Countries Closest to South Africa with Exceptions

Excellent quiz. Surprisingly easy though. Lots of freebies once you realize most of the middle east is easily within the range

Maps are not at all useful for calculating – or even making wild guesstimates of – distances (even though in this case, it was the right guess!).

Argentina misses it by only about 200 km

All but Uruguay. I tried Argentina and Chile -- figured if those were no then Uruguay wouldn't work. I should know better by now than to not at least try what I think is unlikely.

yeah gave up on south american countries after I got Brasil.. and Argentina and Chile didnt work haha

Even though I guessed Cyprus early on, I didn't get Greece until the last 5 seconds...I kept getting hung upon Turkey..

I never would have guessed Greece is closer than Turkey.

Probably because of Crete

The Greek island of Gavdos lies to the south of Crete, comprising the southernmost point of Europe.

The Falkland Islands belong to Argentina as much as Taiwan belongs to mainland China. Argentina's land claim is untenable.

The Falkland Islanders are British citizens.

Except the claim is not on the islanders but on the islands, and is far from untenable, as most of the UN countries seem to agree with.

Also, the Taiwan comparison is inadequate, since Taiwan is a sovereign nation, unlike the islands.

They had a referendum, and only three people voted against remaining as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom. I think that's fairly conclusive.

The land claim is only untenable if you make this decisions by emotion rather than fact. They were unsettled, although possibly visited by native Patagonians, before European discovery. The islands were then controlled by Britain and France, the latter of which later surrendered its half to Spain (Spain, not Argentina). Buenos Aires claimed control of Spain’s South Atlantic holdings in 1816 and backed a German born governor, but they were never able to take control from the British.

The only ‘claim’ Argentina has is one of proximity. The islands are approx 300 miles off the coast of the southernmost point of Argentina: by that logic, India could claim Sri Lanka, Morocco the Canary Islands and the USA, the Bahamas (sovereign nation or otherwise is irrelevant if it’s simply a case of one country saying “that island is sort of nearby, therefore it’s ours.”). Apart from that, there were a handful of gauchos and fishermen on the islands. Never had them, couldn’t take them.

Cool quiz. I couldn't visualise it at all though so did really badly!

Kuwait and Uruguay caught me off guard.

I got Uruguay after trying a bunch of other countries, since I figured if Brazil was so in range there had to be something else.

But Kuwait was the last one I remembered.

greece stuned me

"whose territory is geographically closest" (not including actual territories)

That's the point. Sigh.

Nice quiz!

Portugal is also close because of the "Selvagens Islands"