A fork of Rural Dictionary
tiny country that is basically just an independent city surrounded by italy. its people are ethnic italians, but when italy was unified in the 1870s, san marino refused to join. it's actually been an independent nation since 301 AD. nowadays, they are famous for producing special coins and postage stamps marketed directly at tourists.
san marino has a F-1 race ever year.
tiny country in the pacific made up of hundreds of islands. a british sailor named marshall founded the place for westerners, but the germans gained the islands in the 1800s. japan basically used it as 1 giant military base during wwii, and it became a us mandate after the war. it gained independence only 25 years ago, after the us grew tired of using it as 1 big nuke testing ground.
they grow coconuts on the marshall islands
mozambique is a country in africa. it was a long time posession of portugal, but was basically owned through most of the 1800s and early 1900s by a corpoartion known as the nissa company. this organization, of course, ran mozambique into the ground. portugal held on this place until their own upheaval in the 1970s. since then, mozambique has been typical africa with coups, civil wars, aids, and poverty.
mozambique is trying to fix it's economy.
palau is a tiny island nation in the pacific, with a population of only about 20,000 people. it was colonized by various powers between the 1600s and late 20th century, including the Spanish, Germans, British, Japanese, and Americans. however, no foreign power really did anything to help or harm the region. a huge WWII battle occured here, and following the end of the war, the US was put in charge of the region. palau refused to join the country of micronesia when it was formed in the 1970s. after political chaos, it finally became independent in 1994.
yemen is a middle eastern nation that isn't wealthy because it lacks oil. the nation was once part of the old ottoman empire. after wwi, the the northern part became an independent faux republic, while the south remained a british colony. south yemen became independent in the '60s as a communist state. they united in 1990 and have been a country filled with drought, civil war, and political corruption ever since. its close distance to africa has lead to vicitms of wars in both the mid east and africa fleeing back and forth between the 2 continents through yemen.
in yemen, people chew qat to get high.
africa's only wealthy country, it's made up of a number of tiny islands spread out over the indian ocean. the portuguese, british, and french all came here to trade (and conquer). in the 1970s, it became independent and drew up a constitution guaranteeing a one party state. 15 years later, a coup changed that. now this nation is doing ok because of tourism and fishing. and it's a good tax haven too. the swiss love to put their money here.
seychelles has a pretty big divide between rich and poor, but for an african country, it's doing damn good.
a nation in northern africa along the medditeranian. most of its people live along the coast, as the interior is as a barren desert. inhabited by people of berber decent, it had a history of piracy (the barbary coast). in the 1800s, the french colonized this place and a very very bloody war for independence occured in the 1950s. the democratic government has had problems since then, including assassinations, coups, single party rule, and terrorism. while the nation currently elects its leaders in what are considered free elections, its an open secret that politicians are subsurviant to miliatry leaders.
algeria's capital is algeiers.