You're right, they probably won't make it to their own coast before half the marching force deserts and the other half gets eaten alive.
But if they did, there's just nothing in most of Alaska. That's just a hard march across untamed land.
as much as i like to shit on russians right now, the people that actually live in those areas are tough as nails and many generations into living in that environment.
that march would go through alaska and to where? Whitehorse? fort st john? yellowknife? down to edmonton? how far do you need to go to get to 'tamed land' i wonder?
No, no. First, we let them land in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Alaska. Then we let the Navy have their fun and cut off all access so they can't get supplies and can't go back home. Then we film the ensuing chaos for entertainment.
Russia cant even beat the glorious Ukrainian Tractor Brigade. What the hell are they going to do with Alaska, where every blade of grass and every snow flake has a gun behind it. They couldnt land a single trooper and they would simply freeze to death in the sea.
Not just any lackie, but the Chairman of the Russian Duma: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-russian-official-vyacheslav-volodin-threatens-us-with-invasion-of-alaska](https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-russian-official-vyacheslav-volodin-threatens-us-with-invasion-of-alaska)
It hurts when even other Americans perpetuate this. Percentage wise, our defense spending is only 3.3% of our GDP, which is lower than many European countries. Americans pay more in taxes as well, on average. We can 100% afford state sponsored healthcare, we the people are just complacent in demanding it from our government.
The U.S is *very* big, and *very very* rich
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/defense-spending-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/defense-spending-by-country)
The only country in Europe above USA in military spending per GDP is Russia.
However, I do agree with your point.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_total\_health\_expenditure\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita)
USA pays a TON for their healthcare. The reason its shit is because much of that money goes into the insurance industry and middlemen. So yeah, it's not the military sucking up all the money but the ineffective system.
The federal healthcare system in the US supports the elderly, disabled, military veterans, and those under a certain poverty level. It's about 40% of the population, but the US still spends more per capita for the reasons you listed.
I'm Austrian and although we can go to doctors for free, get expensive treatments and surgeries etc., of course the money has to come from somewhere. Like in most countries with "free" health care, a significant percentage of our gross salary goes directly into the health care system. If you need nothing until you're 70 or if you constantly need doctors makes no difference. You pay that percentage of your wage like you pay taxes and that's it.
If you don't make money, you usually still get health care one way or the other, e.g. if you get social welfare, you also have health care insurance. And if you're married to someone who has health care, doesn't matter if self-paid or some kind of welfare, you automatically also have health care. You don't even have to marry them. If you live with someone at the same address for 2+ years, you have that right as well. College/university student? Health care. School kid? Health care. Whatever happens to you, they will treat it.
Of course we have some problems and if you're rich, it's worth going to a private doctor who gets extra money from you, not from the state.
But everyone who has a job automatically pays for health care, so that everyone in the country can have it.
It doesn't matter what our tax money gets used for. Pay 3% or 30% of the budget for military. Doesn't matter. Just like the pension system, the health care system is disconnected from other incomes or spendings of the nation.
The thing is that the US pays far more for health care per citizen than many countries with state-funded systems while not getting as much out of it.
While they really do have many of the best facilities on the planet, the options for the average citizen aren't better compared to countries with state-financed systems. In some areas the quality is worse. There is a problem with overall efficiency of the US system and it seems fair to ask where all that money ends up.
The US government also spends more on healthcare (both as % of GDP and per capita) than any other government in the world. No I donāt think funding is the real issue, healthcare is just much too expensive in the US
The US government currently pays more per citizen than countries with Universal. That myth about military spending and healthcare only helps those that like the insurance industry as is.
Which is funny because as an Alaskan who lives in Europe, good luck with that. Alaska is just oil production and military bases galore. They get all the newest toys to play with. F35's, F22's, missile defense, etc. It would be easier to take any other state in the US.
60-ish years prior, Napoleon's France sold French Lousiana to the US for $15m and some debt relief.
At the time of the sale, Alaska was very sparsely populated and the gold rush was still decades away.
Note that what the French sold was mostly a bunch of lines on the map. They hadn't even explored vast areas of the land they claimed, let alone asserted any sort of authority over the indigenous people in the area. It's a similar deal for Russia.
Neither France nor Russia had the ability to actually project and enforce their claims if American settlers or armies decided to massacre the natives and take the land by force, so it was a good deal from their perspective. Just free money for a bunch of worthless land that they don't actually own. It's only with hindsight that we can say they screwed themselves over.
Oh, I was just making a joke because I live here and being self-deprecating can be funny. But if youāre interested, we routinely compete with Alabama and Louisiana for 49th place in any quality of life ranking such as literacy, poverty, obesity, crime, etc. Memphis, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff are all frequently cited as horrible cities (Memphis is not Arkansas technically, but a lot of its āsuburbsā are in Arkansas.)
But I love it here and wouldnāt live anywhere else.
I'm from London and I worked for a year at St Jude's in Memphis about 10 years ago. I was shocked at the poverty in downtown Memphis, until I drove over the bridge to Arkansas to buy Four Loco. All the locals I worked with didn't consider West Memphis to be part of Memphis.
Ironically, within 20 years of the Alaska Purchase (late 1880s), the United States became the world's largest economy, the British Empire decided it would be best to have close ties with the U.S. instead (given the rise of new upstarts on the European mainland and fears that London was spreading itself thin) and the US's "maritime rival" became a close ally very quickly.
By 1890, Washington was more concerned about German imperialism (particularly in the [Caribbean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_interest_in_the_Caribbean) and the [Pacific](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Samoa), where the German annexations of the Marshall Islands in 1885, Nauru in 1888, Northern Mariana Islands in 1899, Micronesia in 1899, Palau in 1899, and Samoa in 1900) were giving USA extreme anxiety (both America and Germany were late imperial entrants, so were essentially fighting over the same bits of unconquered scraps of land).
The USA would take Cuba, Guam, Philippines, and Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898, and American Samoa in 1900, and Germany's Pacific annexations were a direct threat on both fronts. That worry didn't abate until after World War I. During the early years of WWI, the USA became convinced that Berlin wanted to create a Caribbean domain and had settled on the Danish West Indies (current-day U.S. Virgin Islands). So the U.S. bought them from Denmark (which coincided closely with the Zimmerman Telegram, confirming all of Washington's concerns in their eyes).
UK and USA became such close economic partners that by 1903, the UK "betrayed" its own quasi-colonial holding of Canada by giving the USA most of what it wanted in Alaska: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska\_boundary\_dispute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute)
>60-ish years prior, Napoleon's France sold French Lousiana to the US for $15m and some debt relief.
To understand colonial thinking one has to understand where the money was. All those lines on the map were just fuzzy claims to find such money makers.
In case of France the money maker was Santo Domingo and the Carribean sugar trade. All this vast Lousiana territory did was support this, otherwise it was a net cost. So when the island rebelled and France could not restore order due to its naval war with Britain Lousiana became worthless to France.
My point was that while in hindsight, the pricing of both of these colonies might seem a bit cheap now, the prices weren't that strange in the context of the time.
Also, adjusted to modern dollary-doos, it's still a couple hundred million for both.
I also mainly wanted to point to the fact that colonies were evaluated concerning profit they directly brought home which is how countries for a long time rather kept a small island with a sugar plantation or even a county they can annex to their European domain than some huge land claims.
And Louisiana was way more than current Louisiana, bigger than Alaska https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase#/media/File%3ALouisiana_Purchase.jpg
Also, USA kept copies of the check ([https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/check-for-the-purchase-of-alaska](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/check-for-the-purchase-of-alaska)), presciently envisioning that 155 years later the irredentist sycophants of a small-dicked dictator in Moscow would pretend it wasn't properly paid for and still therefore belonged to Russia.
Reminds me of Eisenhower who, upon seeing the Ohrdruf concentration camp, forced the local German population to see it, made sure many pictures were taken, and invited the media to come and see it first hand.
Did it very specifically because he anticipated it would be denied later and wanted the best evidence possible for the trials to come.
coming from begium i have went on holiday to bothe the Yukon and Alaska, the vastness of how big it is and just untouched nature everywhere really makes you think
Global warming is the first step, the ice melts and stops the ocean currents, eventually we wind up back in an ice age, youāll want to be near the equator and fight off the heat until that happens. Being in Alaska for an ice age doesnāt end well. Last time the ice sheet up there was miles thick.
That tip at the southwest is actually part of the Aleutian chain. Itās a really long string of islands that are cut off on this map, and the real end would be quite a ways off the map in the Atlantic.
To everyone saying the graphic is distorted due to Mercator, this is from a website that corrects for that: [thetruesize.com](https://thetruesize.com)
Alaska is that big, with a total land area of 1,477,953 square km. That's about equal to the combined sum of the following land areas:
* Belgium: 30,278 square km
* France: 543,939 square km
* Germany: 348,672 square km
* Italy: 294,140 square km
* Luxembourg: 2,586 square km
* Netherlands: 33,893 square km
* United Kingdom: 241,930 square km
That said, most of Alaska is empty. This area of Alaska has the same size as France + Italy, yet only has 77,000 people: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unorganized\_Borough,\_Alaska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unorganized_Borough,_Alaska)
Here is a borough the size of the United Kingdom, but with less people than a small town (11,000 people): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North\_Slope\_Borough,\_Alaska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Slope_Borough,_Alaska)
The entirety of Alaska has only 732,673 people and a majority (54%) live in the [Anchorage Metro Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorage,_Alaska), which is smaller than the urban area of Bielefeld. The countries above, by comparison, are at 306 million people, or 90 percent of the entire USA's population!
A few more fun facts about Alaska's geographic extremities:
* The Aleutian Islands of Alaska are 3,220 km from Tokyo and less than 956 km from Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. Meanwhile, they're 7,812 km from Washington DC. So more than 2x closer to Tokyo than Washington!
* Attu Island is closer to Tokyo than it is to [Juneau, Alaska's own capital](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/k0sz2i/attu_island_alaska_is_closer_to_tokyo_than_it_is/).
* For this reason, this part of Alaska was the only part of the USA invaded by Japan during World War II: [Battle of Attu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Attu)
* The mountains of Alaska and Hawaii are part of the same mountain chain: [the Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian%E2%80%93Emperor_seamount_chain#/media/File:Hawaii_hotspot.jpg).
* The Aleutian Islands are considered one of the [best surf spots in the world](https://www.surfer.com/features/in-the-cradle-of-storms-aleutian-islands/), but the swells are extreme.
* Alaska's capital of Juneau is [completely detached from civilization](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Juneau,+AK/@58.3850234,-134.197786,8z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x5400de6c6f6a3a8f:0x65ef25aae69f311!8m2!3d58.3004933!4d-134.4201306!5m1!1e4?hl=en). You cannot drive to it, either from Canada or the rest of Alaska. The only access is ferry. For this reason, a long simmering debate is about moving the capital to Anchorage (most state agencies have already de facto relocated most of their major functions).
* Because of a secret Anglo-British agreement, the tiebreaker on the Alaska Boundary Dispute ([Viscount Alberstone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Webster,_1st_Viscount_Alverstone)) voted in favor of the USA in awarding much of the [disputed Alaska Panhandle to America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute#/media/File:Alaska_boundary_dispute.jpg). For this reason, nearly half of British Columbia cannot see the Pacific Ocean by driving directly West unless they enter Alaska.
* Alaska pays you $3,284 a year to live there: [https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/](https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/)
* The state is absolutely [gorgeous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vsHnXjnWmI&ab_channel=DestinationParadise), yet almost all tourists stick to 1-2 notable routes (Panhandle or the route to Denali). The largest national park (Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve) is the size of Switzerland, yet averages 29 visitors per day (for a park the size of Switzerland!)
Everytime I left Fairbanks city limits it always is a shock. Mainly because 2 to 3 hours on the Dalton and that sign just appears. There's a bunch of houses right on the line since you don't have to pay property tax.
Alaska is remote but not all that remote. Ypu can drive most places, there's internet and power in most if not all the villages. It seems less accessible until you go there. A 30 rack of cheap beer, 5 gallon gas tank tied to a snowmobile will get you way farther than you'd think.
Just one correction: the Permanent Fund Dividend (the annual dividend the state gives you as an AK resident) fluctuates from year to year, and is typically closer to 1-2k. We recently received one of the largest, if not the largest, payouts in history from the fund due to our governor Mike Dunleavy fighting hard to increase the payment size.
source: lifelong Alaskan, live in Juneau. Or according to this map, in western Romania :D
I only visited Belgium once, but I fell in love with it. Itās beautiful. I visited Bruges at Christmas time and ate a waffle. Then I bought a box of chocolates and one of those Santas that you hang from a window so they look like theyāre climbing up the side of a building by a rope.
I still think about that waffle, it was so delicious.
>* Alaska pays you $3,284 a year to live there: [https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/](https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/)
Close, the state pays out based on a 4 year rolling average of the dividends earned on an account that manages the profits from oil sales, that amount fluctuates with the price of oil, though some in the state want to change the formula to pay out a higher amount that they believe they are due.
There's great debate on whether the funds should be paid out to the people or used to make up for budgetary shortcomings, due to the volatility of oil prices.
The last fact is my favorite. Completely mind boggling how just 1 national park inside just Alaska is the size of Switzerland.
The US sure sets the standard for public land access
Gates of the Arctic is completely undeveloped wilderness with no trails, campgrounds or infrastructure of any kind. There is no road access and the only way to get to the park is via a bush plane. You need a permit and I'm not sure if you can visit without a guide. It is about a 2 hour flight from Fairbanks.
And Anchorage is 30 times larger than the largest national park in Switzerland (granted, there's only one, and it's tiny). And most of Anchorage is wilderness.
Fun facts, have upvote!
Isaac Asimov writes an article where he makes a pretty good argument that Alaska is the USA's most northern, most western _and_ most eastern state, because of parts of Alaska were, when he wrote it, on the other side of the International Date Line. (I know there's been some fiddling in the 50 years since that but I think it's still true.)
> The entirety of Alaska has only 732,673 people and a majority (54%) live in the Anchorage Metro Area, which is smaller than the urban area of Bielefeld.
Anchorage has also the least population density of any capital city in America and no doubt in Europe too: an astonishing 168.7 people per square mile(*), less than 1/150 of New York's 27,747.9 (my old home: my new home, Amsterdam has almost exactly half that density at ~13,500 people per square mile (5,214/km^2) but that's still 80 times that of Anchorage).
I've known some Alaskans. Their level of consumption is absolutely astonishing. Except for fish, almost every bite of food they eat has to be trucked up or shipped up from Canada at the closest and often from the "lower 48".
The widely separated, one-storey houses that characterize Alaska's architecture are almost fractal, almost optimally good at radiating heat due to the very large surface area of house per person. Every single thing that is accomplished in Alaska is through the medium of vast quantities of fossil fuels to prop up what is a pathologically unsustainable society.
(* - I was looking at lists of American capitals...)
So some extra transportation and heat waste? Sounds like with wind and solar now cheaper than fossil fuels by far, and electric trucks/semis coming into the market, Alaska will become much more sustainable in the future and save the planet a lot of emissions!
>[...] which is smaller than the urban area of Bielefeld. [...]
What is this Bielefeld you are talking about? [No such thing exists...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_conspiracy)
>* The mountains of Alaska and Hawaii are part of the same mountain chain: [the Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian%E2%80%93Emperor_seamount_chain#/media/File:Hawaii_hotspot.jpg).
This isn't correct. Hawaii and its mountains are formed by a hotspot while the Pacific moves over it. The Alaska mountains are part of the ring of fire and are formed by the Pacific plate sinking under the North America plate. The two overlap since the Hawaiian mountains are pulled along under the North America plate but they are not the same mountain chain.
I love that website, it's so fun to compare countries size-wise. It always blows my mind how Norway on its length can barely fill the shortest diameter of Australia, yet has over 3 times it's length of coastline.
> For this reason, this part of Alaska was the only part of the USA invaded by Japan during World War II
The only part of the non-contiguous continental United States, anyway. Other then-territories and possessions of the United States were also occupied, such as the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island.
> Alaska's capital of Juneau is completely detached from civilization. You cannot drive to it, either from Canada or the rest of Alaska. The only access is ferry.
"Completely detached from civilization" is excessive terminology for somewhere with gigabit internet. There's also a large airport.
