Countries, Flags and Capitals

What Is a Country?

Look at a map of the world and you will see it is split into many coloured shapes. Each shape is a country. A country is an area of land with its own borders, its own leaders, and its own rules.

A border is the line where one country ends and another begins. Some borders follow rivers, mountains or coastlines. Others are just lines that people agreed on long ago. If you cross a border, you go from one country into another — and the language, the money and even the food might suddenly change.

There are about 195 countries in the world. Some are huge, some are tiny. Some have hundreds of millions of people, and some have only a few thousand. In this book we will explore what makes each country special — starting with the bright, colourful flags that fly above them.

Flags: A Country's Story in Cloth

Every country has its own flag. A flag is much more than a pretty piece of cloth. It is a symbol — a special picture that stands for the whole country and its people. When a team wins at the Olympics, their flag is raised. When you see a flag, you instantly know which country it belongs to.

The clever thing about flags is that their colours and shapes often tell a story:

• Colours can stand for ideas. Red can mean courage or the struggles of the past. White can mean peace. Green can stand for the land, forests or hope.
• Shapes and pictures can stand for real things. The flag of Canada has a red maple leaf, a tree that grows all over the country. The flag of Lebanon shows a cedar tree. Many flags carry stars, a sun, or a moon.

Some flags are simple stripes. Others are packed with detail. But every flag is designed so that, with one glance, you can recognise a country and feel proud to belong to it.

Capital Cities: Where Decisions Are Made

Most countries have one very important city called the capital. The capital is where the country's government usually meets — the leaders who make the laws and decisions for everyone.

The capital is often, but not always, the biggest or most famous city. For example:

• The capital of France is Paris, home of the Eiffel Tower.
• The capital of Japan is Tokyo, one of the busiest cities on Earth.
• The capital of Egypt is Cairo, near the ancient pyramids.

Sometimes the capital is not the most famous city. The biggest city in the United States is New York, but the capital is Washington, D.C. The biggest city in Australia is Sydney, but the capital is Canberra. Capitals are chosen for the government, not always for size.

The Biggest and the Smallest

Countries come in every size imaginable.

The largest country by land is Russia. It is so wide that when people are waking up on one side, they are going to bed on the other, because it stretches across many time zones. Canada, the United States, China and Brazil are huge too.

The smallest country in the world is Vatican City, which sits inside the city of Rome in Italy. It is so small you could walk across it in a few minutes. It is the home of the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church.

So one country can be bigger than a whole continent, while another fits inside a single city. That is part of what makes our world so interesting.

The Most Crowded and the Emptiest

Size is not the same as the number of people. The number of people in a country is called its population.

The countries with the most people are India and China, each with well over a billion people — that is more than a thousand million in each! Huge cities, busy streets and packed trains are part of daily life there.

Some countries have very few people for their size. Mongolia is large but mostly empty grassland, so its towns are far apart and there is lots of open space. Iceland, a chilly island near the Arctic, has fewer people than many single cities.

So when you look at a country on a map, remember: its size on the page does not tell you how many people live there.

Countries Around the World

Let's take a quick trip to meet a few countries and one famous thing about each.

• Brazil in South America is home to most of the Amazon Rainforest and is famous for football and carnival.
• Kenya in Africa has wide savannas where lions, elephants and giraffes roam.
• India in Asia is known for spicy food, colourful festivals and the beautiful Taj Mahal.
• Italy in Europe is shaped like a boot and is famous for pizza, pasta and ancient Roman ruins.
• Australia, which is a country and a continent, is famous for kangaroos, koalas and the Great Barrier Reef.

Every one of the world's countries has its own special places, animals, foods and stories — far too many to fit in one book!

How Countries Work Together

Countries are not all alone. They are like neighbours who share a giant planet, so they often work together.

Many countries belong to a big group called the United Nations, where leaders from all over the world meet to talk about problems and try to solve them peacefully. Countries also trade with each other, sending goods like fruit, toys, cars and clothes across borders by ship and plane.

When there is a flood, an earthquake or another disaster, countries often help one another by sending food, doctors and supplies. Just like good neighbours, countries are stronger when they cooperate.

What We Learned

We have travelled all around the world! Let's remember what we discovered.

A country is a land with its own borders, leaders and rules, and there are about 195 of them. Every country has a flag whose colours and shapes tell a story. Most have a capital city where the government meets. Countries can be as big as Russia or as small as Vatican City, and as crowded as India or as empty as Mongolia.

Best of all, countries work together — trading, talking and helping one another across our shared planet.

Want to explore more of our world? Discover the lands themselves in The Seven Continents, or visit the busy hearts of nations in Great Cities of the World.