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Small Countries A-Z

I like big globes and I cannot lie. Still can’t remember the capital of Uganda, though. Kajmeister photo of Kajmeister.

Somehow, I missed the memo on Nunavut, and my globe ended up broken. However, there is a silver lining. We all get to learn some geography.

During April 2026, I completed an A-Z blog post challenge and in this post I would like to share the post links and tell the story of why I chose this theme. As a quick intro, let me note that the A-Z challenge, created in 2010 by J. Lenni Dorner and friends, encourages bloggers to write 26 posts using letters of the alphabet. People interpret this different ways, but my approach has been to pick a single theme, then write the posts daily during the month of April. The hard part is always Q, J, Z, and X. I cheated on X; I’ll warn you in advance.

I wasn’t sure if I was up to the challenge for this, my seventh year in a row. I learned a lot from previous years, and it kick-started a book-writing career for me: Olympics, Accounting, Silk Road, didn’t we have fun on Ancient Inventions in 2025? You can even peruse prior years in my top menu, under “Books & A to Z.” This year time was scarce; I was partly doing people’s taxes, writing a book, and then cruising around the Panama Canal. I decided, nevertheless, to take the plunge, pledged to shorten them, and keep them thematic: Small Countries.

Who could resist writing about Panama while going through Panama?

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Z is for Zimbabwe

Fast Facts

  • Named for: Dzimba-dza-mabwe, houses of stone.
  • Capital: Harare
  • Long/Lat: 17.5 S/31.0 E about 20 hours, 13,000 miles east of Castro Valley.
  • Population: 17.2 million, 260 Castro Valleys
  • Size: 150,000 sq mi, 8000 Castro Valleys
  • Avg temp in April: 75 F/24 C
  • Median household income: $1,700 annually
  • Ethnicity: 99.6% Black African
  • Main industries: Platinum, tourism, trade (with South Africa)

We made it! It’s the end of the month and the end of the alphabet. There are only two countries that start with Z (Zanzibar is not a country–keep on learning!). Ironically, those two countries are next to each other. But Zimbabwe is just a little bit older than Zambia, at least in terms of human development, and I found its origin stories a trifle more compelling. Half a million years old is nothing to sneeze at.

Zimbabwe has continually reinvented itself, although that has been one of the through-lines uncovered for many of these A-Z Small Countries. Even the indigenous people are made up of many different people, who have swept in and out, looking for promising things to eat or trade. Empires, kingdoms, usurpers, rebels, leaders in prosperity and strife, new independence which is hard to hold on to: these are the themes of Zimbabwe. Good times attract more strife. Lather, rinse, repeat. All part of the Great Wheel and the long story.

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Y is for Yemen

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not. And King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.

(I Kings 10 v.1-13)
Yemeni/Saban woman holding a sheaf of wheat. Tombstone carving. Wikimedia

She came up out of the desert, perfumed and oiled with the spices of her land, draped in pearls and precious gems, carried by a dozen muscular men who put her down gently as a feather. Although she bowed to grant him his due, in his kingdom, he took her hand and bowed his head in return, as she was also a great ruler, not just of a fine city but also of the whole of the legendary Saba to the south, spanning desert, water, and vast fields. They say the gardens flourished there, behind great walls with strange carvings that spoke of the reign of even older, mightier kings, of plagues, and of uprisings crushed like the flower of their incense trees.

Fast Facts

  • Named for: Arabic, either yamn, “blessed” or ymn, “to the right of Mecca.
  • Capital: Sanaa
  • Long/Lat: 15.2 N/44.1 E, 8900 miles or 19 hours east of Castro Valley
  • Population: 32.7 million or 48 CVs
  • Size: 176,000 sq mi or 1000 CVs
  • Avg temp in April: 79 F/26 C
  • Median household income: $12-15,000
  • Ethnicity: 93% Arab/2% Somali
  • Main industries: Oil, sorghum, qat. The region is too unstable to harvest much frankincense or myrrh, though Yemen remains a key source.

Yemen is another “only” country in Arabia–the only “Y”–just as Oman and Qatar were the only “O” and “Q.” Is there something about this place that gives rise to unique names, or is it just the language?

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