What if Central America United Today?

So, before I start I would like thank BigGeographyGuy for giving me the idea to make this quiz. Ok, now let's start!

The Central American region comprises of 7 fairly similar countries in between North and South America. These nations are fairly similar when it comes to culture and identity. In this blog I thought it would be interesting to see what could happen if the Central American nations united and became the Central American Union.

The first thing that we need to think about a is the population and land that it would control. First, 7 countries will make up this region: Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. This, however would still be a fairly small country, if you take into consideration how large these countries actually are.

In total the United Central American Union would have an area of 202,230 sq miles, which would make it the 51st largest country in the world, above Thailand (198,117 sq miles), but behind the 50th place contender Yemen (203,850 sq miles).

The population of a united Central America would be reasonably fair, with a population of 53,154,494 28th place, or 0.67% of the world's population. A united Central America's population would be above South Korea (51,269,185), but not to far behind Kenya (53,771,296). The three most populous countries in the Central American Union would be Guatemala (17,915,568), Honduras (9,904,607), and Nicaragua (6,624,554). Therefore Guatemala represents 33.7% of the population.

A united Central America will hold some decent cities, with lots to show. A capital for the new country would be a very tough choice as many cities would be possible, but the most likely would be either Guatemala City, or Panama City, As Guatemala City would be the largest city with a population of 2,564,900, and Panama City would have the largest port and canal system. Here would be the top 10 cities of a united Central America:

The economy of this nation would be fairly high and would bring the country to 50th place for Nominal GDP with a GDP of $253.56 Billion, ahead of New Zealand ($243.33 Billion) and Peru ($225.91 Billion), but behind Portugal ($257.39 Billion) and Czech Republic ($276.10 Billion). Guatemala would be the largest contributor for this amount, accounting for 30% of it.

The Nominal GDP Per Capita is quite low at $6,057. This would be enough to place it with the 110th highest living standards in the world, higher than the living standards in Albania ($5,991) and Colombia ($5,753), but slightly more impoverished than Belarus ($6,487) and Macedonia ($6,657).

The next topic we need to think about is what the main religious, ethnic and linguistic groups a united Central America would have.

Starting with religion, Roman Catholicism would be by far the most practiced religion with around 80% of people practicing the religion, Protestantism would follow with 19.5% of Central Americans practicing the religion. The final 0.5% would be made up of Atheists and Folk Religionists.

Now focusing on ethnic groups, most people would be Mestizo or mixed Amerindian-European, making up 80% of the population while some are from greater European or Black African ancestry. while some minorities are Asians and mixed Afro-Amerindians.

Linguistic groups in Central America are very diverse. Spanish would be by far the most spoken language with 81% of the population speaking Spanish. Following would be English with 17% speaking it. The remaining 1% of people would speak mayan or indigenous languages.

Although I am not sure what the official language(s) would be, I predict Spanish and English would be the official languages of a united Central America.

The last thing we need to thing about is the military of a united Central America. The union would posses 286,730 troops in total ranking a united Central America in 40th place, ahead of Portugal (286,450) and Armenia (259,100), but behind Syria (292,500) and Japan (316,890).

The Military budget would stand at a small $1.001 billion, this would be enough to give the new nation 80th place, ahead of Yemen ($1.000 billion) and Uganda ($0.930 billion), but just shy of Kenya ($1.100 billion) and Serbia ($1.140 billion).

One downside to the military would be that a united Central America wouldn't have any nuclear weapons, but other than that the Central American Union would probably have a decently strong military

Overall, if it were to unite today, the Central American Union would be a Latin American powerhouse. But despite this, it would face many problems and challenges. Sooner or later, it would probably collapse, and that would be the end of that. Anywase, I hope you like my blog, and a big thank you to BigGeographyGuy for inspiring me to do this quiz! Have a great day!!