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Countries More Populous Than Their Neighbors

Can you name the 18 countries of the world that have a larger population than any country they share a land border with?
Not including neighboring overseas territories/dependencies nor countries with no border
Also try the area version of this quiz by Gamer1162!
Population data from Worldometers, 29 September 2021
Quiz by Quizzer6794
Rate:
Last updated: September 29, 2021
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First submittedMay 28, 2015
Times taken85,070
Average score77.8%
Rating4.99
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Country
Algeria
Brazil
China
D.R. Congo
Egypt
Ethiopia
Country
Germany
Ghana
Haiti
Indonesia
Nigeria
South Africa
Country
South Korea
Sweden
Thailand
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
+6
Level 55
Oct 20, 2015
another great quiz - thanks :)
+1
Level 35
Dec 7, 2015
15/18 first try
+2
Level 57
Dec 20, 2015
Great quiz.
+3
Level 75
Dec 20, 2015
Agreed - very clever!
+2
Level 48
Dec 20, 2015
16/18. Completely forgot Turkey and Thailand somehow.. Good quiz idea!
+2
Level 70
Jul 30, 2016
Turkey?
+3
Level 64
Jul 30, 2016
Iran overtook Turkey in the time of that comment
+7
Level 48
Jan 10, 2021
Turkey is back! It should be added again ;)
+1
Level 68
Feb 21, 2021
Look at World Population Clock Turkey overtook Iran again
+1
Level 35
Dec 20, 2015
awesome 18/18 3:28 :{>
+5
Level 64
Dec 20, 2015
Nowhere in Central America qualifies?
+10
Level 68
Dec 20, 2015
Just based on geography, I would have thought so as well, but it turns out that the countries decreases population as north to south, so no country in Central America is more populous than all of its neighbors.
+4
Level 64
Dec 23, 2015
By population:

Panama

Costa Rica

Nicaragua

Honduras

Guatemala

Mexico

(Belize and El Salvador are overtaken by their respective neighbors, Guatemala and Honduars / Guatemala and Mexico)

+1
Level 61
Dec 20, 2015
Great quiz!
+1
Level 64
Dec 20, 2015
@Roger77024; @Jerry928; @zjwlxyrpzxx; @2233thth; @GelEGuy:

Thanks, everyone!

+6
Level 66
Dec 20, 2015
Missed Ghana.
+3
Level 64
Dec 20, 2015
I actually thought Thailand bordered China. Whoops...
+1
Level 65
Dec 20, 2015
Missed Ethiopia and Algeria...
+1
Level 16
Dec 21, 2015
Got 2 wrong

South Korea and DR Congo

+1
Level 63
Dec 21, 2015
Really cool quiz!
+2
Level 59
Dec 21, 2015
I expected to find Saudi Arabia here, but Iraq has indeed almost 25% more inhabitants.
+1
Level 64
Dec 21, 2015
I'm glad everybody enjoyed it!
+3
Level 48
Jan 26, 2016
Great quiz - you really have to think and can't just guess big countries
+2
Level 64
Jan 26, 2016
Thanks, Greenland! I guess your country is less populous than any of your neighbours?
+2
Level 28
Feb 7, 2016
What about India? Or is that a country on China's coastline?
+11
Level 64
Feb 7, 2016
It's a country bordering China.
+1
Level 37
May 12, 2023
hasn't India over taken china in population now
+3
Level 59
Mar 23, 2017
It borders China over the Himalayas (either side of Nepal). Nothing to do with the coast.
+11
Level 77
Dec 9, 2019
'on China's coastline' haha
+1
Level 60
Jul 27, 2016
Doesn't Iran have a bigger population than Turkey?
+1
Level 64
Jul 27, 2016
You are correct, thanks!
+2
Level 25
Aug 25, 2016
You and your Iran. Now I have to retake the quiz.
+1
Level 53
Nov 16, 2021
But iran does NOT have a bigger population than Pakistan, which in turn has a smaller population than india.
+1
Level 61
Jan 16, 2022
exactly, so the solution is to just remove turkey.

however it seems that turkey overtook iran in population again.

