File talk:Countries by earliest date of nationhood.PNG

What on earth is the criteria behind this map? There's so must inconsistency here that I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. It seems that the countries categorized as the "oldest" on here are colored so on the basis of when urban civilization first emerged in their general regions rather than when they emerged as recognizable countries. That doesn't make sense when compared to the criteria used for later countries. Greece, for example, didn't emerge as a unified country until the first half of the 19th Century. Greece "before 1000 BC" was divided into many small, competing, Mycenaean city-states, and for much of its history after that, it was either similarly fragmented or it was subject to a larger empire. Iraq, Iran, and India, similarly, originated as many small states that were continually overrun by outside conquerers. Claiming a direct political or cultural continuity between the Sumerians and modern Iraq is very superficial and simplistic, discounting the many culture changes in the region since then (from the Assyrians to the Babylonians to the Kassites to the modern Arabs and Kurds), as well as the many empires that incorporated the region over time (the Persians, many Islamic Arab dynasties, Mongols, Turks, British, etc).

Meanwhile, the map has Latin America and Africa categorized by the modern independence of these countries rather than by the emergence of urban civilization in general. Peru and Greece both declared their independence (from Spain and the Ottoman Empire respectively) as unified nation-states in 1821, but here Greece is shown to emerge thousands of years earlier. Yet, Peru has long been a center of civilization as well - The Norte Chico culture of northern Peru was roughly contemporary to the Minoans of Crete in Greece. Many African countries can be viewed in contrast to how India is depicted - India is shown to have been around since before 1000 BC, yet like much of Sub-Saharan Africa, it began as a divided collection of feuding states and ethnic groups that were only brought together by colonialism and only made into a unified, independent country in the 20th Century.

So what should this map be? Do you want it to reflect when modern countries first came into existence in recognizable forms, or do you want it to reflect when state-level civilizations first came about within their territories, regardless of whether or not there is direct continuity with the modern state? --74.103.150.125 (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The map is incorrect

The map is riddled with mistakes. Just by the first glance - Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and several other countries are labeled incorrectly.

The IgnorantArmies version is seriously flawed. The 3 most recent uploads have introduced a whole array of mistakes into the map. The map should be reverted to one of it's previous versions. 46.109.30.28 (talk) 23:13, 23 May 2011

How is the older version any better? As I already pointed out, Iraq, India, and Greece are not thousands of years old - Neither existed as recognizable countries until the previous two centuries.

If we're going to say Greece is older than 1000 BC on account of ancient civilizations that existed there (despite the fractured nature of these civilizations into many feuding city-states and various conquests by Rome, the Ottomans, and others), then we should do the same for the rest of the world. Peru should be older than 1000 BC, reflecting Pre-Columbian civilizations such as the Norte Chico and Chavin cultures.

If we're going to say Poland is older than 1200 AD, despite being conquered and partitioned by neighboring powers multiple times since then, then why is Rwanda only as old as the 1960's? The Kingdom of Rwanda first appeared in the 1400's. Sure, it may have lost its independence to Germany and Belgium for a period, but Poland similarly lost its independence to Germany and Russia. The older version of the map is very Eurocentric in this regard, ignoring the consolidation of countries like Bhutan, Tonga, Laos, and Burundi due to colonial conquest while overlooking periods of conquest or fragmentation in European countries like Germany, Ireland, and Russia in favor of earlier consolidation dates.

We need to develop a specific criteria and stick to it. --74.103.150.125 (talk) 09:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

SAKHALIN IS RUSSIAN, JESUS %*$%ING CHRIST THIS MAP IS IDIOTIC

Just deleting it would be easier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.236.253 (talk) 21:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Quite. Minor issues above pale before the idiocy of saying Russia is 20 years old, but the PRC is 5000. This has to go. — LlywelynII 13:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

South Sudan

Ought to be added, with independence on 9 July 2011. Lockesdonkey (talk) 22:25, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Who ever wrote this is either chinese propagandist or an idiot

You can't say Russia has nationhood in 1992(when USSR fell) and then say communist China's statehood is BC!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.86.99.185 (talk) 19:04, 10 October 2011 (UTC)