Country Swap: What if the biggest populations moved to the largest countries? (Part 1)

The world, if population rank matched land area rank.

What would happen if the countries with the biggest populations moved to the countries with the largest land area all the way down the line? Let’s find out!

This article lays out the methodology and general findings. A country-by-country analysis will follow in four parts, starting with the 50 most populous countries (here). The country summaries also show potential new flags of the flipped nations, courtesy of the Flags Mashup Bot twitter account, which you should of course follow.

Sadly necessary disclaimer: since identity and land are often intertwined, I quote the Flags Mashup Bot to remind you: “Do not relate any mashup to politics or hate speech or something similar. I did this bot to generate random flags not to create a war about nationalism and politics in the replies Lets just have a good time”

Flag of China-in-Russia

Methodology

Since the world still has border disputes, dependent territories, and the like, I had to make some decisions about where to (literally) draw the lines. I decided to follow the choices made over at Sporcle, where I spend too much time playing geography quizzes. This gave me 197 countries, including Kosovo, Taiwan, and Vatican City, but excluding Artsakh, Hong Kong, Macau, Northern Cyprus, Niue, Cook Islands, Somaliland, Western Sahara, Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia.

I also use Sporcle’s definitions of continents, so that Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are in Asia, and Russia and Turkey both in Europe and Asia. Overseas territories, even if on equal footing, are not considered, so Spain is not considered part-African despite its lands there, nor is France part of South America.

Denmark includes Greenland, which is the only major territory that changes rankings. Most other dependent territories (like Puerto Rico) were not included, unless their data was already folded into their parent country. None of these make a large difference to the rankings.

You can see why Greenland matters to rankings while other territories may not.

Data Sources

Most of the data was downloaded from the World Bank website or from Wikipedia. Where unavailable — as it wasn’t for Taiwan or Vatican City, and often for other countries as well — I googled it and usually an answer presented itself. As a last resort, I imputed numbers based on the country’s neighbors and other clues found online.

All data used is in a spreadsheet here, along with some data not used. Any errors in the original are not mine; any errors in copying and pasting are mine.

Data Choices

Although this was first intended to be just a simpler “who would live where” it ballooned into a more detailed check on what people would experience. So we looked at a few major categories, outlined here.

1. Area: Before any Canadians complain: I ranked countries by LAND area, not TOTAL area, which includes interior bodies of water. That’s the reason Canada drops to 4th and China rises to 2nd. (The US remains 3rd either way.) There are other changes down the line, too, but that’s the most visible one.
   In addition to land area, I analyzed arable area per person as a proxy for food production and useful territory more generally. This would probably be more important in the short term than land area, where deserts and mountains can distort productive potential. (I attempted to analyze average elevation as well, but that data was not as reliable or insightful as I hoped.
   There are multiple valid lists of countries by area that list different totals for each country. I chose the World Bank but other lists would probably have different rankings. No territorial claims in the Antarctic were considered.
   For population I once again chose the World Bank 2020 numbers, which have probably changed in the meantime already. For example, Bosnia’s population is plummeting while Mongolia’s is growing at a healthy pace; it’s almost certain that Mongolia has a larger population by now. 13 country-pairs have populations that differ by less than 5,000 (including Algeria and Sudan, separated by 1774 people while approaching 44 million each!), and 24 more are separated by less than 20,000. Basically, these rankings will not hold for long, and probably already don’t.
   And yes, despite a difference of over 20 million, India will soon move ahead of China, and maybe already has.
2. Climate: Ways of life are adjusted to the local climate, so I thought it would be interesting to see what would change dramatically, using average temperatures, coldest months, hottest months, and temperature variability. I also included rainfall. Air pollution is also measured.
   I also considered a World Bank measure of extreme weather events, but it proved unreliable.
3. Economics: GDP is obviously not a real thing (like a house) and moving somewhere doesn’t get you a share of GDP (while you can move into a house), and it’s not a great proxy for wealth, but it does have a correlation with the quality of infrastructure and the capital stock, and so living standards. Maybe not adjusting for PPP would have made more sense, but here we are. All references to GDP are to GDP PPP per capita.
   Separately, energy production and existing mobile phone lines are compared, as indicators of limits on productivity and of change for moving populations.
   Finally, the number of urban residents is compared between the countries. As noted before, obviously there are sometimes large differences between a population and the country to which it moves, and we’ll ignore that. However, the modern economy is built around agglomeration in cities, where both the knowledge economy and manufacturing benefit from close proximity.

