Geography Now

Geography Now (also stylized as Geography Now!) is an American educational YouTube channel and web series created and hosted by Paul Barbato, profiling UN recognized countries in the world in alphabetical order as well as covering other topics regarding physical or political geography. The channel was started in August 2014 and has gained over 3.35 million subscribers.

Main hosts, co-hosts, and crews
If the specified co-host doesn't show up for their segment, then it will either be covered by Paul or filled in by another crew member of Geography Now!. Whenever possible, the channel will also feature guest contributors from the country being profiled.
 * Paul Barbato (born in Minnesota), sometimes nicknamed as Barby or Barbs – creator and host. He started Geography Now! because he felt there were no channels with the specific goal of profiling every country, and thus decided to create one himself. He has stressed the importance of geography education and criticized the lack of it in American curricula.
 * Keith Everett – music segment
 * Hannah Bamberg, also known as "Random Hannah" – culture segment.
 * Noah Gildermaster – food segment
 * Kaleb Seaton, formerly known as "Gary Harlow" (a “knockoff Steve Irwin”) – wildlife segment
 * Arthur "Art" Napiontek – sports segment
 * Bill Rahko – theme music composer
 * Vincent Kierkels – graphics designer/ animator
 * Peadar Donnelly – graphics designer/animator
 * Jared Stevenson – graphics designer/ animator
 * Jason King – graphics designer (formerly)
 * Ken O’Donnell – animator (formerly)

Geography Now!
The channel series started on October 15, 2014, with the country of Afghanistan and will conclude with the country of Zimbabwe. The member states of the United Nations are covered in alphabetical order with few exceptions, such as when the country formerly named Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini after E had already been passed, or how the North Macedonia episode was released under F because, at the time, the UN listed its name as "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and in order to prevent controversy from Greek viewers who identify the name "Macedonia" as purely Greek. English names are also used, so an episode is titled "Ivory Coast" and not "Cote d'Ivoire." Barbato has said he ensures his videos keep a fairly fast pace while including visual graphics for accessibility.

Over the course of the channel's history, the duration of the country episodes have steadily increased, with more topics and information about the countries being included in each episode. While the episodes for the first several countries usually only lasted 7-10 minutes, episodes toward the end of the series usually lasted around 30-40 minutes. As of July 12, 2024, Yemen is the newest episode and the third to last UN listed country episode., Viewers have also noticed a steady increase in production quality and animations included in the episodes. Barbato's home country, the United States of America, had by far the longest episode, lasting 65 minutes.
 * Flag Dissection, about the meaning and symbolism behind the country's flag. After signing with Studio 71, this segment was moved to a separate video known as Flag/Fan Fridays, later changed to Flag/Fan Days at the Cuba episode. These were accompanied with opening of mails and packages sent by the fans. In current format, flag segments are separated into a separate shorts format video and a separate live stream for fan mail openings.
 * Political Geography, giving a closer look at the country's borders, enclave and exclaves, territorial disputes and anomalies, administrative divisions, overseas territories, notable places found inside the country and more.
 * Physical Geography, about the country's land makeup, demarcations, landscape, arable land, climate, biodiversity, and food.
 * Demographics, about the country's population, plug type, driving side, people, diversity, traditions, culture, government, notable people, and a quick history of the country (if it wasn't covered already in a past segment).
 * Friend Zone, an analysis on the country's positive or negative relationship with other countries.
 * Conclusion, wrapping up the entire episode into a 1-2 minute segment.

Flag/Fan Days
Flag/Fan Days, previously known as Flag/Fan Friday are companion videos to the main episodes. A country's flag and coat of arms are explained in these videos. Barbato also sometimes uses this as an opportunity to discuss topics he did not get to in the original video, or correct and clarify details. After that he calls crew members and opens fan mail. There is a recurring animation for most episodes of Flag/Fan Days where the red stands for the "blood of those who fight for their freedom", which has since became a running gag if the red on the country's flag represents the blood of those who fought for the country in the past.

Following the release of the Venezuela episode, Paul Barbato has decided to turn the last 5 Flag/Fan Day videos into YouTube shorts due to the long time it took to research, film and produce the videos.

Paul Barbato Heritage
As part of an interesting filler week video uploaded in May of 2022, Paul Barbato took an DNA test using the MyHeritage website to determine where his heritage comes from, here are the results as followed from first mention to last:

25.2% Japanese and Korean

17.8% Chinese and Vietnamese

9.2% Central Asian

6.6% Italian

8.8% Irish, Scottish and Welsh

6.5% English (England)

11.0% Scandinavian

13.6% North African

1.3% Native American (USA)

Geography Now! episodes
The countries discussed in each episode follow the United Nations alphabetical list of members and go through them in the respective order.

Other content
Filler week videos happen when the team is in the process of researching and creating scripts for the next few videos. Topics discussed include states or sub regions of countries, current or cultural events, physical geography, specific ethnic group of peoples and infrastructure innovations.

Geography Go is the channel's travel vlog series. Countries visited include Qatar, Finland, Estonia, Greenland, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Indonesia, Singapore and many more. Paul also later started posting YouTube Shorts on his channel about his travels to other countries like Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Croatia, the Central African Republic, Togo and many other countries.

A Geograbee is the geography equivalent of a spelling bee in which people are tested on geography. He has so far hosted them in Hargeisa in Somaliland, Somalia, and Alaska.

For April Fools' Day, Geography Now! uploads videos profiling fictional countries made up by Barbato. These include:
 * Bandiaterra (2015), a Danish-speaking island nation in the Indian Ocean.
 * Limberwisk (2018), a Nordic country whose language consists entirely of whispers.
 * Patch Amberdash / Datcsh (2019), a confederation of islands spread across three continents.
 * Qitzikwaka (2020), a former Russian colony situated mostly underground in the Sahara.
 * Sovonthak (2021), a country situated on eight shallow reefs with a legally-recognized and taxed bartering system.
 * Volanca (2022), a country with no territory founded by UN interpreters with citizens' residences serving as legal lodging.
 * Ululiona-Linulu (2023), a sovereign Native American country created as a buffer between Mexico and the United States after the Mexican–American War.
 * Geolandia (2024), a federation comprising all previous April Fools' countries, which united in the "April Union". Citizenship is acquired by subscribing to Geography Now, and buying merch on the Geography Now website (including clothing, accessories, and a figurine of Barbato).

Reception
Geography Now! generally receives positive feedback from newspapers and magazines in the countries covered, such as Japan Today, Télérama, Dutch Metro, RTL, Nezavisne Novine, Life in Norway, Lovin Malta, and Zoznam. It also receives endorsements from educators and travel writers. The channel has appeared on several lists of recommended educational YouTube channels, including one by the Van Andel Institute. The few criticisms are usually to do with tone and pronunciation, particularly in earlier episodes.

The top 15 country episodes with the most views as of June 2024 are:

1. Germany (8.524 million)

2. Japan (7.309 million)

3. Indonesia (7.198 million)

4. Israel (6.262 million)

5. China (PRC) (6.157 million)

6. North Korea (DPRK) (6.133 million)

7. India (5.489 million)

8. Russia (5.041 million)

9. Denmark (4.892 million)

10. Philippines (4.486 million)

11. Italy (4.109 million)

12. Canada (3.974 million)

13. Netherlands (3.839 million)

14. Afghanistan (3.795 million)

15. Ireland (3.707 million)