Infrequently Asked Questions about Statoids

The data listed here come from the book "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries", by Gwillim Law. Updates to the book, as posted on this site, have been taken into account.

Q. What are the largest states and provinces in the world, in terms of population?

A. This table shows all of the statoids (for my definition of statoid, see What are Statoids?) with a listed population over 40,000,000. Bear in mind that the data are not really comparable, because they come from censuses taken in different years.

Statoid Country Population Uttar Pradesh India 199,812,341 Maharashtra India 112,374,333 Guangdong China 104,303,132 Bihar India 104,099,452 Shandong China 95,793,065 Henan China 94,023,567 West Bengal India 91,276,115 Andhra Pradesh India 84,580,777 Sichuan China 80,418,200 Jiangsu China 78,659,903 Punjab Pakistan 73,621,290 Madhya Pradesh India 72,626,809 Tamil Nadu India 72,147,030 Hebei China 71,854,202 Rajasthan India 68,548,437 Hunan China 65,683,722 Karnataka India 61,095,297 Gujarat India 60,439,692 Anhui China 59,500,510 Hubei China 57,237,740 Zhejiang China 54,426,891 Dhaka Bangladesh 47,424,418 Guangxi Zhuang China 46,026,629 Yunnan China 45,966,239 Jiangxi China 44,567,475 Liaoning China 43,746,323 Jawa Barat Indonesia 43,053,732 Odisha India 41,974,218 São Paulo Brazil 41,262,199

Q. What are the largest states and provinces in the world, in terms of area?

A. This table shows all of the statoids with a listed area over 750,000 km.².

Statoid Country Area(km.²) Sakha Russia 3,103,200 Western Australia Australia 2,527,621 Krasnoyarsk Russia 2,277,800 Nunavut Canada 2,093,190 Xinjiang Uygur China 1,743,441 Queensland Australia 1,736,587 Amazonas Brazil 1,559,159 Quebec Canada 1,542,056 Alaska United States 1,530,700 Northern Territory Australia 1,356,170 Northwest Territories Canada 1,346,106 Pará Brazil 1,247,955 Nei Mongol China 1,181,104 Xizang China 1,178,577 Ontario Canada 1,076,395 South Australia Australia 984,377 Unorganized Greenland 972,000 British Columbia Canada 944,735 Mato Grosso Brazil 903,366 New South Wales Australia 801,425 Irkutsk Russia 767,900 Khabarovsk Russia 752,600 Yamal-Nenets Russia 750,300

Q. What are the smallest states and provinces in the world, in terms of population? area?

A. I prefer not to get into questions like this one. The smallest are so nearly equal that their rankings are very unstable. They can be upset by a new census, a different statistical method for estimating populations, a change in the rules for calculating areas (include inland water areas? coastal waters? how far out? at high tide or low?), or a different criterion for what constitutes a statoid. Note that several statoids, mostly in the Antarctic region, are listed as uninhabited, although scientific or military personnel spend time there in rotation. I will mention that the country of least area in the ISO 3166-1 standard is Vatican City, with a territory of 0.44 km.².

Q. What are the most densely populated states and provinces in the world?

A. This table shows the statoids with a population density of over 20,000 people per square kilometer. Obviously, statoids whose population or area were not available couldn't be listed. Also, roundoff errors might be fairly significant when the area figures are small.

Statoid Country Population Area(km.²) Density Kwun Tong Hong Kong 622,152 11 56,559 Macau Macau 469,009 9 52,112 Wong Tai Sin Hong Kong 420,183 9 46,687 Yau Tsim Mong Hong Kong 307,878 7 43,983 Sham Shui Po Hong Kong 380,855 9 42,317 Kowloon City Hong Kong 377,351 10 37,735 Al Qahirah Egypt 7,786,640 214 36,386 Eastern Hong Kong 588,094 19 30,952 Kwai Tsing Hong Kong 511,167 23 22,225 Beirut Lebanon 390,503 18 21,695 Ville de Paris France 2,268,265 105 21,603 Central and Western Hong Kong 251,519 12 20,960

Q. What are the least densely populated states and provinces in the world?

A. This table shows the inhabited statoids with the lowest density, with the same caveats as the previous table. Also note the answer to the question about smallest states and provinces.