+2
Level 73
Oct 18, 2016
Looks like a lake counts as a "land" border? Otherwise Tanzania would have a larger population than any of it's neighbours. :-)
+2
Level 62
Dec 8, 2019
No, Tanzania and Uganda have a land border west of the lake.
+4
Level 73
Sep 30, 2021
Not the border I am referring to. Uganda has less population. The only possible country to have a higher population than Tanzania is Congo. However Congo and Tanzania their border is Lake Tanganyika.
+1
Level 88
Mar 29, 2017
I think Uzbekistan is now larger than Afghanistan and should be on the list now. According to Wikipedia 32 million in Uzbekistan and 28 million in Afghanistan. Other bordering countries

Turkmenistan: 5M

Tajikistan: 9M

Kyrgyzstan: 6M

Kazakhstan: 18M

+3
Level 71
Nov 14, 2021
Nope, Afghanistan has 39 million. Not sure where you got the 28 million statistic from.
+1
Level 28
Nov 14, 2021
your 4 years after him
+2
Level 71
Nov 14, 2021
Doesn't make a difference. In 2017, Afghanistan has 36 million, which was still more than Uzbekistan.
+1
Level 53
Apr 17, 2017
Such an interesting concept for a quiz! Good job!
+1
Level 60
May 27, 2017
Haiti is more populated than Dominican Republic according to Wikipedia.
+1
Level ∞
May 28, 2017
Added Uzbekistan and swapped Haiti in for the Dominican Republic.
+1
Level 69
May 28, 2017
Haiti is now in both this one and the less populated one http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/139806/countries-that-are-less-populated-than-their-neighbors
+3
Level 64
May 28, 2017
it's edited, after 2 complaints in an hour.
+1
Level 50
Jul 2, 2017
Has Uzbekistan a bigger population than Afghanistan?
+1
Level 66
Jul 2, 2017
The answer is, "Maybe." Different sources claim different populations for the two nations. Ostensibly, the source of this is Wikipedia in which case Uzbekistan is listed as having the slightly higher population.
+9
Level 63
Jul 3, 2017
Thought it said "popular". Immediately thought of Canada.
+2
Level 60
Jul 4, 2017
Soon, India will overthrow China by population.
+2
Level 64
Jul 4, 2017
Won't be long before soon
+1
Level 43
Jul 6, 2017
Darn, only missed Uzbekistan.
+1
Level 87
Dec 10, 2017
Wikipedia says that Uzbekistan's population is less than Afghanistan's, confused as to why Uzbekistan's here?
+1
Level 46
Jul 9, 2018
darn, only missed Sweden and South Korea
+1
Level 70
Mar 2, 2019
Afghanistan has for a long time ago passed Uzbekistan's population.
+1
Level ∞
Jul 24, 2019
You're right. This has been updated. Probably had some bad data for Afghanistan previously because of all the wars.
+1
Level 88
Jul 25, 2019
What are we using as the source? Wikipedia on the individual countries page and List of countries and dependencies by population still shows Uzbekistan as having 500K more people.
+1
Level ∞
Jul 25, 2019
We now use Worldometers for our country population. Added a note. The population of Afghanistan is growing rapidly due to one of the highest birth rates in the world.
+1
Level 69
Jul 25, 2019
This would have been much harder were the answers not alphabetical. That really helped zero in on the last couple I was missing.
+1
Level 71
Sep 3, 2019
Freaking Ghana...got the rest.
+1
Level 51
Oct 9, 2019
Yemen should be here since they have a higher population than that of Saudi Arabia and Oman (in which they border).
+1
Level 64
Oct 9, 2019
Saudi Arabia has 34 million people.
+1
Level 77
Dec 9, 2019
You are wrong, and there's no need for 'in' before' which'
+1
Level 43
Jul 7, 2020
yemen does not has more than SA
+1
Level 43
Jul 7, 2020
also JackintheBox ha you just don't know how to speak british :)
+1
Level 70
Dec 8, 2019
this was fun!
+1
Level 64
Dec 8, 2019
Thanks!
+1
Level 67
Dec 8, 2019
Great quiz - maybe just a little too much time.
+1
Level 64
Dec 8, 2019
The average score is roughly 80% so the time is good for now :)
+1
Level 33
Mar 11, 2020
Nigeria,Uzbékistan?
+1
Level 43
Jul 7, 2020
good point
+1
Level 55
May 6, 2020
Turkey has re-overtaken Iran according to https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/, meaning it should be on here.
+1
Level 43
Jul 7, 2020
Tanzania should be on here. Don't go saying "Oh but it borders DR Congo", because maritime borders don't even count.
+1
Level 68
Feb 13, 2023
Lake and river borders still count.
+1
Level 35
Jul 7, 2020
Lakes and rivers do
+1
Level 78
Aug 16, 2020
China. I can't believe I missed China.
+1
Level 62
Aug 16, 2020
Well I missed Nigeria🤪
+1
Level 49
Aug 20, 2020
which bordering country has more than saudi arabia?
+1
Level 43
Aug 31, 2020
Iraq I think
+3
Level 67
Feb 2, 2021
After years on Jetpunk, I somehow still didn't know that Iran borders Turkey. I blame someone else.
+1
Level ∞
Sep 29, 2021
With the latest update Turkey has passed Iran.
+2
Level 57
Aug 3, 2021
Nice quiz :)

