Tag: #FOWC

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X is for Xinjiang

Not a sovereign state (country), Xinjiang is still huge, bigger than Texas, California, Nevada, and Minnesota combined. Wikipedia photo.

Fast Facts

  • Named for: The full name is the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
  • Capital: Ürümqi
  • Long/Lat: 41 N/85 E, about 13 hours or 7000 mi from CV to the Taklmakan Desert, going west.
  • Population: 25,890,000 or 1.3 million CVs
  • Size: 642,000 sq mi or 10x CVs
  • Avg temp in April: 55 F/15 C (mountainous)
  • Median household income: $10,000 GDP/per capita but income???
  • Ethnicity: 44% Uygur/42% Han
  • Main industries: Agriculture, mining for natural resources

At the end of the alphabet, there seem to be a lot of wiggling and hedging. I am chagrined that I had to include non-UN members, countries not really independent, and now this X. Xinjiang is not a country–not even disputed as a country–but simply a region within China. There is a dispute, but we’ll get to that. It’s simply that there are no countries beginning with an “X,” so either it was live with this region, skip the letter, spell names in Catalan (which uses X), or choose a different theme. I’ll take the penalty point and move on.

At over 640,000 sq mi, Xinjiang would be the 16th largest country in the world. It’s bigger than Texas, California, Nevada, and Minnesota combined. At nearly 26 million people, it’s the 60th largest in population, which is more people than Florida. If it were a country, it would dwarf the rest of the Small Countries on my list. (I wonder if it would be bigger than all combined–let’s see, if I put them all in a spreadsheet to add their populations and …nahhh.)

However, Xinjiang has an interesting status. It was designated as the autonomous region of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) back in 1955. A brisk walk through the history before and after that will remind us of what boundary states are about, even those giant regions within a giant country.

Historically, Xinjiang spread across a wide basin–the Tarim basin–ringed by a series of mountains, Tian Shan to the north and Kunlun to the south. Scholars are careful to note that Xinjiang was not simply a partial stop on the Silk Road, but the road passed through it, which was its claim to worldwide fame.

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W is for Western Sahara

Fast Facts

  • Named for: Part of the Sahara. The Western part.
  • Capital: hard to say
  • Long/Lat: 25 N/13 W, 6000 miles and 13 hours east of Castro Valley
  • Population: 565,000 or 8.5 CVs
  • Size: 105,000 sq mi or 5800 CVs (sparsely populated)
  • Avg temp in April: 77 F/25 C
  • Median household income: GDP per capita is $2,500 but doesn’t necessarily go to the locals.
  • Ethnicity: Berbers
  • Main industries: Fishing. Phosphates. Sustainable energy if Morocco could get in there and build the wind farms.

Western Sahara thinks itself a country. Morocco doesn’t. The border is disputed, as in is there even a border? The indigenous people, the Sahrawis of Western Sahara, think so. The Moroccan don’t, which is why they’ve laid berms–land mines–along one section. We’re in “W” and the world is still cray cray.

Today, technically, Western Sahara is not a country, although it was once. When I was in the 6th grade and memorizing the countries of Africa (see my A-Z inaugural post), it was called Spanish Sahara. Very colonizer-forward. That’s the legacy, of Africa being carved up by the Europeans, after the Islamic Empire carved up Europe and North Africa, and after the Romans carved up Europe, Africa, and Asia, and after Alexander carved up… A country’s borders have always been about the weaponry and the exploitable resources within.

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U is for Uruguay

Uruguay on the southeast coast of South America, nestled between Brazil and Argentina. Graphic from worldatlas.

Fast Facts

  • Named for: The full name is the Oriental Republic of Uruguay because it is the country called “bird-river” east of the “bird-river” river. Is that River cubed?
  • Capital: Montevideo
  • Long/Lat: 34.5 S/56.1 E, 6,000 miles east of Castro Valley, 10 hours.
  • Population: 3.5 million or 53 Castro Valleys
  • Size: 68,000 sq mi or 3700 Castro Valleys
  • Avg temp in April: 75 F/22 C, getting cooler since winter is coming in June
  • Median income: $25,000 annual
  • Ethnicity: 86% white, 10% Black, 6% indigenous (White ~ probably mixed)
  • Main industries: Cattle & Sheep, telecom, energy production

Uruguay is the South American country that I always forget. It’s neither land-locked nor mountainous, like Paraguay or Bolivia. It wasn’t the site of ancient pyramids or the discovery of the potato, like Peru. It’s just hanging out there between those giants, Brazil and Argentina. As we’ve seen with many of these small countries, they often act as a buffer zone, a between area that is influenced by its giant neighbors.

The early Uruguay people included extensive settlements built by the Charrúa, Chaná, and Guaraní tribes, whose villages dated back at least 13,000 years. There are barrows called tumuli sprinkled throughout the country, which has rolling hills and greenery. The people lived in lands of plenty, but lacking gold or ores which Europeans sought. When the Spanish and Portuguese came–with they both did–the colonizers focused more on Brazil and Argentina.

Still, they did establish colonies in Uruguay. The first European to get credit was Juan Díaz de Solís. Curiously, there are debates about whether he was Spanish or Portuguese; both countries claim him and spell his name two different ways. One story also suggests that when his ship left home, his wife was found dead, so maybe he was using an alias.

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