You're right. And my "Countries Distance Matrix" concurs. Seems like next up is surprisingly- Uruguay, at 6465 km, narrowly beating out Turkey. Though that should probably be confirmed by whatever source Quizmaster is using.
I finally got around to writing a computer program to calculate distances. I dug a little deeper and it seems that Australia is 6397 km from Marion Island, an uninhabited island controlled by South Africa. I think I'll remove that answer and add a caveat.
Also, I'm getting 4642 km for Brazil with Ilha do Sul when researching for my version with external territories, which I believe is not covered in the caveats.
All but Uruguay. I tried Argentina and Chile -- figured if those were no then Uruguay wouldn't work. I should know better by now than to not at least try what I think is unlikely.
Most UN countries do not agree, but those currying favour with Argentina or anti-UK will say so for political reasons. Not only has Argentina never occupied the islands, but Argentina itself is an occupied country of Spanish descendants.
The land claim is only untenable if you make this decisions by emotion rather than fact. They were unsettled, although possibly visited by native Patagonians, before European discovery. The islands were then controlled by Britain and France, the latter of which later surrendered its half to Spain (Spain, not Argentina). Buenos Aires claimed control of Spain’s South Atlantic holdings in 1816 and backed a German born governor, but they were never able to take control from the British.
The only ‘claim’ Argentina has is one of proximity. The islands are approx 300 miles off the coast of the southernmost point of Argentina: by that logic, India could claim Sri Lanka, Morocco the Canary Islands and the USA, the Bahamas (sovereign nation or otherwise is irrelevant if it’s simply a case of one country saying “that island is sort of nearby, therefore it’s ours.”). Apart from that, there were a handful of gauchos and fishermen on the islands. Never had them, couldn’t take them.
As statet in the top.
The Falkland Islanders are British citizens.
Also, the Taiwan comparison is inadequate, since Taiwan is a sovereign nation, unlike the islands.
The only ‘claim’ Argentina has is one of proximity. The islands are approx 300 miles off the coast of the southernmost point of Argentina: by that logic, India could claim Sri Lanka, Morocco the Canary Islands and the USA, the Bahamas (sovereign nation or otherwise is irrelevant if it’s simply a case of one country saying “that island is sort of nearby, therefore it’s ours.”). Apart from that, there were a handful of gauchos and fishermen on the islands. Never had them, couldn’t take them.
And I knew I forgot one country in the Saudi Arabia area, forgot about Kuwait.
But Kuwait was the last one I remembered.