Km²
|
Country
|
11,351,000
|
United States
|
10,187,000
|
France
|
9,025,000
|
Australia
|
7,567,000
|
Russia
|
6,806,000
|
United Kingdom
|
6,159,000
|
Indonesia
|
5,599,000
|
Canada
|
4,479,000
|
Japan
|
4,421,000
|
New Zealand
|
3,831,000
|
Brazil
|
|
Km²
|
Country
|
3,682,000
|
Chile
|
3,442,000
|
Kiribati
|
3,269,000
|
Mexico
|
2,996,000
|
F. S. Micronesia
|
2,551,000
|
Denmark
|
2,402,000
|
Papua New Guinea
|
2,385,000
|
Norway
|
2,305,000
|
India
|
1,991,000
|
Marshall Islands
|
1,727,000
|
Portugal
|
|
The UK, on the other hand, conveniently stops doing independence referendums the second they have other plans for the are (cough cough BIOT).
The reality is that China is trying to annex more territory because the government wants more power. I do not blame any government for wanting more power, but that does not mean they automatically "deserve" to get that power. If China cooperated with any of the other countries in the region ever they might be able to negotiate a border that could satisfy both sides (to some degree) without people complaining. You don't need brainwashing to notice that China does not do this.
China also considers America to be the US.
To be honest, I'm pretty sure most of the world thinks this way - it's mostly Latin America that has an issue with it.
In fact, the US pretty much just stole its name (and some of its government) idea from the Netherlands (and the united provinces thereof), which, prior to their borders being finalized, was a term generally used to refer to Belgium and sometimes Luxembourg (and bits of France and possibly Germany) as well as the territory now in the Netherlands. In English we now try to get around this problem by using Netherlands to mean the one in the country and "The Low Countries" to mean the other one. But "Netherlands" is just an anglicized version of the Dutch for "The Low Countries". So this solution only works by fudging it around awkwardly.
So guess what? This happens a lot. Same reason Saint Vincent insists on putting "and the Grenadines" in their name, or Greece threw a hissy fit about North Macedonia, or there are 2 Congos, or Dominicans are from 2 places or about a dozen other extant examples.
And basically we don't.
America existed before the country.
That is to say, when you call someone American in Chinese, you're going to say they're "America Country"-ese, which is a completely different word than "America continent"-ese.
Long story short, this isn't an argument in Chinese, because they have different words for the 2.
I'm also surprised that France has so much more than Britain, if overseas territories are included. Are there so many overseas French territories? Or do they just cover more ocean space?
Also, no wonder France continues to be such a player on the world scene!
I made a quiz with a question relevant to this overall quiz. My discovery of the term EEZ, as it relates to a question on the quiz that I made, was very eye-opening.
For anybody interested...
https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/1346973/11-sovereign-states-of-lesser-oceania-quiz-usa-centric