Flag of Bosnia-in-Bhutan, possibly the best mashup on the list, but I am very biased.

Result & Analysis

• Eight countries do not move, led by the United States at #3 in both population and land area. Cameroon comes in at #52 in both. The rest are fairly small countries: Timor-Leste (#155), Cabo Verde (#168), St. Kitts and Nevis (#190), Liechtenstein (#192), San Marino (#193), and Vatican City (#197).
  Nine countries are one spot away from not moving. Several of those are likely to stay in place once 2021 numbers come in.
• No two countries simply swap places, which I hoped would happen.
• 42 countries stay on the same continent, 50 if you count the ones that don’t move at all.
• Eight countries move to a bordering country: China (to Russia), India (to China), Russia (to Kazakhstan), Turkey (to Iran), Iraq (to Turkey) Uganda (to Tanzania), South Sudan (to Uganda) and Panama (to Costa Rica).
• Of 65 moving pairs involving islands, 23 island nations move to other islands.
• 24 non-island nations move onto islands, with Egypt — now densely populated along the Nile — spreading out over the Indonesian archipelago.
• 19 island nations move off islands, led by Taiwan, who moves to doubly-landlocked Uzbekistan, and Jamaica, who ends up encircled by Italy in old Lesotho.
• An even 100 of the 189 moving populations go from territories with coastlines to territories with coastlines, though coastline of course may vary quite a bit: Nigeria’s coastline grows nine-fold, for example, while Mauritania’s shrinks by 95%.
• 40 landlocked populations gain coastlines, most dramatically Chad and Bhutan, each moving to archipelagos.
• 37 coastal countries now find themselves landlocked, most jarringly Micronesia who moves from an expansive South Pacific archipelago to a mountainous unit in Andorra.
• 12 previously landlocked countries remain landlocked in their new setting. For some the adjustments are minor (South Sudan to Uganda, for example) but others move a long way (Bolivia to Laos).

Geopolitical Implications

Even assuming that the magic spell that made these changes set up temporary housing for everyone, we’re still looking for a humanitarian disaster. Several large populations suddenly find themselves in countries with more territory but much less productive land. Mexico (to Morocco), DRC (to Libya), France (to Chad), and Ethiopia (to Saudi Arabia) would need to come prepared with food and set up supply chains to more productive areas immediately. (Most likely, of course, is that people would try to move to more productive areas, and that may be their only realistic chance in this scenario.)

In other news, China gains control over the vast Russian resources but loses access to trading routes. Economically, in addition to China, India and Nigeria also get to upgrade to more space. Meanwhile, Russia moves to Kazakhstan and will probably struggle to retain its importance on the world stage.

The United States probably wins in the short term by having no disruptions from moving, and getting the Philippines and Indonesia closer blunts the loss of longer-distance manufacturing supply chains.

Current naval trade routes, depicted here, will be disrupted.

Afghanistan & Pakistan moving to South America will probably make the United States pay attention, given the recent past.

The various new Pacific island nations will have to build new ties, as their remoteness makes them more dependent on one another.

In good news, several trouble spots no longer exist: Israel and Palestine are nowhere near each other; India & Pakistan no longer share Kashmir; Ukraine gets away from Russia; Bosnia & Kosovo get away from Serbia, and the Koreas are safely separated. However, China (now in Russia) remains relatively close to Taiwan (now in Uzbekistan) but one can hope by moving they will also move on from the dispute.

China also still borders India, with whom they currently have an occasionally violent border dispute. Since India now takes over Chinese territory, there may still be tensions.

You would think that the world’s two most populous nations, each with nuclear weapons, having border disputes would be headline news every day, but apparently not.

