The World's Weirdest Countries

technically speaking every country on earth is kind of weird every country has their own way of doing their own things making them somewhat unique there are some countries who are very similar to others however like say Qatar and the UAE who share similar cultures values climates and economies then you get other country combinations that couldn't be any more different from each other like say Bangladesh and Iceland there are very few similar ities between these two countries so in this video we'll be taking a look at some of the world's most weird countries Now by weird

we don't mean this in a particularly derogatory way but more in the sense of them being unique and doing things differently so let's start off with a country you probably weren't expecting to be on this list the United Kingdom so why has the UK made this video what makes it so weird well the UK is made up out of four different countries being England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland for people outside of the UK this is rather confusing and bizarre it's kind of like the us having multiple states where they're all ruled by one government

but each state has its own degree of autonomy the four countries within the UK are considered constitute countries which combine together to form one sovereign country this map quite nicely shows the differences between the different naming schemes of the country and region so you have Great Britain which is this single land mass that encompasses England Scotland and Wales you then have the United Kingdom which also includes Northern Ireland and then you have the British Isles which includes everything including the Republic of Ireland which is a separate country completely next up is brunai whose official name

is ngara brunai darus Salam it's a country most people probably haven't even heard of or if they have know very little about the country is absolutely tiny and it's found on the island of Borneo it covers an area of just 5,700 km squared making it the 164th largest on Earth it's one of the few remaining countries with an absolute monarchy meaning its Sultan holds most of the power in the country excluding Singapore the country is by far the richest in the regions in terms of GDP per capita especially for purchasing power parity for this metric

it ranks 12th in the world with 72,000 us the abundance of oil and gas reserves that it has has allowed the government to provide its citizens with strong welfare benefits providing them with a relatively high standard of living the country is also split up into two sections on the island of Borneo its land is completely surrounded by Malaysia as Malaysia owns this part of Borneo the country is not an enclave however as it's not landlocked its northern coast runs along the South China Sea excluding Maybe North Korea and a couple of others arria has to

be one of the most mysterious and unknown countries on the planet apart from being a Northwestern African country is there anything you could tell me about this country well sitting in the Horn of Africa along the Red Sea this country has been colonized by the UK Ethiopia and Italy in 1885 Italy took complete control meaning today you will see Italian inspired architecture around the country what made makes oratoria so unique SL weird is that it's considered to be one of only four countries that are classed as totalitarian countries these are countries where the government asserts

full control over its people it's pretty much the complete opposite of a democracy arria is sometimes known as the North Korea of Africa the country also has involuntary conscription which is where you have to join the military now this isn't unique at all cuz many countries do have this however what makes erria so different is that it applies for both men and women the country also has no official language with many different afro Asiatic languages being spoken there however English was introduced in the 1940s and is used as the defecto working and education language now

it's impossible to make a video about weird strange and unique countries and not mention North Korea North Korea is known as having one of the most brutal regimes in modern history for any form of democracy index or quality of life you'll find North Korea somewhere towards the bottom interestingly in the Democracy index it doesn't actually rank last as that would be Afghanistan followed by Myanmar with North Koreans living under perhaps the tightest government control on Earth although there is no data for this I wonder if it's actually the safest country on Earth for tourists as

if a North Korean was caught committing a crime their sentences are unbelievably brutal I'm not sure how true this is but some sources claim that if you commit certain crimes it's not only you who goes to prison it's your entire family and future Generations whenever you search infrastructure records like say the world's tallest building or the longest bridge for example you will never see North Korea among these rankings that's unless you search for the world's tallest unfinished hotel which is found in pongyang the capital perhaps the weirdest SL most bizarre thing about this country is

that only government approved haircuts are allowed there are 18 for women and 10 for men traveling some 5,000 700 km or so West we arrive in what is sometimes described as the North Korea of Central Asia turkistan turkistan is another country that's under totalitarian control meaning the president has full control of the country and its people and everything they do the country is one of the least visited on Earth and actually classes itself as neutral in terms of world's politics interestingly in 1995 the UN actually granted this official status it's capital city ashgabat is one

