Resumo de Book Of Facts - Reader's Digest

NATIONS OF THE WORLD
Country where no one is born
The world?s smallest independent state is the Vatican City, with a population of about 1000 and a nil birthrate. Its area is 0.44km2. The country with the largest area is the USSR. It covers 22,402,200km2.
The country with the largest population is the People?s Republic of China.
The incredible shrinking country
Two disastrous wars and one near war have cost Bolivia more than half the territory to which it laid claim when it became independent in 1825. In the 1879-83 War of the pacific, Chile annexed Bolivia?s Pacific seacoast, along with the port of Antofagasta and the mineral rich Atacama desert. In 1903, when war with neighbouring Brazil war narrowly avoided, Bolivia was forced to cede the rubber producing Acre territory to Brazil. Finally, after the 1932-5 Chaco War with Paraguay, Bolivia lost three quarters of the Chaco region which is claimed. It also abandoned hope of an outlet of its own to the Atlantic along the Paraguay River, at a point where the river is navigable for large vessels. Despite having no coastline, Bolivia still has a navy of some 4000 men. They are confined, however, to the calm waters of Lake Titicaca high in the Andes and to stretches of some rivers on the fringes of the Amazon basin.
The need for an Heir
If Monaco?s ruling house of Grimaldi should ever be without an heir (male or female) the country will cease to be sovereign state. Instead, under a 1918 treaty between France and Monaco, the principality will become a self-governing French protectorate.
Venice-South American Style
While sailing along the Caribbean coast of South America in 1499, the Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojedo saw Indian houses built on stilts over the water. The area reminded him of Venice and so he named it ?Little Venice?, which in Spanish is Venezuela.
Coastline of Islands
Indonesia consists entirely of islands-somewhere between 3000 and 3500 of them, though the number has never been precisely calculated. As a result, it has the world?s second longest coastline at 54,716 km, but is only the fifteenth largest nation. The nation with the longest coast line is Canada, which is five times larger than Indonesia.
The French for Falklands
Islas Malvinas, the Argentine name for the Falkland Islands, is not of Spanish origin but of French. Many of the sailors who went there early in the 18th century to fish and hunt seals were from St Malo and Britany- so the French called the Islands Iles Malouines, after the townsfolk. In Spanish this became Islas Malvinas. The name ?Falklands? came from an English sailor, Captain John Strong, who in 1690 named the sound between the two main Islands Falkland Sound after Viscount Falkland, then the Treasurer of the British Navy.

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