Is the USA the most geographically diverse country in the world? (live, title)
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Outside the 50 biggest countries in the world... I think Ecuador is the winner.
I agree that Ecuador definitely is high on the list of smaller countries. I would also add Israel to the smaller countries list as it has skiing in the north and water sports in the south all during the winter months.
What hurts America is much of the lower 48's interior is plains and farmland. So even though it has diverse landscapes your typical worldly person would claim its not diverse compared to a country like Europe for that reason.
But that flatness is itself indicative of diversity. Where in the "country" of Europe (outside Russia) can you travel for 1,000 miles without encountering a single hill?
Since the USA is the only country left in the world that still claims far-flung non-contiguous territory
France and the UK do too.
France's possessions in particular are very diverse indeed, ranging as they do from a chunk of equatorial jungle, to a Polynesian archipelago, to a sub-Antarctic penguin colony (Kerguelen). And the UK still claims the Falkland and Virgin Islands, among others.
Definitely not Canada, which is uniformly cold across the entire country, and lacks a plethora of habitable climates commonly found in other large countries. But certainly China. Here is a list of the world's "mega diverse" countries based on biodiversity:
Well, there are far more large amounts of diversity of animals and plants in the tropics compared to cold areas which can support less life, so a country with a large amount of area in the tropics will be diverse.
It seems to have every climate and landform you can think of- from the deserts of the southwest, the plains, forests, mountains, tundras in Alaska, tropical rain forests in Hawaii, etc. Even when you take out Alaska and Hawaii, it's still incredibly diverse. Southern Florida is tropical, then we have the snowy mountain tundras elsewhere.
I feel like the other countries that may give it a run for its money is Canada, China, and Australia. But Canada doesn't have anything tropical and I don't know a whole lot about the others.
What do you think?
how can you short list Canada and Australia ?
Canada is too cold and with no region which is close to sub tropical and Australia is far too dry and has no region which is remotely cold , frankly , Australia for its size is incredibly lacking in geographic and climatic diversity
new Zealand is very diverse for its size , the far north is sub tropical while parts of the south island are really cold in winter and the country has a decent skiing industry , no country in Europe would qualify as they are too small or temperate for the most part
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