Biggest Movers

Land Area: Unsurprisingly, the biggest percentage moves are made by microstates: Singapore (+11,539% to Austria), Monaco (+8780% to Marshall Islands), and Bahrain (+2482% to Slovenia). Bangladesh (+2002% to Argentina) and Pakistan (+984% to Brazil) are the most populous big gainers. In absolute terms, Pakistan (+7.5 million square kilometers to Brazil) and Indonesia (+7.1 to Canada) lead the pack. China (+7) and India (+6.5) are the only others gaining more than 3 million.

On the other end, Iceland (-99% to Kiribati) and Mongolia (-98% to Taiwan) lose the most territory. Another 15 countries lose more than 90%; 57 total countries lose more than 50%. In absolute terms, Russia (-13.7 to Kazakhstan) is the biggest loser, followed by Canada (-8.2 to Zambia) and Australia (-7.2 to Denmark & Greenland). All others are below 2.4 million.

Arable Land: Similar to total land area, Singapore (+24,000%), Monaco (+19,900%), Djibouti (+14900% to Kosovo), and Bahrain (+11393%) gain the most arable land. In absolute terms, Nigeria (+122 million to India) gains much more than second-place Pakistan (+50 million).

Density: Tiny Monaco, moving to tiny Marshall Islands, still reduces its density from 19360 to 218, the biggest absolute and second-smallest relative decrease (-98.87%). Singapore (-99.14%) has the biggest relative decrease. 24 countries reduce their density by more than 80%.
On the flipside, tiny Nauru moving to even tinier Monaco has the largest absolute gain in density (542 to 4803), the only such change larger than 600. Iceland has the biggest percentage change, (+12348% to Kiribati), well ahead of second-place Mongolia (+4203% to Taiwan).

Climate

Not all climates are equally conducive to human flourishing.

As noted above, no good measure of extreme weather would have been nice, but the World Bank index of Droughts, Floods, and Extreme Temperatures was difficult to work with and not necessarily accurate. Any volunteers are welcome to add this data, which would be insightful.

Average Temperature: (all temperatures provided in Celsius) While average temperature can be misleading at the extremes, it’s still fun to compare. Canada, officially the coldest country, has the highest average gain (+28.7 to Zambia). Norway (+25.9 to UAE) and Iceland (+25.18 to Kiribati) are the others above 25 degrees. 7 countries are now 20+ degrees warmer, and 38 10+. The cooling countries are lead by Indonesia (-32.5 to Canada), Burkina Faso (-26.09 to Sweden) and Cambodia (-25 to Finland). In ranking terms, Norway rises the most (176 spots) and Burkina Faso falls the most (-188, from second-hottest to eighth-coldest).

Coldest Month: The average temperature in the coldest month is a good indicator of severity of winter. That bodes worst for Indonesia (-53 to Canada), whose coldest month goes from 25.4 to -27.6. (Usual qualifier re Canada applies.) Cambodia (-39 to Finland) and Burkina Faso (-36 to Sweden are also going to shiver. Canadians, meanwhile, are toasty now (+44.6 to Zambia) and Mongolians will sweat in Taiwan (+42). Another seven countries go up by more than 30 degrees in the winter.

Hottest Month: Summertime highs rise much less than winter temperatures fall, with the biggest change happening to Norwegians (+20.5 to UAE). Only Iceland (+17 to Kiribati) is over 15, and only 13 total countries exceed 10 degrees.

Weather extremes can be fun…

Variation: Temperature variation (calculated as the spread of highest and lowest temperatures) is relevant primarily to agriculture. Once again Indonesia leads the way, with a range that goes from 1.5 degrees on its home archipelago to 40.4 on Canadian territory. (Again, Canada’s extreme cold in the far north artificially inflates these numbers but all of this is artificial.). Cote d’Ivoire (+33.2 to Turkmenistan) and Malaysia (+30.3 to Ukraine) also have 30 or more degrees of added temperature variation.