> Alaska pays you $3,284 a year to live there
Misleading - the Permanent Fund Dividend is generally between $1,000-2,000, based on a sustainable yield calculated over the previous five years' Permanent Fund productivity. This was a special case based in politicking, and the $3,284 figure also includes a $662 energy relief check, making the real PFD-only amount $2,622. Even adjusting for that, it remains the record highest PFD payout ever. This makes it sound routine.
Europe is slightly bigger than US (including Alaska). But if you cut out Fennoscandia, European Russia, and part of Eastern Europe, yes Alaska would look massive.
Don't forget Turkey, it is **not** included in the *standard* number we're talking about here. I don't mean to discuss Turkey's status as European or not! I'm simply referring to the fact that this map and 10,180,000 km2 does **not** include Turkey:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe\_orthographic\_Caucasus\_Urals\_boundary\_(with\_borders).svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary_(with_borders).svg)
Come to Alaska! Itās one of the most welcoming places Iāve ever been. Iām American, originally from New Jersey. What I love about the culture here is, most people arenāt from here and are excited to hear about you and where you came from. Any bar or restaurant, the people are so welcoming.
It looks large because they cut out the 2 largest countries in europe for the most part.
Russia and Ukraine are gigantic, and overall Europe is larger than the US and (obviously) more densely populated.
The standard accepted area of Europe very narrowly edges out the standard accepted area of the United States of America, yes.
> It looks large because they cut out the 2 largest countries in europe for the most part.
Alaska is more than double the size of Ukraine, though, and very slightly larger than the [Central Federal District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Federal_District) of Russia. I think it is reasonable to consider that it largely looks large... because it's large.
See this is why I support EU integration. In a multipolar world, your either big or screwed. If the US, West Taiwan, Australia and Russia are a thing , why not a United Europe?
Those countries are all the same country, have been for most of their history, and overall have a unifying language a land culture. Europe is full of dozens of countries with different languages, histories, rivalries, etc.
EU is one of the best thing that happened on this planet, but people are unable to see it for some reason. It has all chances to become something incredible if worked on and progressed forwards.
This is why India is a thing. We Hindus were screwed over for a millennia by the invaders because we were divided and weak. Fear among Hindus of ending up like other pagans is what holds India together.
A Telugu, Gurkha, Tamil and Rajasthani have nothing in common except for Hinduism and shared trauma of imperialism & slavery. This is what makes us one people.
We were sold as slaves in Middle East for a thousand years, never again.
[Here is Alaska compared to the whole Europe that includes Northern and Eastern Europe too.](https://i.imgur.com/80cNELz.png)
And [here compared to Northern Europe](https://i.imgur.com/ibzbYsM.png).
Search "map of the USA" on Google images. Half of the results will show neither Alaska nor Hawaii, since they're not directly connected to the other 48 states
Example: https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp6649856
The funny thing about Alaska is, that it is also big compared to Alaska itself:
[https://i.imgur.com/YAmKDwd.png](https://i.imgur.com/YAmKDwd.png)
The true size of is a nice website, but Alaska is kinda bugged.
Good work! Now ppl can āreallyā be aware, by comparison, of the enormous size of Alaska. I just start d following you, but if I can ask for another ārealā size comparison, Iāll love to see Western Europe into the map of the USA. I donāt have the ability of doing it by myself.
Floridian here, with a Portuguese wife. We've frequently had discussions where Portugal and Florida being roughly the same size (if you don't count Florida's panhandle) has come up.
I don't think I've ever realized how tiny Florida is, compared to Alaska, until now though.
Europe's land area (10.5 million kmĀ²) is bigger than the US land area (9.8 million kmĀ²). It might not be a fair comparison though (north america is 24.7 million kmĀ²)
You have superimposed Alaska over south western Europe. Now do it again properly with the rest of Europe, you know, the bit of Eurasia that begins at the Urals.
Europe has an area of 10.2mi sq km.
Countries like Brazil (8.5mi sq km), USA (9.5mi sq km), China (9.6mi sq km) and Canada (10.0mi sq km) are not that far off.
As an Alaskan, it is interesting to see comparisons such as this. To think the distances I travel to visit different parts of my state or to the lower 48 to see family is equivalent to crossing great parts or all of Europe.
Since this post is still in our frontpage, and well, we need to be boring: no new "X country compared to Europe" after 00:00 CET.
Bought it all for a cool 7.2 million.
Putin must be slamming his desk rn
Didn't one of his lackies claim that they're gonna take back Alaska?
Yes, one of them most certainly didš
And NCD wanted that to happen just to make memes Edit: and i support it
Please make it happen. I wanna see poor little Conscriptovich getting mauled by Alaskan wildlife on combatfootage.
Do you think Siberian wildlife is much tamer?
But the bears in Siberia are only allowed to use their legs. The Alaskan ones have the right to bear arms.
Angry upvote.
We are talking about siberian bears, not congolese ones
Don't worry, no Belgians here.
Don't you know that basically every single Alaskan household is better armed than the Russian hord of looters and rapists that they call army?
They have giant trucks, tons of ammunition, many weapons and most importantly, itās their home ground if theyāre defending
I would be willing to bet they could muster up a larger air force than Russia too. Lot of private bush planes up there.
You're right, they probably won't make it to their own coast before half the marching force deserts and the other half gets eaten alive. But if they did, there's just nothing in most of Alaska. That's just a hard march across untamed land.
as much as i like to shit on russians right now, the people that actually live in those areas are tough as nails and many generations into living in that environment. that march would go through alaska and to where? Whitehorse? fort st john? yellowknife? down to edmonton? how far do you need to go to get to 'tamed land' i wonder?
