Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 August 16

= August 16 =

What is the lowest population country that swaps embassies with every not unusually bad relations country that has more people than it?
Not necessarily only those countries, just at least those.

I assume the biggest country that doesn't do this is far away from the one(s) it doesn't have bilateral embassies with and they don't think their trade/tourist swap levels etc. justify the cost. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean by "every not unusually bad relations country". --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:15, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Vatican City has diplomatic relations with most of the other nations of the world. Blueboar (talk) 23:38, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would guess one of the countries with very low GDP per person would be the biggest that doesn't swap embassies with every country larger than it, very bad bilateral relations excepted. Above this population level the graph of embassy swapping is completely connected, very bad bilateral relations excepted. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:03, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * By "embassy swapping", do you mean that each country has an embassy in the other? If so, then your statement about the graph being completely connected is totally incorrect. Maybe what you mean is diplomatic relations? Many pairs of countries have diplomatic relations with each other but have not exchanged embassies. Take Sweden as an example; our article list of diplomatic missions of Sweden says that Sweden has only 80 embassies around the world, which leaves more than 100 countries in which Sweden does not have an embassy. Or look at list of diplomatic missions of Australia; again, there's something like 100 countries in which Australia has neither an embassy nor a high commission. For example, Australia has no embassy in Switzerland, Hungary, Costa Rica, or Sudan, although those countries have embassies in Australia. Mathew5000 (talk) 08:49, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What's interesting is that they had an embassy in Hungary until comparatively recently. This screen capture from 2009 provides an address and everything for the Australian embassy in Hungary, but now http://www.hungary.embassy.gov.au redirects to https://austria.embassy.gov.au, the top of which says "Australian Embassy and Permanent Mission to the United Nations Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Kosovo, Slovakia and Slovenia".

Let's rephrase/simplify the question as follows: (a) What is the least populous sovereign state that maintains an embassy (or high commission) in every sovereign state more populous than itself? Well, I think the answer depends on which population figures you use. If you go by this ranking I believe the answer is Japan (#11). Per List of diplomatic missions of Japan, it has embassies in all ten countries above it on the list, but Ethiopia (#12) does not have an embassy in Pakistan (#5) or in Bangladesh (#8), just honorary consulates. But List of countries and dependencies by population gives a significantly lower population figure for Ethiopia (98.7 million as opposed to 112.1 million). As a result, I believe the answer to question (a), based on the population figures in this list, is Egypt. Maybe we should change the question to ask the converse: (b) What is the most populous sovereign state that does not maintain an embassy (or high commission) in every state more populous than itself? Then I think the answer is Ethiopia regardless of which list is used for population figures. I'm pretty sure that's correct but I haven't done a thorough check so perhaps I've overlooked something. Mathew5000 (talk) 20:31, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a lot bigger than I would've guessed, I thought Iran might have to be excluded for bad relations with the US but Ethiopia has more people than that. Before this answer I looked at Afghanistan thinking their internal security is more pressing still and holy crap they have so few! Apparently Nigeria doesn't have an embassy or Commonwealth equivalent in Bangladesh and they have at least 163 million people but Bangladesh has one in Nigeria and Nigeria has 201 million. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:34, 18 August 2019 (UTC)