Meanwhile Uzbekistan (-38 to Somalia), North Korea (-36 to Papua New Guinea), Mongolia (-33 to Taiwan) and Canada (-31 to Zambia) all have a range compressed by over 30 degrees.

Rain Fall: Several dry countries move to much wetter places. In absolute millimeters per year, Namibia has the biggest gain (+2743 to Solomon Islands) followed by Egypt (+2684 to Indonesia), the only two countries over 2500 and 2 of 6 over 2000. Egypt has the undisputed lead in percentage terms, increasing by over 15000%. Libya (to Liberia) is up over 4000%, and 11 more countries are between 1000% and 2000%.

On the other end, Colombia (-3222 to Egypt) and Micronesia (-3045 to Andorra) lose the most in absolute rainfall. Seven more countries lose over 2000 mm. Colombia also loses the most in percentage terms — almost 95% less rain awaits it in Egypt. Second-place DRC, now in nearby Libya, only gets 3.6% of its previous rain, and 12 more countries are under 10% of their original volume.

The water wars, already predicted for our warming world, would start immediately.

GDP (PPP)

Most of the extreme changes involve small countries. The biggest leap forward is made by Nauru, from $11500 to $115,700 (to Monaco). Another South Pacific island nation, Samoa, gains big (+$92000 to Singapore). Seven more countries move to places with previously more than $50,000 higher income. Luxembourg (-$112700 to Palestine) and Monaco (-$111800 to Marshall Islands) suffer the biggest drops. Ireland (-$80400 to Sri Lanka) is the only other country with a drop of more than $70,000.
In the rankings, Eritrea is the biggest gainer (+183 to Netherlands) followed by Malawi (+176, to Norway). Saudi Arabia (-167 to South Sudan) drops the furthest, followed by Japan, France, and Iceland.

Air Pollution: Using PPM as the measure of air pollution, because that’s what the World Bank has, we seem some drastic changes. Spain (+640% to Nigeria), Sweden (+608% to Syria) and Vanuatu (+508% to Bahrain) will have to adjust on day one. Seventeen countries see their PPM more than triple, and 36 more than double. Meanwhile, Qatar (-86% to Belgium), Burkina Faso (-86% to Sweden) breathe more easily. Forty countries cut their PPMs by more than half on day one.

Cities are the economic engines of the knowledge economy.

Urban Population: Included as a measure of the target country’s ability to host the non-agricultural parts of an economy. Seventy countries move to places with over a million extra urban spots, while 59 countries bring more than a million urbanites with no existing city place to go. China will need to create cities for over 750 million people in Russian territory, while India (+380 million to China) and Nigeria (+375 million to India) have plenty of room to urbanize quickly. Samoa’s new home Singapore exceeds Samoa’s urban needs by over 16,000%, far ahead of second-place Bangladesh which offers newcomers from Tajikistan 2400% more urban space than they currently use. The Dominican Republic (2.4% to Guyana) and Iran (3.5% to Mongolia) have some construction ahead of them.

Electricity: Electrical production (which we’ll use to represent electricity immediately available) is a good measure of living standards. This bodes poorly for the French, whose new home in Chad produces only 0.04% of France’s own annual production. Thirteen countries have new homes with less than 1% of their original electricity, and even less per capita. Chad, meanwhile, gains over 45,000% by moving to the Philippines, and yet is still a distant second to Somalia (+83400% to Italy). Thirteen countries find new homes with over 10,000% the electrical production.

Mobile Phone Lines: A proxy for connectivity essential to the modern economy and quality of life, the number of existing mobile phone lines measured here does not control for quality of the networks. That said, Peru (-96% to Central African Republic) and Iran (-96% to Mongolia) will struggle to stay in touch. Twenty-five countries lose more than 80% of available mobile lines in the move. Samoa (+6815% to Singapore) and Marshall Islands (+5068% to Maldives) will have the most excess capacity. Four more countries will gain more than 1000% in mobile lines.

To proceed to the country-by-country analysis, click below:

Countries 1–50

Countries 51–100 (expected September 13, 2021)

Countries 101–150 (expected September 20, 2021)

Countries 151–197 (Expected September 27, 2021)