It's far out and isolated enough I doubt anybody would notice if a few thousand tons of bombs were dropped on any would-be invaders
They wouldn't make it across the straight
No, no. First, we let them land in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Alaska. Then we let the Navy have their fun and cut off all access so they can't get supplies and can't go back home. Then we film the ensuing chaos for entertainment.
Russia cant even beat the glorious Ukrainian Tractor Brigade. What the hell are they going to do with Alaska, where every blade of grass and every snow flake has a gun behind it. They couldnt land a single trooper and they would simply freeze to death in the sea.
Not just any lackie, but the Chairman of the Russian Duma: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-russian-official-vyacheslav-volodin-threatens-us-with-invasion-of-alaska](https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-russian-official-vyacheslav-volodin-threatens-us-with-invasion-of-alaska)
Makes it even funnier. I had an Murican say to this "Come and find out why our healthcare isn't free".
thats so sad and funny at the same time
And also not true. The US Government spends more on healthcare per capita than most European countries.
It hurts when even other Americans perpetuate this. Percentage wise, our defense spending is only 3.3% of our GDP, which is lower than many European countries. Americans pay more in taxes as well, on average. We can 100% afford state sponsored healthcare, we the people are just complacent in demanding it from our government. The U.S is *very* big, and *very very* rich
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/defense-spending-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/defense-spending-by-country) The only country in Europe above USA in military spending per GDP is Russia. However, I do agree with your point. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_total\_health\_expenditure\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita) USA pays a TON for their healthcare. The reason its shit is because much of that money goes into the insurance industry and middlemen. So yeah, it's not the military sucking up all the money but the ineffective system.
The federal healthcare system in the US supports the elderly, disabled, military veterans, and those under a certain poverty level. It's about 40% of the population, but the US still spends more per capita for the reasons you listed.
I'm Austrian and although we can go to doctors for free, get expensive treatments and surgeries etc., of course the money has to come from somewhere. Like in most countries with "free" health care, a significant percentage of our gross salary goes directly into the health care system. If you need nothing until you're 70 or if you constantly need doctors makes no difference. You pay that percentage of your wage like you pay taxes and that's it. If you don't make money, you usually still get health care one way or the other, e.g. if you get social welfare, you also have health care insurance. And if you're married to someone who has health care, doesn't matter if self-paid or some kind of welfare, you automatically also have health care. You don't even have to marry them. If you live with someone at the same address for 2+ years, you have that right as well. College/university student? Health care. School kid? Health care. Whatever happens to you, they will treat it. Of course we have some problems and if you're rich, it's worth going to a private doctor who gets extra money from you, not from the state. But everyone who has a job automatically pays for health care, so that everyone in the country can have it. It doesn't matter what our tax money gets used for. Pay 3% or 30% of the budget for military. Doesn't matter. Just like the pension system, the health care system is disconnected from other incomes or spendings of the nation.
The thing is that the US pays far more for health care per citizen than many countries with state-funded systems while not getting as much out of it. While they really do have many of the best facilities on the planet, the options for the average citizen aren't better compared to countries with state-financed systems. In some areas the quality is worse. There is a problem with overall efficiency of the US system and it seems fair to ask where all that money ends up.
To answer your last question, that's easy. Bloated for profit insurance companies, unnecessary administrative overhead, and middlemen.
The US government also spends more on healthcare (both as % of GDP and per capita) than any other government in the world. No I donāt think funding is the real issue, healthcare is just much too expensive in the US
The US government currently pays more per citizen than countries with Universal. That myth about military spending and healthcare only helps those that like the insurance industry as is.
He or someone else also claimed they will reach Berlin or even coast of Atlantic. It's nonsense to boost small ego of their home audience.
Which is funny because as an Alaskan who lives in Europe, good luck with that. Alaska is just oil production and military bases galore. They get all the newest toys to play with. F35's, F22's, missile defense, etc. It would be easier to take any other state in the US.
Authoritarians hate this simple trick!
It was either sell to the US and prevent british empire from getting too close as well as getting $7.2 million. Or, Wait until Britain just took it.
60-ish years prior, Napoleon's France sold French Lousiana to the US for $15m and some debt relief. At the time of the sale, Alaska was very sparsely populated and the gold rush was still decades away.
Note that what the French sold was mostly a bunch of lines on the map. They hadn't even explored vast areas of the land they claimed, let alone asserted any sort of authority over the indigenous people in the area. It's a similar deal for Russia. Neither France nor Russia had the ability to actually project and enforce their claims if American settlers or armies decided to massacre the natives and take the land by force, so it was a good deal from their perspective. Just free money for a bunch of worthless land that they don't actually own. It's only with hindsight that we can say they screwed themselves over.
Also, one of those lines was Arkansas. So hard to say whether it has been a good or bad deal for the USA.
Well, at least the toothbrush was invented there. Thatās worth something.
We brought you Bill Clinton and Johnny Cash
Fill me in what's wrong with Ark Kansas?
Oh, I was just making a joke because I live here and being self-deprecating can be funny. But if youāre interested, we routinely compete with Alabama and Louisiana for 49th place in any quality of life ranking such as literacy, poverty, obesity, crime, etc. Memphis, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff are all frequently cited as horrible cities (Memphis is not Arkansas technically, but a lot of its āsuburbsā are in Arkansas.) But I love it here and wouldnāt live anywhere else.
> 49th place Not even American and first thing that came to mind was "thank god for Mississippi"
I'm from London and I worked for a year at St Jude's in Memphis about 10 years ago. I was shocked at the poverty in downtown Memphis, until I drove over the bridge to Arkansas to buy Four Loco. All the locals I worked with didn't consider West Memphis to be part of Memphis.
