jar said. A lot of what is today western China is not too hospitable for living:
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