Curated playlist

Countries and territories where English is an official language

TanzaniaTanzania's name was invented in a newspaper contest. Mohammed Iqbal Dar won by blending Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
United KingdomThe United Kingdom is one country made of four nations. Four capitals share the work.
The BahamasIn 1841, enslaved people who revolted on the US brig Creole steered it to Nassau in the Bahamas.
Marshall IslandsThe Marshall Islands is 98.62 percent water. No other sovereign state has so much ocean against so little land.
TuvaluA deacon caught in a storm drifted for eight weeks and brought Christianity to Tuvalu.
Channel IslandsThe Channel Islands have never been part of France or the United Kingdom.
GrenadaGrenada put a nutmeg on its flag. The Caribbean island nation is nicknamed the Island of Spice.
Saint LuciaBritain and France fought over Saint Lucia fourteen times. The Caribbean island earned the nickname "Helen of the West."
DominicaDominica has had no standing army since 1981, after two coup attempts. The mercenaries' ship never left dock.
Saint Kitts and NevisSaint Kitts and Nevis is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere. Its two islands are volcanic.
MauritiusMauritius had no people at all until sailors, thought to be Arab, reached it around 975.
PalauPalau is an island country made up of roughly 340 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, with a total land area of only 466 square kilometres. That makes it the sixteenth smallest nation in the world. Its own name for the islands is Belau,…
American SamoaIn 1918, American Samoa's governor quarantined the islands and stopped the flu. No one there died in the pandemic.
BermudaA Boer prisoner swam a mile and a half from Bermuda in 1902. He later led the largest U.S. spy ring ever uncovered.
Federated States of MicronesiaThe Federated States of Micronesia has about 702 km2 of land but nearly 3 million km2 of ocean.
GuamA German raider exploded in Guam's Apra Harbor in 1917 after its captain refused to surrender it.
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man gave women the vote in 1881, though not married women. It has never been part of the United Kingdom.
United States Virgin IslandsDenmark's 1902 sale of the Virgin Islands failed after opponents carried in a 97-year-old man.
CuraçaoCuraçao is a Dutch Caribbean island country about 65 km north of Venezuela, and in 1929 that short distance proved dangerous. A Venezuelan rebel commander named Rafael Simón Urbina arrived with 250 soldiers and captured the island's fort.…
NiueNiue is a self-governing island country in the South Pacific, and its 2022 census counted fewer than 1,700 people. Its nickname is The Rock, drawn from the traditional name Rock of Polynesia. It is among the largest coral islands in the…
VanuatuOn the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, villagers of the Yaohnanen tribe revere Britain's Prince Philip as a god. Their belief rests on an ancient story about the pale-skinned son of a mountain spirit. According to the tale, he ventured across…
BotswanaBotswana is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, and about 70% of its territory lies inside the Kalahari Desert. The terrain is flat. South Africa borders it to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the…
NauruIn May 2026, the Parliament of Nauru voted to change the country's English name to Naoero, the spelling used in the Nauruan language. The amendment takes effect only if voters approve it in a referendum. Nauru is an island country in the…
Norfolk IslandNorfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, had 2,188 inhabitants at the 2021 census. They share roughly 35 square kilometres of land in the Pacific Ocean. The island lies 1412 kilometres due east of Evans Head on the Australian…
KenyaKenya took its name from a mountain, not from its people.
Cook IslandsThe Cook Islands runs its own foreign policy but is not a United Nations member.
MaltaMalta was once handed to a religious order for the rent of one falcon. Emperor Charles V made the deal in 1530.
SamoaSamoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa, once deleted a whole day from its calendar. Friday, the 30th of December 2011, never happened there. At the end of that month the island country moved its clocks from UTC-11 to UTC+13. The…
Pitcairn IslandsThe Pitcairn Islands had a permanent population of just 35 people in 2023, which made them the smallest territory in the world by number of permanent residents. Four volcanic islands make up the group: Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno.…
NamibiaThe name Namibia comes from a desert, and the word at its root means vast place. The Namib is the oldest desert in the world, and its name has Khoi origins. A man named Mburumba Kerina chose it for the country, after first proposing the…
EswatiniOn the 19th of April 2018, King Mswati III announced that the Kingdom of Swaziland would from then on be called the Kingdom of Eswatini. The date was chosen to mark fifty years since independence. In the Swazi language the new name means…
Sierra LeoneSierra Leone is named for a line of mountains that Portuguese sailors saw from the water in 1462. The explorer Pedro de Sintra mapped that stretch of the West African coast and called the heights Serra Leoa, which means lioness mountains.…
Puerto RicoPuerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, yet they cannot vote for president.
AustraliaAustralia's name began as a guess about a continent nobody had found. Mapmakers imagined Terra Australis Incognita.
KiribatiKiribati has only 811 square kilometres of land, yet its islands are scattered across such a vast stretch of the central Pacific that the country reaches into all four hemispheres. No other nation can say that. Its islands straddle both…
GuyanaGuyana's economy grew 49% by 2020, after offshore oil was found in 2015.
Saint HelenaA canal opened in 1869 and left Saint Helena almost irrelevant overnight. Ships had stopped there for four centuries.
SudanNubians in Sudan beat back Arab invaders in 641 and again in 652. They were one of the few peoples to defeat the Arabs.
GhanaGhana, a country of more than 35 million people on the Gulf of Guinea, made history on the 6th of March 1957. That day it became the first colony in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve sovereignty. Its capital and largest city is Accra, and it…
LesothoLesotho is a country whose lowest ground sits 1400 metres above sea level, the highest lowest point of any nation on Earth. It is also the only independent state anywhere that lies entirely above 1000 metres. About 2.3 million people live…
BarbadosOn the 30th of November 2021, Barbados swore in its first president, Sandra Mason, at a ceremony in Bridgetown. Prince Charles, then heir to the Barbadian crown, attended at the government's invitation. With that oath, the island stopped…
CanadaCanada's name began as a word for a village. In 1535, locals used it to point Jacques Cartier to Stadacona.
JamaicaJamaica has sometimes been called the world's least populous cultural superpower. Reggae and Rastafari began there.
Hong KongAt midnight on the 1st of July 1997, Hong Kong passed to China after 156 years of British rule.
PakistanPakistan's name began as an acronym in a 1933 student pamphlet. Choudhry Rahmat Ali published it in Now or Never.
Solomon IslandsThe Solomon Islands are named for a biblical king who had no connection to them. Mapmakers imagined Bible gold there.
New ZealandNew Zealand was the last large habitable land on Earth to be settled by humans.
Commonwealth of NationsKing George VI once joked, "So, I've become 'as such'." The line came as India stayed in the Commonwealth as a republic.
The GambiaThe Gambia is the smallest country on the African mainland, and in 1964 its prime minister wrote a letter to protect a single word. Dawda Jawara asked a British committee on geographical names to let the country keep the definite article…
Trinidad and TobagoTrinidad and Tobago is the southernmost archipelagic country in the Caribbean, yet its larger island counts geologically as part of South America. Trinidad rests on that continent's shelf, and in ancient times it was physically joined to…