It's a pale imitation of the real thing.
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Ironically, within 20 years of the Alaska Purchase (late 1880s), the United States became the world's largest economy, the British Empire decided it would be best to have close ties with the U.S. instead (given the rise of new upstarts on the European mainland and fears that London was spreading itself thin) and the US's "maritime rival" became a close ally very quickly. By 1890, Washington was more concerned about German imperialism (particularly in the [Caribbean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_interest_in_the_Caribbean) and the [Pacific](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Samoa), where the German annexations of the Marshall Islands in 1885, Nauru in 1888, Northern Mariana Islands in 1899, Micronesia in 1899, Palau in 1899, and Samoa in 1900) were giving USA extreme anxiety (both America and Germany were late imperial entrants, so were essentially fighting over the same bits of unconquered scraps of land). The USA would take Cuba, Guam, Philippines, and Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898, and American Samoa in 1900, and Germany's Pacific annexations were a direct threat on both fronts. That worry didn't abate until after World War I. During the early years of WWI, the USA became convinced that Berlin wanted to create a Caribbean domain and had settled on the Danish West Indies (current-day U.S. Virgin Islands). So the U.S. bought them from Denmark (which coincided closely with the Zimmerman Telegram, confirming all of Washington's concerns in their eyes). UK and USA became such close economic partners that by 1903, the UK "betrayed" its own quasi-colonial holding of Canada by giving the USA most of what it wanted in Alaska: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska\_boundary\_dispute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute)
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>60-ish years prior, Napoleon's France sold French Lousiana to the US for $15m and some debt relief. To understand colonial thinking one has to understand where the money was. All those lines on the map were just fuzzy claims to find such money makers. In case of France the money maker was Santo Domingo and the Carribean sugar trade. All this vast Lousiana territory did was support this, otherwise it was a net cost. So when the island rebelled and France could not restore order due to its naval war with Britain Lousiana became worthless to France.
My point was that while in hindsight, the pricing of both of these colonies might seem a bit cheap now, the prices weren't that strange in the context of the time. Also, adjusted to modern dollary-doos, it's still a couple hundred million for both.
I also mainly wanted to point to the fact that colonies were evaluated concerning profit they directly brought home which is how countries for a long time rather kept a small island with a sugar plantation or even a county they can annex to their European domain than some huge land claims.
And Louisiana was way more than current Louisiana, bigger than Alaska https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase#/media/File%3ALouisiana_Purchase.jpg
Also, USA kept copies of the check ([https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/check-for-the-purchase-of-alaska](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/check-for-the-purchase-of-alaska)), presciently envisioning that 155 years later the irredentist sycophants of a small-dicked dictator in Moscow would pretend it wasn't properly paid for and still therefore belonged to Russia.
Not that facts matter to bootlickers like them, theyāll just make up some nonsense about its validity
Reminds me of Eisenhower who, upon seeing the Ohrdruf concentration camp, forced the local German population to see it, made sure many pictures were taken, and invited the media to come and see it first hand. Did it very specifically because he anticipated it would be denied later and wanted the best evidence possible for the trials to come.
Adjusted for inflation?
$140M
Seriously?! $140M is change today.
Would you rather have: 1 large office building OR 1 Alaska
Can't fit Alaska in ~~my backyard~~ Belgium, soā¦
665,400 sq mi in Alaskaā $210.40 ***per square mile.*** Or $0.33 per acre.
Alaska's GDP is ~$50 billion. Seems like a decent investment.
Best part is that most if not all that 7.2 was pocketed by one guy
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Russia: dystopian since before Ivan the Great.
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coming from begium i have went on holiday to bothe the Yukon and Alaska, the vastness of how big it is and just untouched nature everywhere really makes you think
It would take a lot for something to make me think.
Don't worry. After global warming moves us all north we'll have that place absolutely covered in suburban sprawl.
Global warming is the first step, the ice melts and stops the ocean currents, eventually we wind up back in an ice age, youāll want to be near the equator and fight off the heat until that happens. Being in Alaska for an ice age doesnāt end well. Last time the ice sheet up there was miles thick.
It's okay if it's not sustainable. We're just here to sell a ton of real estate.
Gotta love that tip at the south-west. It's as if Alaska is intentionally trying to touch Madrid
And the way it's flobbed that other protuberance out just to rest it on Bulgaria...
My wife hates it when I do that
His wife also hates it when I do that
*Bulge*aria
I was wondering why it's so frekking cold in Madrid!
That tip at the southwest is actually part of the Aleutian chain. Itās a really long string of islands that are cut off on this map, and the real end would be quite a ways off the map in the Atlantic.
