Forums → The Tavern → The greatest nation in the world?

Everyone who knows me is thinking right now, "I bet Clancy is going to post about Canada in Declan's thread". Well, you're right. Just give me a few hours first.

What are we using for criteria? In the examples you gave, you seem to be ranking largely on historical achievement and culture that originated there.

Well, since it seems we're talking mostly history now..

Celts were indeed a strong people at some time; they even sacked Rome (after which Rome organised and got their revenge of course...). They were no high culture however like Egyptians, Greek or Mayans.

I would also suggest Mesopotamia, all those civilisations famed for being the source of western culture.

Denmark, it holds the title "happiest place in the world".

Er... You're talking about civilizations and cultures, not countries...

'Murica - obvious reasons

Vatican - Youngest legal age for consent

Germany - Screw it, let's throw in our "dark hour" into there. Even with WWII..we helped medicinal research by a crap-ton.

I would agree with the German people. How they are still standing after WWI and WWII is a mystery to me.

I would also suggest Mesopotamia, all those civilisations famed for being the source of western culture.

Britain or at least it used to be look at the british empire in its full glory



Now compare that to the size of britain the size to power ratio is immense.


Other ones to note are the romans macedonians, mongolians and the french which all had big empires.

Vatican - Youngest legal age for consent

I'm talking about nations who have thrived all throughout time, with the best forms of government, additions to society and technology, and wealthy in economy and agriculture. Nations who have formed the cultures and countries of today. I forgot about Greece, they were definitely up there.

So you want to consider intertwining nations and cultures together? Would've been easier to say "What is the greatest group in the world" if you're going to ignore definitions and the limitations those definitions implicate.

But of course, it's all subjective.

This. Without Mesopotamia and similar ancient cultures (not countries!), we would never be where we are today.

I'm not a history buff, but as far as conquering other nations, influence, and colonization consider:

The Roman Empire
France
Spain
Britain

The evidence of these nations conquest can be seen in by the number of people who speak their languages today. Although few people use Latin (if any), in daily speech, today you can see how many languages currently have routes in it.
Also, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers)

Spanish 2nd most spoken by native speakers
English 3rd most spoken by native speakers
French 18th most spoken by native speakers (consider though that the French language is spoken in France, Canada, and the Middle East some evidence of their colonization.)

As for the other countries on the list, Mandarin may rank higher than Spanish and English, and 15 languages (not counting Spanish and English) rank higher than French, but consider that those higher ranking languages are predominantly spoken only in one country. This somewhat indicates that the spread of these countries empires is not as vast as British, Spanish, and French.

I should make honourable mentions for China and Russia based on how vast they are.

Here are some images of these empires at there peaks (although I'm not 100% on the accuracy of the maps)

British Empire:


French Empire:


Spanish Empire:


Roman Empire: