Curated playlist
States and territories established in 1991
- UzbekistanUzbekistan touches no coast, and every country bordering it is landlocked too.
- KuwaitIn August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and annexed Kuwait without warning. Retreating soldiers set oil wells on fire.
- KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan lies farther from the sea than any other individual country on Earth. Even its rivers cannot reach an ocean, because every one of them empties into a closed drainage system. Yet this landlocked nation in the mountains of Central…
- LatviaLatvia was occupied three times in a single war. The Baltic country later sang its way back to freedom.
- TajikistanTajikistan's capital, Dushanbe, was once a mountain town of roughly 1,000 residents. Now it has 1.24 million people.
- TurkmenistanTurkmenistan banned satellite dishes the same month it launched its first satellite. That was April 2015.
- MoldovaMoldova is barely larger than Belgium but has the world's largest wine cellar. Mileștii Mici holds the record.
- KazakhstanKazakhstan was the last Soviet republic to declare independence. It did so on the 16th of December 1991.
- Georgia (country)In 2005, Georgia fired its entire traffic police force of around 30,000 officers.
- South OssetiaOnly five United Nations members recognize South Ossetia as a country. Every other country calls it Georgian land.
- AzerbaijanAzerbaijan's name once belonged only to a region of northwestern Iran. Before 1918, no country used it.
- EstoniaEstonia became the first country to allow nationwide binding Internet voting, in 2005.
- ArmeniaArmenia is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia, and its best-loved mountain stands outside its borders. Mount Ararat rises 5,137 meters, or 16,854 feet, making it the highest mountain in the region. It now lies in…
- North MacedoniaNorth Macedonia, a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, received that name on the 12th of February 2019. On that day its government announced that constitutional amendments had taken effect, and it informed the United Nations and its…
- RussiaRussia spans eleven time zones, more than any other country. Its borders touch fourteen nations.
- BelarusBelarus lost a quarter of its people in World War II. Its population did not return to its prewar level until 1971.
- UkraineUkraine once gave up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. It sent all the weapons to Russia by 1996.
- CroatiaIn AD 305, a Roman emperor named Diocletian retired to a palace in Split, Croatia.
- SloveniaSlovenia declared independence in 1991, and two days later the Yugoslav army moved in. The Ten-Day War ended in a truce.