The New Definition of Nations

I recently was thinking about how we define countries, and it occurred to me that, all too often, our North American methodology of understanding nations gets in the way of allowing those nations the opportunity to define themselves. Examples include defining a country by an export, landmark, or event. In order to resolve this to some small degree, I am hereby publishing a small, alternative directory to some unfairly chliched nations, along with a new reason for knowing them. Feel free to add more in the comments, though. Let's begin:

1. Greenland: World's highest internet penetration rate.

2. Niger: World's highest fertility rate.

3. Rwanda: World record for women representation in Parliament at 56.25 percent of contested Parliamentary seats being filled by women, a total of 44 seats.

4. Singapore: World's most innovative nation, according to business.rediff.com

5. Qatar: World's highest GDP at PPP per capita, based on the International Monetary Fund in 2008.

6. China: World's highest account balance, at $426.1 billion in 2008.

7. UK: Acclaimed world's highest television penetration rate.

8. Iceland: World's highest reported crime rate.

9. Canada: World's longest bridge over ice-covered saltwater (Confederation Bridge).

10. And finally, The United States of America: World's highest rate of obesity.

I hope that this short list will help you to re-define your existing views of the importance of the nations of the world, as well as to formulate your own opinions on other countries. Again, feel free to comment on additional ones I may have left out (there are only 195 countries, leaving 185 for you to highlight).