Hi everyone,

last Friday (30th April) was the final Friday of the month, and thus time for our twitter-based #fridaygeotrivia trivia contest.

The April 2021 geotrivia question:

“Name countries that have a land border with only one other country”

This immediately opens the old debate of “what is a country?”. For our purposes we count countries and territories with ISO codes. We also note that bridges alone do not count as a border (thus Singapore, which is an island, is not a correct answer)

Here’s the #fridaygeotrivia twitter thread, click through to see the discussion and who got credit for which answer.

The geotrivia answer:

  • Bahrain (BH) borders only Saudi Arabia (SA)
  • Brunei (BN) borders only Malaysia (MY)
  • Canada (CA) borders only the United States (US) *
  • Denmark (DK) borders only Germany (DE) *
  • East Timor (TL) borders only Indonesia (ID)
  • Haiti (HT) and the Dominican Repiblic (DO) border only each other
  • Ireland (IE) and the United Kingdom (UK) border only each other
  • Lesotho (LS) borders only South Africa (ZA)
  • Monaco (MC) borders only France (FR)
  • Papau New Guinea (PG) borders only Indonesia (ID)
  • Portugal (PT) borders only Spain (ES)
  • Qatar (QA) borders only Saudi Arabia (SA)
  • San Marino (SM) borders only Italy (IT)
  • Sint Maarten (SX), which is a "constituent country" of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, borders only France (FR)
  • South Korea (KR) borders only North Korea (KP)
  • The Gambia (GM) borders only Senegal (SN)
  • The Vatican (VA) borders only Italy (IT)

- in June 2022 Canada and Denmark settled their border dispute and will henceforth share a land border.

A case can also be made for the territories

  • Gibraltar (GI) borders only Spain (ES)
  • Hong Kong (HK) border only China (CN)
  • Macau (HK) border only China (CN)

As always, thanks to everyone who joined in. It was fun.

See the full list of past monthly geotrivia questions and answers.

Happy geocoding,

Ed