of the weirdest capitals on Earth it looks like something from a science fiction movie about simulations from above the city looks kind of perfect it actually sets the world record for the city with the most marbleous buildings at 543 however barely anyone lives or works here the streets are pretty much silent and everything is weirdly Immaculate this city is often compared to nappy da which takes us nicely onto our next country Myanmar unlike the rest of Southeast Asia which are generally well known and welcoming to tourists Myanmar gets very few visitors in comparison this is

mainly due to corruption and the ongoing Coupe that is currently happening at the time of making this video this is the exact reason why it ranks second bottom in the Democracy index the country was once named Burma to which many people still refer to it as today however it name today is Myanmar perhaps the weirdest thing about this country is its new capital city which was built to house millions of people the infrastructure is there but there is a slight problem there are very few people meaning its roads look like this the country borders India

Bangladesh China Lao and Thailand and covers an area of some 676 th000 km squared this makes it the 39th largest on earth and the second largest in Southeast Asia now on the opposite end of the spectrum our next country is anything but large it is in fact the world's smallest country being Vatican City so sometimes you'll see the vatican's name as holy sea holy sea is the universal government of the Catholic church and operates from Vatican City State a sovereign independent territory the pope is the ruler of both Vatican City State and holy sea there

are countless things that make this country weird the fact that it has City in its name being one of them its size also makes it quite strange at just 0.49 km squared it's around four times smaller than Monaco the world's second smallest country and some 42 times smaller than Naru the world's third smallest country the country is also an enclave of Italy Rome specifically meaning it's completely surrounded by Rome and therefore Italy the country is also easily the world's least populated with only around 600 people this is some 17 times lower than the second least

populated country tuvalu the official language of the country is Italian but as holy C uses Latin you will see Latin on ATMs around the country when withdrawing your Euros now listen to this this is nuts in 1998 the Vatican City was the country with the highest murder rate on Earth with 250 six murders per 100,000 people but how on Earth did this come to be well in that year there was a double murder suicide that occurred and as their population is so low the data showed the country is having by far the highest murder rate

for a country of all time for reference in 2022 Jamaica was the highest with 53 murders per 100,000 people next up is Bhutan a Buddhist Kingdom tued away in the Himalayas the country is said to be only one of three carbon negative countries on Earth kind of like North Korea it's hard to travel to Bhutan you have to travel with an official government guide but for very different reasons to North Korea with North Korea this is because they only want to show you what they want you to see whereas with bhan it's more to control

over tourism and preserve their natural geography and culture you need a special visa to visit Bhutan which comes with a heavy daily price however included in that fee is your travel and accommodation as well as your guide in terms of average elevation the country is the highest on Earth at 3,280 M in 1999 the government lifted a ban on television and Internet making Bhutan one of the last countries in the world to introduce television the country also sees its success based on GNH which is gross national happiness rather than GDP ironically the country does not

participate in the world happiness report yearly index rank ings and finally let's finish off with a country we've already mentioned in this video Naru ranking as the third smallest by both size and population it's fair to say that most people including myself know very little about this country the country is kind of shaped like a potato it is an island country found in the Pacific Ocean not far from the equator line it is part of Micronesia now Naru once had some of the highest quality of phosphate on Earth it was the country's only export this

actually made the people of the country very wealthy however now that the resources have depleted it is now one of the poorest the country's official languages are Narin which is an austronesian language spoken only here as well as English the currency of the country is the Aussie dollar the country is known for having no official capital city and its people are some of the most obese on the planet the country's national sport is weightlifting but the most popular is Australian Rules Football so there we have it some of the countries which could be described as

the weirdest or perhaps most unique on Earth if you can think of any others please do let us know in the comments below for more geography content like And subscribe