Cook Islands Country Quiz

Enjoy! One tip: There are just 2 bus routes on the island, clockwise and anti-clockwise, and it's worth getting a 10-trip bus pass to get you around (no pun intended).

In our opinion, there is a fallacy in your question, namely the suggestion that a country is not a country unless it is in the United Nations. We think that if (a) a country declares itself to be one, and (b) if enough other countries agree that it is, then it's a country. That said, here's the UN-info re the Cook Islands: As of 2014, the Cook Islands have diplomatic relations in its own name with 43 other countries. The Cook Islands is not a United Nations member state, but, along with Niue, has had their "full treaty-making capacity" recognised by United Nations Secretariat, and is a full member of the WHO and UNESCO UN specialised agencies, is an associate member of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and a Member of the Assembly of States of the International Criminal Court.

As your second question, the Cook Islands are classified as a Jetpunk country in our quizzes. There are many reasons we do that, but here are just three: (1) Its participation in the UN as described above; (2) When the maritime border between the Cook Islands and American Samoa was agreed to in 1980, that treaty was signed by the United States and the Cook Islands, not New Zealand; and (3) New Zealanders visiting the Cook Islands must clear customs on entry, and their passports are stamped with a 30-day, employment-prohibited, entry permit. These sorts of things establish sufficient independence of foreign policy to, in our view, accept its nationhood. "Jetpunk" (ie Dan) uses different criteria to classify a country as a country, which is not too surprising as there are many, many measures one can use to decide what gets counted and what does not.

My thoughts exactly.