This happens more frequently then one imagines. Quite a few things fail to start from scratch and instead rely on compounded errors over time. Projections, budgets, etc., are sometimes based on stale information.
I did not expect this to just be a simple mistake, especially one that's been around for decades. Makes you wonder what other kind of basic facts are wrong.
In the age of satellites, computers, Google maps and the like you would think a mistake like this would be impossible to persist for so long.
These kinds of issues have existed since the first human started recording what they owned, and will probably continue plaguing us until the last one dies.
A bunch of countries are suspected of undercounting their population because so many people are living "off the grid" or deliberately overcounting to get more funding. Probably some of the cases are real and some are just conspiracy theories.
What I wonder is why anyone noticed this in the first place. Who saw the size of the country in Wikipedia and thought, “really? Let me trace that in Google maps, just to be sure…”
I actually measured the size of (parts of) Yemen on maps a week or two ago, trying to figure out the population density of the Houthi-controlled areas, which contain the majority (~70-80%, hard to say exactly as the population distribution has been changing rapidly in the past decade) of Yemen's population in about 1/3 of it's land.
Although I do hope too that people don't lose their sense of meaning and curiosity too much, it's worth keeping in mind that this article was published in 2024 which was a very different world from now. Curiosity requires energy, and it'll be hard for a creature relying on energy for survival to justify using their own energy for some activity when there's a more energy-efficient way to reach a specific goal. But just like going to the gym makes your body healthier despite the fact that this requires energy, thinking on your own will be increasingly important for maintaining a healthy mind and the sense of self.
this was posted on 27. of november 2024. on the 3rd of december someone found a correct looking number in a yemen government document which was published in 2005 and updated wikipedia. so at least the country itself was not under any illusion of being bigger than they actually are.
Ah I'm glad. That's much better than the solution I had in mind of using the sand from the desert to expand the land into the sea to add extra 100k km of land area, to hide all this embarrassment under the rug.
Well, this is a pretty perfect usecase for AI (although it's also easy to just get shapefiles from NE and do it yourself, obviously).
Interestingly all of UAE, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have significant discrepancies between the World Factbook and their shapefiles (in every case overestimating), probably all related to not having had a demarcated border in the Rub Al Khali.
A quick lazy calculation (including adding in Antartica) the countries totals came up ~2,000,000km2 short. I don't care enough to dive deeper, but if no one is claiming that land I'll happily take it.
I think a more important question is whether Yemen still exists as as single coherent political entity with the same borders as seen on ANY of those maps, which given the present situation, it clearly does not.
I remember hearing from a Yemeni American in the late 90s that the border with Saudi was not defined (mentioned in the article). I wonder if this could be explained more simply that a few sources didn't bother to update this over time due to the ambiguity, they just carried over what had been published before.
A casual review of the satellite view of the border with Saudi Arabia shows that much of it is desolate uninhabited sand dunes, so it's not like there's border markers such as the US/Canada have. Or likely an accurate survey (you'd need high precision GNSS equipment and something that can traverse serious sand dunes as a vehicle, because no fixed markers and traditional surveying methods have any chance of success there).
Historically, borders in inhospitable regions where the government cannot project power used to be vague.
Early Medieval European kingdoms usually had border forests, sometimes quite deep (50-100 km), where one end of the forest was definitely Bohemian and the other end definitely Saxon or Austrian, but the exact demarcation within it bothered no one.
There were only two kinds of people crossing them: invading armies and long-distance traders on very few walkable paths. The latter would be taxed prior to entering the city markets, not on the border. The former would be interested in sieging strongholds deeper in the enemy territory, not in taking a slice of wooded territory on the border.
This reminds me of what Deming used to say: there is no correct value for any measurement, there are only the outcomes of methods chosen to measure something.
Great article. I wonder if the sum of the land areas of all countries on earth matches the global size of emerged land? Or are there other similar errors?
thr0waway001 | 18 hours ago
alentred | 14 hours ago
(I suppose people downvoting this don’t know the reference. Way to make us feel old :) )
defrost | 14 hours ago
mc32 | 18 hours ago
hbroom | 18 hours ago
Aerroon | 18 hours ago
In the age of satellites, computers, Google maps and the like you would think a mistake like this would be impossible to persist for so long.
AlotOfReading | 17 hours ago
vijayr02 | 12 hours ago
wmf | 17 hours ago
kqr | 14 hours ago
(See e.g. The misreporting of statistical results in psychology journals; Bakker, Wicherts; Behaviour Research Methods; 2011.)
burlesona | 17 hours ago
edoceo | 16 hours ago
t-3 | 16 hours ago
lappet | 17 hours ago
rpozarickij | 16 hours ago
em-bee | 17 hours ago
lopis | 16 hours ago
dehrmann | 16 hours ago
reassess_blind | 16 hours ago
cozzyd | 15 hours ago
Interestingly all of UAE, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have significant discrepancies between the World Factbook and their shapefiles (in every case overestimating), probably all related to not having had a demarcated border in the Rub Al Khali.
reassess_blind | 14 hours ago
mikelitoris | 15 hours ago
walrus01 | 15 hours ago
edit: map here https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
and here: https://yemen.liveuamap.com/
asveikau | 15 hours ago
walrus01 | 13 hours ago
inglor_cz | 12 hours ago
Early Medieval European kingdoms usually had border forests, sometimes quite deep (50-100 km), where one end of the forest was definitely Bohemian and the other end definitely Saxon or Austrian, but the exact demarcation within it bothered no one.
There were only two kinds of people crossing them: invading armies and long-distance traders on very few walkable paths. The latter would be taxed prior to entering the city markets, not on the border. The former would be interested in sieging strongholds deeper in the enemy territory, not in taking a slice of wooded territory on the border.
kqr | 14 hours ago
bambax | 13 hours ago
f055 | 12 hours ago
theteapot | 12 hours ago
titanomachy | 7 hours ago
postsantum | 12 hours ago
delved
jdhzzz | 10 hours ago
yreg | 10 hours ago
arthur18097612 | 6 hours ago
tracnar | 6 hours ago
eigenspace | 5 hours ago
2D area is stable under increasing measurement precision.