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April 27, 2026April 27, 2026

X is for Xinjiang

Not a sovereign state (country), Xinjiang is still huge, bigger than Texas, California, Nevada, and Minnesota combined. Wikipedia photo.

Fast Facts

Named for: The full name is the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
Capital: Ürümqi
Long/Lat: 41 N/85 E, about 13 hours or 7000 mi from CV to the Taklmakan Desert, going west.
Population: 25,890,000 or 1.3 million CVs
Size: 642,000 sq mi or 10x CVs
Avg temp in April: 55 F/15 C (mountainous)
Median household income: $10,000 GDP/per capita but income???
Ethnicity: 44% Uygur/42% Han
Main industries: Agriculture, mining for natural resources

At the end of the alphabet, there seem to be a lot of wiggling and hedging. I am chagrined that I had to include non-UN members, countries not really independent, and now this X. Xinjiang is not a country–not even disputed as a country–but simply a region within China. There is a dispute, but we’ll get to that. It’s simply that there are no countries beginning with an “X,” so either it was live with this region, skip the letter, spell names in Catalan (which uses X), or choose a different theme. I’ll take the penalty point and move on.

At over 640,000 sq mi, Xinjiang would be the 16th largest country in the world. It’s bigger than Texas, California, Nevada, and Minnesota combined. At nearly 26 million people, it’s the 60th largest in population, which is more people than Florida. If it were a country, it would dwarf the rest of the Small Countries on my list. (I wonder if it would be bigger than all combined–let’s see, if I put them all in a spreadsheet to add their populations and …nahhh.)

However, Xinjiang has an interesting status. It was designated as the autonomous region of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) back in 1955. A brisk walk through the history before and after that will remind us of what boundary states are about, even those giant regions within a giant country.

Historically, Xinjiang spread across a wide basin–the Tarim basin–ringed by a series of mountains, Tian Shan to the north and Kunlun to the south. Scholars are careful to note that Xinjiang was not simply a partial stop on the Silk Road, but the road passed through it, which was its claim to worldwide fame.

April 26, 2026April 26, 2026

W is for Western Sahara

Fast Facts

Named for: Part of the Sahara. The Western part.
Capital: hard to say
Long/Lat: 25 N/13 W, 6000 miles and 13 hours east of Castro Valley
Population: 565,000 or 8.5 CVs
Size: 105,000 sq mi or 5800 CVs (sparsely populated)
Avg temp in April: 77 F/25 C
Median household income: GDP per capita is $2,500 but doesn’t necessarily go to the locals.
Ethnicity: Berbers
Main industries: Fishing. Phosphates. Sustainable energy if Morocco could get in there and build the wind farms.

Western Sahara thinks itself a country. Morocco doesn’t. The border is disputed, as in is there even a border? The indigenous people, the Sahrawis of Western Sahara, think so. The Moroccan don’t, which is why they’ve laid berms–land mines–along one section. We’re in “W” and the world is still cray cray.

Today, technically, Western Sahara is not a country, although it was once. When I was in the 6th grade and memorizing the countries of Africa (see my A-Z inaugural post), it was called Spanish Sahara. Very colonizer-forward. That’s the legacy, of Africa being carved up by the Europeans, after the Islamic Empire carved up Europe and North Africa, and after the Romans carved up Europe, Africa, and Asia, and after Alexander carved up… A country’s borders have always been about the weaponry and the exploitable resources within.

April 25, 2026April 25, 2026

V is for Vatican City

Fast Facts:

Named for: Vagitanus or the vagiti, the cry of a baby (Etruscan, maybe)
Capital: The Pope’s house at One Pope Lane
Long/Lat: 41.5 N/12.2 E, 6200 miles or 12 hours east of Castro Valley
Population: 882 and not a single cardinal more or less. 1% of CV.
Size: 0.19 sq mi, 1% of CV.
Avg temp in April: 70 F/20 C, very pleasant
Median household income: $20,000? but stats not published. Free room and board.
Ethnicity: Not published, but likely more diverse than expected. Only one religion, though.
Main industries: Proselytizing. Plus the merch!

Vatican City was originally a swamp. It’s located on the less breezy side of the Tiber, near Rome’s original arch enemy, the Etruscans. It was named either for a baby’s cry or for auspices drawn by the way birds fly or the way a liver appeared, which was (ironically) a significant part of Roman religious practices. Still, it was a marsh, dismal and ominous. Like the Bayou–popes were born on the bayou (with apologies to CCR).

Unlike some of these other countries, you probably have heard of it because it’s a Jeopardy question. What’s the smallest country in the world? Vatican City is also a true enclave, a country entirely contained within another country, along with San Marino and Lesotho and almost Eswatini (remember letter E?) It should not seem so strange for Vatican City to be its own country, considering that Rome itself used to be a “country,” not to mention an “empire” that would span more than 40 countries today if it still existed.