Statoid Country Population Area(km.²) Density Unorganized Greenland 243 972,000 0.0003 Kerguelen French Southern Terr. 80 7,215 0.0111 Nunavut Canada 31,906 2,093,190 0.0152 Qaasuitsup Greenland 17,679 660,000 0.0268 Northwest Territories Canada 41,462 1,346,106 0.0308 Sermersooq Greenland 20,954 635,600 0.0330 Svalbard Svalbard and Jan Mayen 2,481 62,049 0.0400 Crozet Archipelago French Southern Terr. 30 505 0.0594 Yukon Canada 33,897 482,443 0.0703 Chukot Russia 53,824 737,700 0.0730 Qeqqata Greenland 9,686 115,500 0.0839 Alto Paraguay Paraguay 11,587 82,349 0.1407 Northern Territory Australia 192,898 1,356,170 0.1422 Borkou Chad 97,251 600,350 0.1620 Illizi Algeria 52,333 284,618 0.1839

Q. Which countries have the most statoids?

A. The Statoids site lists 200 divisions of the United Kingdom, 119 divisions for Latvia, 112 divisions for Uganda, 96 departments for France, 84 municipalities for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and 83 "federal subjects" for Russia.

Q. Are there any statoids whose names are palindromes (spelled the same backwards and forwards)?

A. Yes, there are eight. (Accents are usually ignored in word puzzles of this sort.) They are: Hajjah, Yemen; Karak, Jordan; Matam, Senegal (the latest addition); Nan, Thailand; Neuquén, Argentina; Oio, Guinea-Bissau; Oruro, Bolivia; and Oyo, Nigeria.

Q. What statoids come first and last in alphabetical order?

A.

First Last Aakkar, Lebanon Zrnovci, Macedonia A`ana, Samoa Zug, Switzerland Aargau, Switzerland Zuid-Holland, Netherlands Aberdeen, United Kingdom Zulia, Venezuela Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom Zurich, Switzerland

Q. What is the most common name for a statoid?

A. Currently there are thirteen named Central. They are in Bahrain, Botswana, Fiji, Ghana, Kenya, Maldives, Malta, Nepal, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Solomon Islands, Togo, and Zambia. The runner-up is Western, with eleven occurrences: American Samoa, Egypt, Fiji, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, and Zambia. Note that this counts the English form of the names; the local name may be the equivalent in another language. Excluding compass points, the most common names are Saint Andrew and Saint John, with six each. If San Juan is merged with Saint John, the total goes up to nine, but its tied with the total for Saint Peter, Saint-Pierre, and San Pedro. Excluding compass points and saints names, the most common name is Amazonas, with four occurrences.

Q. How about capitals? What is the most common capital name?

A. First, bear in mind that the same city can be the capital, or administrative center, of more than one statoid. In cases like that, I only count unique cities. There are three statoids capitals with each of these names: Georgetown, Hamilton, Kingston, La Paz, Mérida, Saint-Pierre, San Fernando, Trujillo, and Victoria.

If you want to split hairs, though, there are quite a few cities, especially in Latin America, that have an informal and a formal name. One of them is San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela. I didn't count it as a match, because I was using only formal names. If you use its informal name, that makes four San Fernandos. But that opens still more possibilities. For example, there are six capitals starting with Santiago, but three of them are listed without an informal name: Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Cuba, and Santiago del Estero. Nevertheless, I feel sure that many local people save a few syllables by calling them simply "Santiago".

Q. Are there any cases where two adjacent statoids in different countries have the same name?

A. Yes, several. Amazonas in Brazil borders on both Amazonas, Colombia, and Amazonas, Venezuela. There are neighboring Limburgs in Belgium and Netherlands. In several cases, this situation occurs because a state has been partitioned (e.g. Punjab, India/Pakistan; Kangwon-do, North and South Korea).