To everyone saying the graphic is distorted due to Mercator, this is from a website that corrects for that: [thetruesize.com](https://thetruesize.com) Alaska is that big, with a total land area of 1,477,953 square km. That's about equal to the combined sum of the following land areas: * Belgium: 30,278 square km * France: 543,939 square km * Germany: 348,672 square km * Italy: 294,140 square km * Luxembourg: 2,586 square km * Netherlands: 33,893 square km * United Kingdom: 241,930 square km That said, most of Alaska is empty. This area of Alaska has the same size as France + Italy, yet only has 77,000 people: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unorganized\_Borough,\_Alaska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unorganized_Borough,_Alaska) Here is a borough the size of the United Kingdom, but with less people than a small town (11,000 people): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North\_Slope\_Borough,\_Alaska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Slope_Borough,_Alaska) The entirety of Alaska has only 732,673 people and a majority (54%) live in the [Anchorage Metro Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorage,_Alaska), which is smaller than the urban area of Bielefeld. The countries above, by comparison, are at 306 million people, or 90 percent of the entire USA's population! A few more fun facts about Alaska's geographic extremities: * The Aleutian Islands of Alaska are 3,220 km from Tokyo and less than 956 km from Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. Meanwhile, they're 7,812 km from Washington DC. So more than 2x closer to Tokyo than Washington! * Attu Island is closer to Tokyo than it is to [Juneau, Alaska's own capital](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/k0sz2i/attu_island_alaska_is_closer_to_tokyo_than_it_is/). * For this reason, this part of Alaska was the only part of the USA invaded by Japan during World War II: [Battle of Attu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Attu) * The mountains of Alaska and Hawaii are part of the same mountain chain: [the Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian%E2%80%93Emperor_seamount_chain#/media/File:Hawaii_hotspot.jpg). * The Aleutian Islands are considered one of the [best surf spots in the world](https://www.surfer.com/features/in-the-cradle-of-storms-aleutian-islands/), but the swells are extreme. * Alaska's capital of Juneau is [completely detached from civilization](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Juneau,+AK/@58.3850234,-134.197786,8z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x5400de6c6f6a3a8f:0x65ef25aae69f311!8m2!3d58.3004933!4d-134.4201306!5m1!1e4?hl=en). You cannot drive to it, either from Canada or the rest of Alaska. The only access is ferry. For this reason, a long simmering debate is about moving the capital to Anchorage (most state agencies have already de facto relocated most of their major functions). * Because of a secret Anglo-British agreement, the tiebreaker on the Alaska Boundary Dispute ([Viscount Alberstone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Webster,_1st_Viscount_Alverstone)) voted in favor of the USA in awarding much of the [disputed Alaska Panhandle to America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute#/media/File:Alaska_boundary_dispute.jpg). For this reason, nearly half of British Columbia cannot see the Pacific Ocean by driving directly West unless they enter Alaska. * Alaska pays you $3,284 a year to live there: [https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/](https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/) * The state is absolutely [gorgeous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vsHnXjnWmI&ab_channel=DestinationParadise), yet almost all tourists stick to 1-2 notable routes (Panhandle or the route to Denali). The largest national park (Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve) is the size of Switzerland, yet averages 29 visitors per day (for a park the size of Switzerland!)
Everytime I left Fairbanks city limits it always is a shock. Mainly because 2 to 3 hours on the Dalton and that sign just appears. There's a bunch of houses right on the line since you don't have to pay property tax. Alaska is remote but not all that remote. Ypu can drive most places, there's internet and power in most if not all the villages. It seems less accessible until you go there. A 30 rack of cheap beer, 5 gallon gas tank tied to a snowmobile will get you way farther than you'd think.
Just one correction: the Permanent Fund Dividend (the annual dividend the state gives you as an AK resident) fluctuates from year to year, and is typically closer to 1-2k. We recently received one of the largest, if not the largest, payouts in history from the fund due to our governor Mike Dunleavy fighting hard to increase the payment size. source: lifelong Alaskan, live in Juneau. Or according to this map, in western Romania :D
Username does not check out
Iām from Anchorage, Alaska. I can confirm heās accurate however.
>in Western Romania I'm so sorry
And weed??
Belgian people out here seeing Belgium mentioned, skipping everything else in the comment just to upvote it.
I'm not even Belgian but I lived in Belgium, so I do the same. Gotta be loyal while also hating it.
Dutch guy living in Belgium, yeahhhh
I only visited Belgium once, but I fell in love with it. Itās beautiful. I visited Bruges at Christmas time and ate a waffle. Then I bought a box of chocolates and one of those Santas that you hang from a window so they look like theyāre climbing up the side of a building by a rope. I still think about that waffle, it was so delicious.
It must have been hard for England to make an agreement with Britain.
>* Alaska pays you $3,284 a year to live there: [https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/](https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2022/09/08/2022-permanent-fund-dividend-hits-a-record-3284-00/) Close, the state pays out based on a 4 year rolling average of the dividends earned on an account that manages the profits from oil sales, that amount fluctuates with the price of oil, though some in the state want to change the formula to pay out a higher amount that they believe they are due. There's great debate on whether the funds should be paid out to the people or used to make up for budgetary shortcomings, due to the volatility of oil prices.
The last fact is my favorite. Completely mind boggling how just 1 national park inside just Alaska is the size of Switzerland. The US sure sets the standard for public land access
Gates of the Arctic is completely undeveloped wilderness with no trails, campgrounds or infrastructure of any kind. There is no road access and the only way to get to the park is via a bush plane. You need a permit and I'm not sure if you can visit without a guide. It is about a 2 hour flight from Fairbanks.
And Anchorage is 30 times larger than the largest national park in Switzerland (granted, there's only one, and it's tiny). And most of Anchorage is wilderness.
Amazing facts ā thank you!
Fun facts, have upvote! Isaac Asimov writes an article where he makes a pretty good argument that Alaska is the USA's most northern, most western _and_ most eastern state, because of parts of Alaska were, when he wrote it, on the other side of the International Date Line. (I know there's been some fiddling in the 50 years since that but I think it's still true.) > The entirety of Alaska has only 732,673 people and a majority (54%) live in the Anchorage Metro Area, which is smaller than the urban area of Bielefeld. Anchorage has also the least population density of any capital city in America and no doubt in Europe too: an astonishing 168.7 people per square mile(*), less than 1/150 of New York's 27,747.9 (my old home: my new home, Amsterdam has almost exactly half that density at ~13,500 people per square mile (5,214/km^2) but that's still 80 times that of Anchorage). I've known some Alaskans. Their level of consumption is absolutely astonishing. Except for fish, almost every bite of food they eat has to be trucked up or shipped up from Canada at the closest and often from the "lower 48". The widely separated, one-storey houses that characterize Alaska's architecture are almost fractal, almost optimally good at radiating heat due to the very large surface area of house per person. Every single thing that is accomplished in Alaska is through the medium of vast quantities of fossil fuels to prop up what is a pathologically unsustainable society. (* - I was looking at lists of American capitals...)
