What is the greatest country in the world?

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I think this is an important question that needs to be answered.

Define "greatest" any way you like.

― DV, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I say Finland. Plucky Finns, first country in the world to give women the vote, many years of democracy, Moomins, forests, mighty warriors, non indo-european language, serious drinkers, lakes, etc.

― DV, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Russia - hundreds of years of perfecting every conceivable sort of human misery, and they're still coming up with new ones, which is some sort of achievement.

― dave q, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

new zealand looks ok - socialist, no nukes, low defense, accepts refugees.

― Geoff, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Draconia. There were no civil liberties their, but boy what regulations and policies they had.

― Pete, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

they are lemurians = they are superhuman undersea monkeys with big blobby fingahs that can see in the dark hurrah

also in latin there's a vamp connection

― mark s, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Canada

― anthony, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I vote Holland

― Pennysong Hanle y, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Canada. Canada's blameless.

― Lesley Higgins, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sweden

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Obviously this thread is inspired by the tendency of some Americans to go on about how the USA is the greatest country in the world. This always upsets me. I'm not sure whether this is because I think there is a greater country in the world, or whether it's because I'm unhappy with the idea that countries can be ranked.

Do you think the idea of which country in the world is Number One is inherently problematic?

― DV, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've visited ~ 15 countries, none for very long, but I like the USA best. Mostly having to do w/ geography. I like being outside, walking around in the mountains, etc. Not too many countries big & varied enough to have the FLA Keys, huge deserts, a rainforest, & Denali. Then throw in NYC, ruins & all. Some embarassment assoc. w/ being an American, or course, but that's probably true everywhere.

― Mark, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Never been there, but Iceland sounds just about as it good as it gets.

― hans, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i heard new zealand was the first with the womens vote. then australia.

― ambrose, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

England. After that it is Iceland.

― jel, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also Finland is an advanced Hi tech country, the latest mobile phones - they build the most advanced telecomms eqpt at Nokia, highest penetration of internet use in Europe/ World along with the Swedes. Helsinki is all cabled up and broadbanded for high speed internet connections.

Finland = Futuristic

― DJ Martian, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Doompatrol land. The country of me. Infinitely better than anything. I'm taking applications for citizenship at the moment. Please take a number.

― doompatrol, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you look at the inuit, natives and chinese we are far from blameless

― anthony, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oop! Canada did it again!

― Mike Hanle y, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the natives are treated with far more respect in canada than in america. we give them land. we give them hunting priviledges. we build schools to preserve the native way of life. we have native task force in identifying problems within that community.

if ANYTHING, we treat people from newfoundland with the greatest disrespect. a beautiful village people whose ENTIRE working way of life is threated by the overfishing of the seas. they migrate to ontario looking for work and eventually go back to newfoundland because they cannot survive.

Life is a choice. In canada, natives are given choices.

This speech was taken in part of Coral Bennett who is native canadian and who will kick anyone native's ass who tells her that she does not have opportunity.

― doomie, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

half of the population in newfoundland living in abject poverty.

no write ups about that tradegy, or, how a unique canadian way of life was slaughtered.

― doomie, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Texas

― Kris, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If the First Nations are pissed off at the Canadian Government then why don't they just go back where they came from?

― dave q, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

USA! USA! USA!

Never been but, c'mon, we all love it! WE ALL LOVE THE US! We suck up Americana like it's going fresh outta style, and why? Because they get everything RITE! It's a cultural oasis whether, it's literature, film, music, comedy, science, ideas... coolness. Everything.
And the people are great; funny, smart and enthusiastic yet humble and sometimes even apologetic about their own country. Really. And they have no more to be ashamed of then most 'developed' nations, as Winston Churchill said "After trying every other option, America usually does the right thing". Weighing up it's faults and mistakes against it's vitues and triumphs, it easily comes out as the shining example of success. It is sneered at and hated precisely because it is so superior than everywhere else.
Losers hate the winner, but end up trying to/wanting to emulate them. So it is with the clamouring for US culture (yes, bad as well as good) throughout the world. Don't say you hate it if you continue to buy it.