Q. Are there any names  call them X and Y  such that city X is the capital of statoid Y and city Y is the capital of statoid X?

A. Not quite. However, in Honduras, the capital of Gracias a Dios department is Puerto Lempira, while the capital of Lempira department is Gracias.

Q. Does a statoid ever have the same name as its country?

A. Yes. Belize, Djibouti, Guatemala, Luxembourg, México, and San Marino are good examples. Of course, there are also the trivial cases where a country only has one statoid.

Q. Are there any cases where a statoid has the same name as a neighboring country?

A. Yes. Luxembourg province in Belgium is adjacent to Luxembourg. Zaire province in Angola is adjacent to the country that was called Zaire from 1971 to 1997.

Q. Is a statoid's capital ever located outside of the statoid itself?

A. Yes, occasionally. The capital of Surrey in England is Kingston upon Thames. It used to be in Surrey, but Greater London expanded and swallowed it up. Nevertheless, it's still the capital of Surrey.

Q. Are there any cases where a single city is the capital of more than one statoid?

A. Yes, quite a few. The foremost example is in Norway, where Oslo is the capital of Akershus and Oslo counties. Similarly, Saint Petersburg, Russia is the capital of Saint Petersburg federal city as well as Leningrad oblast'. There are many other such cases, where the metropolitan area of a city is politically separate from its hinterland. Port Louis is the capital of its own district, and the administrative center for three dependent island groups, in Mauritius. More impressively, Chandigarh is the capital of Chandigarh union territory, Haryana state, and Punjab state in India. Of course, these provide additional examples of capitals situated outside of their statoids.

Q. Does any country have two statoids whose capitals have the same name, but are not the same city?

A. The capitals of La Union and Pampanga provinces in the Philippines are two different cities named San Fernando.

Q. Are there any countries whose statoids' names all start with the same letter, other than the trivial case of a country with only one statoid in it?

A. Yes. In the Caribbean, where there are many statoids named after saints, all of the statoids in Dominica (10), Montserrat (3), and the U.S. Virgin Islands (3) start with Saint, hence with 'S'. The same has been true of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, since the Îles Éparses were taken from it. Until fairly recently, Zimbabwe had eight provinces, all starting with 'M'.

Q. Are there any cities in more than one statoid?

A. They are few and far between. In many countries, the laws regarding municipalities prohibit this. Caracas, Venezuela is the largest such city I know of; it's about half and half in Distrito Capital and Miranda. Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan claims to be the only border city in Canada, although Flin Flon, Manitoba/Saskatchewan would seem to qualify too (see Flin Flon Extension of Boundaries Act ). In the United States, Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri are separate but adjacent cities in neighboring states. Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia and Texarkana, Arkansas/Texas are two more pairs of twin cities, like the two Kansas Cities. In France, Seyssel is divided between the departments of Ain and Haute-Savoie, but it consists of two communes, one in each department.

I can't mention Flin Flon without telling how it got its name. In about 1914, a group of prospectors found a cast-off dime novel titled "The Sunless City", by J. E. Preston-Muddock. It was a tale of an explorer who discovered a city of gold, engulfed in a bottomless lake. When the prospectors later discovered a deposit of copper-zinc ore near a deep lake, they named their claim "Flin Flon" after the fictional explorer, Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin.

Q. How many types of statoid are there?

A. The answer is rather arbitrary, because it depends on how you translate words like oblast' into English. As of 2014-01-11, my spreadsheet lists 4,199 primary subdivisions of countries. It has 106 distinct types. The most common is "province," of which there are 893. "District" comes in second with 596 instances, followed by "region" with 514, "state" with 302, "department" with 276, "county" with 267, and "municipality" with 240. Districts and municipalities are usually secondary divisions or lower, but in small countries there may not be any secondary subdivisions.

Since provinces are almost three times as common as states, it would have been more logical to call primary subdivisions "province-oids" than "statoids." However, I find "province-oids" ugly to write and unpleasant to utter. I'll stick with "statoids."