You're going to have trouble defining what is a country more than a couple of centuries back anyway. They might not be like a country today, but they have as much legitimacy as say, an isolated italian monestary community in the 4th century.
I just posted it because it's really cool anyway and sort of related to the topic.
You're going to have trouble defining what is a country more than a couple of centuries back anyway. They might not be like a country today, but they have as much legitimacy as say, an isolated italian monestary community in the 4th century.
I just posted it because it's really cool anyway and sort of related to the topic.
Oh it's cool, cool enough for me to waste more than an hour today on wiki looking over the pages on the uncontacted peoples like the Sentinelese. But San Marino easily has the longest continuity in terms similar to our modern conception of statehood, and other than them you really aren't going to find a state that pre-dates the advent of the Westphalian system. The UK, possibly Iceland and Denmark, maybe a few other microstates like Andorra and Leichtenstein. But that's it.
The Sentinelese are quite possibly the oldest unique culture on the planet - according to wiki they're believed to date back 60,000 years to the original homo sapiens migration out of Africa, though I have no idea how anyone could possibly prove that - but they certainly aren't a country. Even forgeting the somewhat odd criteria in the OP.
Oldest country? Greece, created Democracy and is considered the craddle of western civilization, and guess what..still going Democracy. Athens is also one of the oldest, if not the oldest city in the world, gotta respect those greeks.
Oldest country? Greece, created Democracy and is considered the craddle of western civilization, and guess what..still going Democracy. Athens is also one of the oldest, if not the oldest city in the world, gotta respect those greeks.
... you're aware there was a few steps in between, right? And less importantly, that even if Greece were the oldest democracy (presumably you meant Athens here), that doesn't necessarily make it the oldest country. (And less-less importantly, that Athenian democracy is almost nothing like modern liberal constitutional democratic republicanism.)
Oldest country? Greece, created Democracy and is considered the craddle of western civilization, and guess what..still going Democracy. Athens is also one of the oldest, if not the oldest city in the world, gotta respect those greeks.
It also spent a couple of thousand years dominated by foreign powers, was never a unified independent nation until the 19th century, and isn't even the oldest nation by the ridiculous criteria you offer here; China or Egypt would be. Not to mention the fact that Damascus is the oldest continually inhabited cty in the world, not Athens, and that Jericho is far older than both if you don't care about continuous inhabitation.
Right, if you add in Revolution and Civil Wars, I would still say Sweden.
Looking at it's history, it does not look like it has ever suffered a Civil War or Revolution like that of the English or French since perhaps the Kalmer Union. So that's 477 years of continuous independent government.
Yeah i think sweden and america are atop the list. Egypt wouldnt make it because it was recently in the twentieth century controlled by the british, and had been for several decades i believe. China wouldnt because of the whole civil war business after world war 2.
As previously discussed, the UK goes all the way back to 1688 and the Glorious Revolution, if you're being strict, or to the Restoration in 1660 if not. That's still a long way before the United States.
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