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Out of 4 nations in the Americas, the smallest country (Colombia) will only reach 50 million this year thanks to the influx of Venezuelans.
Also by area it's bigger than all the nations in Asia bar Indonesia, Iran, India & China and Africa bar DR Congo (same size as S.Africa) and over twice as big than any nation in Europe except trans-continental Russia.
The Americas is just not as populated as much of the world.
Interesting list, I had no idea Cochin-China was a real country! Growing up I heard this all the time but I thought it was made up for rhyming effect.
In Spanish instead of saying "From here to Timbuktu", the phrase "De aquà hasta la Cochinchina" is used to convey the same meaning. Lol - go figure.
"Cochin-China" was goes back to 1516, when Portuguese traders sailing from Malacca landed in Da Nang.
They named the area ,"Cochin-China", borrowing the first part from the Malay Kuchi, which referred to all of Vietnam, and which in turn derived from the Chinese Jiāozhǐ, pronounced Giao Chỉ in Vietnam.They appended the "China" specifier to distinguish the area from the city and the princely state of Cochin in India, their first headquarters in the Malabar Coast.
Timbuktoo is a much older city of immense wealth established in the 11th century. European attempts to reach the city in the middle ages failed because no Arabs would guide them across the Sahara desert. Although it was known for hundreds of years as an exotic distant city, the particular phrase did not develop until the 19th century.
Like your story with Cochinchina, many English speakers are surprised that Timbuktu is a real place, as many English speakers simply assumed it was a rhyme.
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