10 Countries with the Best Geography

Geography makes or breaks a nation. Some places just have it easier than others when building a civilization and modern country. But who has it the best? Here are 10 countries with the best geography for making and maintaining your nation.

#h0ser #geography #top10

[MPdude]

Ethiopia is interesting given that in most countries, the mountain areas are hardly populated and mostly devoid of any development aside from roads, rails, pipelines, etc. In Ethiopia, the mountains is where most of the population and development is concentrated.

[expandedhistory]

France has good natural borders: The Alps, Rhine, Seas, Pyrénées and Napoléon.

[MrLeemurman]

I respect that you talked a lot about watersheds and their role in a nation's geography. Having control over a river's drainage basin makes a big difference.

[albevanhanoy]

Ethiopa's weakness is that it's landlocked. If it had access to the ports of Eritrea, it could easily be the most powerful country on the African continent.

[nenenindonu]

France and Turkey are my favorites among interesting geographies, France has the better neighbors no doubt, while Turkey has a more practical location as a transcontinental peninsula.

[reintaler]

Few add-ons:
The US was also born at the right time with rapid technological advancement from the industrial revolution. The aboriginal inhabitants couldn't build anywhere near as strong a civilization cuz they did not have the technology nor biodiversity to master such vast and volatile land.
Also invasion of the UK is made even harder due to the amazing cliffs of the South Coast, compared to the flat beach of Normandy on the other end (i.e. If the coasts were swapped the Allies would've stood zero chance)

[marcusferro]

My only gripe is with Vietnam with it being extremely thin and narrow. Its two biggest cities are located in the north and south of the country with its narrowest point being in the middle of the country, so one well planned attack on that narrow point and you've split vietnam in half

[joaoaugustoschiavottielloc]

I was surprised you missed Brazil man! HUGE land area, the Amazon is mostly in Brazil (I don't need to list the geographical benefits of it), lots and lots of long navigable rivers, lots of rainfall in most of the country, tropical climate which makes the agricultural powerhouse it is today, the total absence of harsh natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes and etc), a very long coastline which makes it defensible, lots of sunshine, water and food is abundant. So many geographical advantages that makes Brazil a very important country in the world, despite its social and political problems.

[hikodzu]

France:
The Mediterranean sea, check ✅
The Alp, check ✅
The rhine river, EÉÊÉK ❌

[craigkdillon]

What you said about the US is true, very true.
But, you left out The Great Lakes.
26% of the world's fresh water is in the Great Lakes.
It connects to the Atlantic thru the St. Lawrence.
Chicago sits on a continental divide connecting the two waterways.

[rohanindra]

Im surprised India wasn’t included. Has many natural rivers, desert to its northwest as a natural barrier, Himalayas to its north, surrounded by Arabian Sea, has islands that gives it thr ability to choke of the Malacca strait not to mention it sits like a triangle in the Indian Ocean. It has the most arable land maybe after the US.

[mp_Puppy]

making country representations their national animal with the flag in the background has to be one of the best decisions hoser has made, really sets them apart from all other geography channels

[evboto.]

The U.S. and Argentina have by far the two best, they are the only two countries with naturally interconnected and navigable waterway networks that overlay arable land. There really is no other competition outside those two.

[riarx]

1. Turkey
2. France
3. Argentina
4. Vietnam
5. United States
6. United Kingdom
7. Ethiopia
8. China
9. Iran
10. New Zealand

As said earlier, the list's not in any particular order

[christianferraro]

Also Italy has a very good geography.
It's a peninsula in the middle of the Mediterranean sea so It could control the trade of it, and still now there are some huge ports like Genova, Livorno, Roma, ecc.
The Alps in the north are a very good defense and the sea itself too.
Also in the north there is a huge plain for farming and industry.
And the climate is very good, it's always very stable except for some specific zones like Sicily where in the summer it's 45 degrees

[daxtynminn]

The United States has the best geographic positon and internal geography of any country by a long shot.

[nocturnenugget]

Honestly I think Iran's geography is more detrimental at times than beneficial, sure it's incredibly defensible, but one of its most important ports lies outside the zagros mountain range, it's rugged terrain also makes communication and infrastructure within the nation very very difficult, it was shown in the Iran Iraq war how the geography was a double edged sword, Iraq was eventually beaten back at the zagros, but the amount of forces the Iranians could commit beyond the zagros was small, due to logistical issues, while the Iraqis had a very easy time supplying their forces across the flat Mesopotamian plain. Iran is definitely a 2 sided coin, on one hand, lying where it is on the silk roads allowed early empires to rise from Iran, on the other hand, expansion outwards is basically a must for any Iranian empire, it needs to project power outwards since the region directly next to it is mostly flat and easy navigable, at least in the west. Iran has also been somewhat difficult to unify due to how muktiethnic it is since the mountains divide the country creating groups independent of one another.

Another point could be that as society progressed, Iran's geography became less beneficial, while petroleum definitely was a boost to it. Iran faced another problem by the early modern era, it's inability to project power overseas, Iran was never a naval power, it lacks ports that easily connect to the heartland of Iran, the coast was very rugged and not the best to build ports on, there's also another detriment, the strait of Hormuz, the fact that much of Iran's most important ports are locked behind this key strategic choke point is a strategic liability, if one blocked it off, the Iranian navy would mostly be trapped inside the gulf, and in the early modern to industrial eras, an oceangoing navy was vital to becoming a world power

[Yora]

The French-German border region has a fantastic strategic location. From there you have access to rivers leading into the Atlantic, North Sea, Mediterranean, and Black Sea.
No wonder it has been this heavily contested for centuries.

[olajong]

Most countries: ew mountain, we are moving to the flatlands.
Ethiopia: Hmm mountains?😏 *did someone say real estate 🏡*

[PakBallandSami]

Damn I do agree that Ethiopia 🇪🇹 dose have a pretty good geography with is easily defensible (dessert and mountains) and is good for agriculture but the problem rises from it's ethic diversity and the government is trying to best to keep the country together but it is becoming more and more hard like just last year Ethiopia was all in news any one remember that