2nd best: England.

― DavidM, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I share Shane McGowan's Ireland/Thailand fixations. Very sentimental, teary drunks in both spots so I fit in fine. And they both like mean practical jokes too.

― fritz, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Finland = Futuristic"

That's precisely why it is no longer my favourite country, Martian :).

"Don't say you hate it if you continue to buy it"

Why not, David? Just because you like certain music and culture doesn't mean you can't be nervous over certain aspects of its impact. What an embarrassing little wank of a post. I bet you'd take the Times over the Guardian, Blair over Benn and Sky News over BBC News 24, as well.

I thnk this is an incredibly pointless and ill-defined question, but if I had to cite one country in particular, it would be Sweden. Finland probably second best. The worst country in Europe (though not the worst in the world) is, without question, Italy.

― Robin Carmody, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, Berlusconi is even worse than Nero, Caligula, Tiberius, Elagabulus, Gaiseric King of Vandals, Borgia, Mussolini, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Machievelli, D'Annunzio, & Pope Innocent III! What a pathetic excuse for a country!

― dave q, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But what about Alberto Tomba?

― Kris, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Worse yet - the "Night of a Thousand Rolexes"!!!

― dave q, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Quebec! Bagels amd cute French accents and the girls who speak them!

― Mr Noodles, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seems to be a question no non-nascar loving american would ever pose, more likely to be posted by a canadian. canada is great, i was canadian until i was 19 but the national inferiority complex disguised as hatred for the usa is a bit unappealing.

― keith, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

File me with the pro-Finland massif too. It has come to my attention that there was a Finland: Classic or Dud and I didn't even spew my ill-informed rambling over it. A touch more vodka and I may "rectify" this. Jauza! Suomi svengaa kuin hirvi! I'm so, so sorry, yet not quite sorry enough to stop myself...

(Of course, it almost certainly isn't actually that great, but that's why I've never been there: it'd be a shame to have my hopes dashed.)

― Rebecca, Friday, 28 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

course Belguims' fine too

― Mike Hanle y, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd have to go with Sierra Leone, because they really throw down.

― Joseph, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know about the greatest countRy in the world, but I know the greatest county in the world: ESSEX! Awight mate! Sweet! Sorted etc. I are of course being from EAST LONDON, and don't you forget it.

― DG, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Certainly a far more diverse county that it's made out to be (i.e. *much* more countryside left than in the other counties bordering Greater London: strange that the London press have such a narrow picture of Essex when you consider that it's just down the fucking road from them).

Erasure's "Drama!" just came on the radio. Essex 1989 at its greatest!

― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm siding with Sweden.

― Maria, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sweden had one of the nastiest eugenics programs on record.
So did ALberta as well. In fact in the 1930s eugenics were VERY popualr. Im siding w. NZ , rescinding my canuck vote.

― anthony, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A Senegalese acquaintance once told me that Liberia was WAY harder than Sierra Leone.

― dave q, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Uncle Dave Macon, perhaps. But the recent Montgomery Gentry is killer, too.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 30 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The people in Finland are also surly and rude, and the food is - uniquely among countries I've visited - worse than Britain!

But I still wuv it.

― Tom, Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

tibet for being a mysterious oppressed mountain kingdom I've never visited. but mainly because most tibetans I've met have been one of the nicest kindest, most beautiful people I've ever met.

They'd have one amzing country if it wern't being fucked over by the chinese.

I like the idea of mongolia aswell

― Ed, Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Norfolk.

― the pinefox, Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually Monaco seems neato

― Mike Hanle y, Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm with Belgium. Marry me Nathalie.

― Graham, Tuesday, 2 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know our beloved Pinefox tends to parochialism, but this must surely be a joke.

― Robin Carmody, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I wonder what Madonna would make of Mike Hanle y.

― Nick, Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

1960s Morroco

http://www.rimbaud.de/ortonhalliwell.jpeg

― erik, Tuesday, 14 January 2003 21:11 (twenty-three years ago)

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