World Rankings........Who do you pick?

[yakstorm]

LOL, I haven't lost it yet.....

 

[griff]

Technically its not though.

Yes for the purposes of sport, we count it as its own country because of its long history and culture as an independent entity, but it is under the list of 'official nations of the world' not one of the them.

I was actually recently looking at official lists as ammunition for my argument that the Maori is not a country and found this:

From http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]!OpenDocument

....
2 North-West Europe  

   
  21 United Kingdom  
   2101 Channel Islands  
   2102 England  
   2103 Isle of Man  
   2104 Northern Ireland  
   2105 Scotland  
   2106 Wales

  
  22 Ireland  
   2201 Ireland

  
  23 Western Europe  
   2301 Austria  
   2302 Belgium  
   2303 France  
   2304 Germany  
   2305 Liechtenstein  
   2306 Luxembourg  
   2307 Monaco  
   2308 Netherlands  
   2311 Switzerland

  
  24 Northern Europe  
   2401 Denmark  
   2402 Faeroe Islands  
   2403 Finland  
   2404 Greenland  
   2405 Iceland  
   2406 Norway  
   2407 Sweden  


 3 Southern and Eastern Europe  

   
  31 Southern Europe  
   3101 Andorra  
   3102 Gibraltar  
   3103 Holy See
...

So England is on the official list of countries.

 

[AuckMel]

Hmmm. The United Nations have it the other way around.

http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html

So does,

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa091399.htm

I think your argument is falling of the rails, griff.

 

[ripper]

Aussie C team?? GEAT OVER IT LOSER!! Gee im sick of you aussies going on and on and on about that, its not our fault your players are soft and cant handle rep footy, AND its not everybodys fault that your players dont have enough pride to play for their country and rather go on holiday or not play at all......they are just greedy and care about there club money.......hence the Roosters.

Shouldnt you be worried about NZ they put a B side on and they thrashed you?

Just one tinnsy weeny problem with you hypothesis, IM A KIWI

 

[griff]

Hmmm. The United Nations have it the other way around.

http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html

So does,

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa091399.htm

I think your argument is falling of the rails, griff.

Not at all.

As I said in the other thread, being a country is not about having a seat in the United Nations.

You can be a country without being a member of the UN. Up until about a year ago, Switzerland was not a member of the UN. But they were still a country. The Holy See is still not a member of the UN.

Ukraine and Russia were both founding members of the UN, even when both were part of the larger political unit of the USSR. So although one sovereign political unit, United Kingdom, has a single seat in the UN, another sovereign political unit, USSR, had the nations that made it up maintaining separate seats.

The US state department's list of countries - from where the About page gets its list - reflects nations as recognised by the US government. This is to do with foreign policy and diplomatic relations rather than anything else.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has a similar list. These lists are lists of states that are dealt with economically and diplomatically rather than countries.

A country is not necessarily a sovereign nation state. The UK is a sovereign nation state, England is a country.

The best definition is from the standard classification of countries:

Although most people have an intuitive understanding of what constitutes a country, precise definition of the concept is difficult given the differing levels of sovereignty and independence of many of the world's countries. The term countries appears in the classification title and is used throughout this document to describe the base-level units (that is, the categories at the most detailed level of the classification), even though not all of the units classified are fully independent countries. The base-level units of the classification include:

fully independent countries (sovereign nation states);

administrative subdivisions of the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (The United Kingdom is represented at the second (minor group) level of the classification);

external territories and dependencies of independent countries. These units are discrete geographic areas with varying degrees of political and economic autonomy. In general, they are physically isolated from the country to which they are dependent, for example, Falkland Islands, Martinique;

units which are recognised geographic areas, the ownership or control of which is in dispute, for example, Gaza Strip and West Bank; and

residual categories (not elsewhere classified (nec) categories) comprised of geographic areas which are not separately identified in the classification and which are not part of one of the separately identified base-level units. For example, Polynesia (excludes Hawaii), nec, which contains a number of minor islands which are not part of any of the separately identified country units of the Minor Group Polynesia (excludes Hawaii).

 

[blaine train]

AND its not everybodys fault that your players dont have enough pride to play for their country and rather go on holiday or not play at all......they are just greedy and care about there club money.......hence the Roosters.

players would of madee money out of the tour. the reason why they are injured is because they put everything into club games every week and the standard over here is much higher so its tougher and harder where as your comp is slower and softer. national pride? thats why alot of players didnt go because they didnt want to let australia down. and isnt that why aus won? most of their players were tired and injured but they still tried their hearts out for their country. think before you post [-X