Some countries are a bit tricky, its easy to forget about Haiti or South Korea

+1
Level 64
Aug 3, 2021
Missed Ghana and South Korea
+3
Level 65
Sep 29, 2021
Only got Ghana due to plenty of time to alphabetically guess.
+2
Level 73
Sep 30, 2021
Yeah I'll admit that wouldn't have guessed Ghana if it wasn't for the alphabetical organisation either.
+1
Level 37
Oct 6, 2021
same lmao
+1
Level 75
Oct 5, 2021
I forgot China! (I thought I had already typed it, because of a previous quiz I had just done.)
+1
Level 37
Oct 6, 2021
18/18 at my first try! great quiz!
+1
Level 87
Oct 14, 2021
D'oh! I thought about UK and several others immediately, even before hitting "start quiz." Typed the others, then never got UK thinking I had already typed it. Maddening...
+1
Level 69
Nov 11, 2021
what a brilliant quiz, really enjoyed this as had to think not of the most populous countries but those that only border one other, excellent, thank you.
+1
Level 75
Nov 14, 2021
Why does it say 17 countries in the description but actually there's 18?
+1
Level ∞
Nov 14, 2021
There used to be 17. Fixed.
+1
Level 56
Nov 14, 2021
Great idea for a quiz, really made me think
+1
Level 71
Nov 14, 2021
Kinda hilarious that India isn't on here because it just happens to border the one country that's more populous than it.
+2
Level 69
Nov 14, 2021
Only got the last one, Ghana, because they were in alphabetical order and I knew it had to start with G. You could mix up the order of the answers, if you wanted to make it more challenging.
+3
Level 56
Nov 15, 2021
Am Swedish, missed Sweden. Lovely.
+2
Level 23
Nov 19, 2021
boom i got all correct i kinda almost forget DRC lol
+1
Level 36
Feb 3, 2022
TIL that Afghanistan is more populous than Uzbekistan.
+1
Level 54
May 31, 2023
..very nice quiz..but too easy...
+2
Level 48
May 31, 2023
India? It just became the most populated.
+1
Level 64
May 31, 2023
Wow, didn't realize it was gonna happen now, I was thinking maybe a couple more years
+1
Level 64
May 31, 2023
Missed Nigeria and Ghana