Is the USA the most geographically diverse country in the world? (moving, ranking) - Page 4 - City-Data Forum

drro · 03-22-2014, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hobbesdj

Europe is not a country, but even if it was, the United States and China would still have more climactic diversity. Look at the Koppen Classification map:

http://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/mpe...Koppen_Map.png

According to this, Europe appears to be the least diverse continent.

You appear to have overlooked all the European overseas territories all over the world, which we conquered when other countries were still being inhabited by buffalo's and Indians, making Europe almost by definition the most climatically diverse, ranging from near polar to tropical and everything in between.

415_s2k · 03-22-2014, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drro

You appear to have overlooked all the European overseas territories all over the world, which we conquered when other countries were still being inhabited by buffalo's and Indians, making Europe almost by definition the most climatically diverse, ranging from near polar to tropical and everything in between.

But Europe still is not a country

There were no "European overseas territories;" there were overseas territories that were owned by the Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Belgians, Portugese, etc etc etc. Emphasis on were, i.e. Vietnam, Haiti, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, Cuba, Ethiopia, the Philippines, India, etc etc etc are all now self-governing, autonomous sovereign states.

If you want to go continent-to-continent, Asia has jungles, tundra, desert, high desert, plains, steppes, mountains, all sorts of forests, rainforests... so even still, no, it really isn't!

Ghengis · 03-22-2014, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drro

You appear to have overlooked all the European overseas territories all over the world, which we conquered when other countries were still being inhabited by buffalo's and Indians, making Europe almost by definition the most climatically diverse, ranging from near polar to tropical and everything in between.

right, not to mention all the pictures of different places in the world...in books that are on bookshelves...in Europe!

The Postman · 03-22-2014, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JedlaRoche

US area : 9 629 048 km²
Europe area : 10 180 000 km²
China area : 9 596 961 km²

But I agree we are talking about countries, so Europe doesn't belong here.

Why is Europe more diverse? China has Mt everest, for a start...

The Postman · 03-22-2014, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fusion2

You have to look at the title of the thread which is geographic diversity and not just biodiversity. In this regard of Canada, it is no laggard when it comes to diversity in landscapes, geography and climate. For anyone interested in the geographic and climactic diversity of Canada, these article do a good job displaying Canada's panopoly of geoclimatic regions.

Geography of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Many Geographic Regions of Canada

Clearly anyone who says Canada is uniformly anything uniformly does not understand the country. I would agree it isn't on the same level as the U.S but I just find your post too dismissive and narrowly focused regarding Canada's geoclimatic/geographic diversity.

For its size Canada isn't very diverse imo.

China and then India are the main contenders.

fusion2 · 03-22-2014, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drro

You appear to have overlooked all the European overseas territories all over the world, which we conquered when other countries were still being inhabited by buffalo's and Indians, making Europe almost by definition the most climatically diverse, ranging from near polar to tropical and everything in between.

I'm not sure i'd be proud of 'overseas' territories' thousands of miles away that were 'claimed' hundreds of years ago through nefarious means. Regardless, the further away some Island or territory is from the homeland I think makes less of a case for the geographic/geoclimatic diversity of the mother country.

fusion2 · 03-22-2014, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Postman

For its size Canada isn't very diverse imo.

China and then India are the main contenders.

Mhc1985 · 03-22-2014, 08:53 AM

Canada is for sure geographically diverse. However, it is not as diverse as it could have been inferred for such a huge country. The same may be said about Russia, Brazil and Australia. Although very large countries, in all of them there is a very prevalent natural environment.

Checking the biggest countries of the world - the ones likely to be the most geographically diverse, we have:

1) Russia -> Huge, "homogeneous"
2) Canada -> Huge, "homogeneous"
3) China -> Huge, extremely diverse
4) USA -> Huge, extremely diverse
5) Brazil -> Huge, "homogeneous"
6) Australia -> Huge, "homogeneous"
7) India -> Very Large, very diverse
8) Argentina -> Very Large, very diverse
9) Kazakhstan -> Very Large, "homogeneous"
10) Algeria -> Very Large, "homogeneous"
11) DP Congo -> Very Large, diverse
12) Saudi Arabia -> Very Large, "homogeneous"
13) Mexico -> Large, very diverse
14) Indonesia -> Large, diverse
15) Sudan -> Large, "homogeneous"
16) Lybia -> Large, "homogeneous"
17) Iran -> Large, "very diverse"
18) Mongolia -> Large, "homogeneous"
19) Peru -> Medium-Large, diverse
20) Chad -> Medium-Large, "homogeneous"

Where I put "homogeneous", I mean "not as diverse as one could expect due to its size".

My ranking of Geographic diversity would be:
1) USA
2) China
3) Argentina
4) India
5) Mexico

fusion2 · 03-22-2014, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mhc1985

Canada is for sure geographically diverse. However, it is not as diverse as it could have been inferred for such a huge country. The same may be said about Russia, Brazil and Australia. Although very large countries, in all of them there is a very prevalent natural environment.

Not really the case re Canada - Canada is more than just tundra and the north and One, two or three prevalent natural environments.. If Canada ended at the 55th parallel i'd agree with your observation but it doesn't! Understanding the actual geography of Canada would help. Points of the southern portions of the country reach as far south as the U.S state of California. Areas just north of the U.S 49th parallel are also extremely diverse including a desert, badlands, plains, deciduous forests and of course we have the longest coastline in the world and this along with our already well known mountainous, boreal and arctic/tundra regions. I posted some links of the various landscapes of Canada in an earlier post. You might want to do a more thorough review of it. Heck we even have winegrowing regions in Ontario (Niagara) and B.C the Okanogan valley. While I agree that there are prevalent natural environments (even the U.S has large prevanlent natural enviro's), because of the size of the country and its lat and long breadth it actually has tons of diverse natural environments. You could fit many European countries in landscapes south of the 55th parallel in Canada people don't even know about such as the Alberta Badlands

https://www.google.ca/search?q=briti...lands&tbm=isch

viribusunitis · 03-22-2014, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 415_s2k

there were overseas territories that were owned by the Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Belgians, Portugese, etc etc etc. Emphasis on were, i.e. Vietnam, Haiti, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, Cuba, Ethiopia, the Philippines, India, etc etc etc are all now self-governing, autonomous sovereign states.

Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion, Mayotte, French Polynesia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, [...] are still part of the French Republic.

GB has too many overseas territories to count.

Even the NL still have some tropical islands...

Here is a map with all regions associated with the European Union.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...OMR_map_de.png

Anyway: Since it's only about countries, I'd say that India and China seem to be equally diverse to me.