Sweet Sixteen - Follow Up on Checking Out Our World

Written by Karen

True North

A few blogs ago, I mentioned that out of the 195 recognized states by the US State Department, there were sixteen countries that I had never heard of.  Over the past few weeks, I looked up these sixteen places on Wikipedia and other internet sites, read a little about their history and culture, and placed them on our large wall map to get a visual picture of where they were located.  

It’s pretty interesting to actually research places that are completely unknown to you. There are just so many places to explore! Here are just the tiniest of snippets, courtesy of Wikipedia, of where these countries are located.   

And, for all of you who snickered when you saw Holy See on my list, clearly I was not raised Catholic! 

So, presented in alphabetical order, here is the list of the sixteen countries:

Republic of Benin: a country in West Africa and is bordered by: Togo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

Kingdom of Bhutan: a small, landlocked country on the eastern end of the Himalayas and is bordered by India and China.  The country has tourist restrictions, requiring tourists to sign up with a tour operator and pay approximately $200/per person/per day.  

Burkina Faso: a landlocked country in West Africa that is bordered by: Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Union of Comoros: an archipelago island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa.

Republic of Dijbouti: a country in the Horn of Africa and is one of the least populous countries in Africa.

Commonwealth of Dominica: an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea; it is frequently called the “nature isle of the Caribbean”.

State of Eritrea: a country in the Horn of Africa.

Republic of The Gambia: a country in West Africa and is the smallest country on mainland Africa.

Holy See: the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome.

Republic of Kiribati: an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean.

Kingdom of Lesotho: a landlocked country that is surrounded by the Republic of South Africa.

Republic of Mauritius: an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean.

Republic of Nauru: an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific.

Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis: located in the Leeward Islands, and is a federal two-island nation in the West Indies. It is the smallest sovereign state in the Americas, in both area and population.

Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste: a state in Southeast Asia.

Tuvalu: a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia.


Has anybody reading this ever been to any of these countries?  If so, I'd love to hear about your impressions.