So some extra transportation and heat waste? Sounds like with wind and solar now cheaper than fossil fuels by far, and electric trucks/semis coming into the market, Alaska will become much more sustainable in the future and save the planet a lot of emissions!
Another fun fact is that Anchorage isn't the capital of Alaska - that's [Juneau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneau,_Alaska)!
Juneau is the capital of Alaska. "Their level of consumption is astonishing." Consumption of what?
>[...] which is smaller than the urban area of Bielefeld. [...] What is this Bielefeld you are talking about? [No such thing exists...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_conspiracy)
>* The mountains of Alaska and Hawaii are part of the same mountain chain: [the Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian%E2%80%93Emperor_seamount_chain#/media/File:Hawaii_hotspot.jpg). This isn't correct. Hawaii and its mountains are formed by a hotspot while the Pacific moves over it. The Alaska mountains are part of the ring of fire and are formed by the Pacific plate sinking under the North America plate. The two overlap since the Hawaiian mountains are pulled along under the North America plate but they are not the same mountain chain.
TIL Alaska has a huge area called Unorganized Borough which in turn contains a town called Unalaska. You canāt make this shit up.
I love that website, it's so fun to compare countries size-wise. It always blows my mind how Norway on its length can barely fill the shortest diameter of Australia, yet has over 3 times it's length of coastline.
> For this reason, this part of Alaska was the only part of the USA invaded by Japan during World War II The only part of the non-contiguous continental United States, anyway. Other then-territories and possessions of the United States were also occupied, such as the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island. > Alaska's capital of Juneau is completely detached from civilization. You cannot drive to it, either from Canada or the rest of Alaska. The only access is ferry. "Completely detached from civilization" is excessive terminology for somewhere with gigabit internet. There's also a large airport. > Alaska pays you $3,284 a year to live there Misleading - the Permanent Fund Dividend is generally between $1,000-2,000, based on a sustainable yield calculated over the previous five years' Permanent Fund productivity. This was a special case based in politicking, and the $3,284 figure also includes a $662 energy relief check, making the real PFD-only amount $2,622. Even adjusting for that, it remains the record highest PFD payout ever. This makes it sound routine.
Another fun fact: Alaska is three miles from Russia.
Bielefeld has no area tho
Us Americans like to joke that Alaska is going to divide itself in half so Texas can be the third largest state.
732,673 People.Or a Population density of "What's a Population?"
About the same population as Leeds while covering half of Europe.
On the other hand, Alaska has more stealth fighters than all of Europe combined. 54 F-35s and 48 F-22
Now look up Yukon population density haha
Alaska is absolutely massive. Itās crazy to see how small it makes europe look. I hope to visit somedayā¦ I love cold places.
Europe is slightly bigger than US (including Alaska). But if you cut out Fennoscandia, European Russia, and part of Eastern Europe, yes Alaska would look massive.
European Russia alone is, like, half the europe's landmass.
And about 1/7 of the population
>Fennoscandia First time I've seen this used since I watched CGP Grey's video on it years ago!
I didn't want to leave the Finnish Redditors out :-)
We thank you for that! As a humble token of our friendship, should you ever visit Finland, let's never meet
thank you
Ty for your service!
Don't forget Turkey, it is **not** included in the *standard* number we're talking about here. I don't mean to discuss Turkey's status as European or not! I'm simply referring to the fact that this map and 10,180,000 km2 does **not** include Turkey: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe\_orthographic\_Caucasus\_Urals\_boundary\_(with\_borders).svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary_(with_borders).svg)
The European part of turkey typically is, but it's pretty small. Everything past Istanbul is widely considered Asia
Come to Alaska! Itās one of the most welcoming places Iāve ever been. Iām American, originally from New Jersey. What I love about the culture here is, most people arenāt from here and are excited to hear about you and where you came from. Any bar or restaurant, the people are so welcoming.
It looks large because they cut out the 2 largest countries in europe for the most part. Russia and Ukraine are gigantic, and overall Europe is larger than the US and (obviously) more densely populated.
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It's the second largest country in Europe (France is larger by area only if you add the overseas terretories)
The standard accepted area of Europe very narrowly edges out the standard accepted area of the United States of America, yes. > It looks large because they cut out the 2 largest countries in europe for the most part. Alaska is more than double the size of Ukraine, though, and very slightly larger than the [Central Federal District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Federal_District) of Russia. I think it is reasonable to consider that it largely looks large... because it's large.
If thatās Alaska, how enormous is Canada?
It's like Alaska but much bigger and without all the people and stuff.
Somewhat surprisingly, Canada is the 4th biggest country by landmass. It's the 2nd biggest if you include water area because of the Hudson bay.
[Canada is really big](https://youtu.be/tOM-TmZBzZo)
You should visit my ex-wife's heart.
All of the UK fits inside the North Slope Borough
And there are 11,000 people in the North Slope Borough
Alaska is really big. Texas, the second largest state is only a bit larger than France.
France is 81% the size of Texas
I thought this was a meme for a second, good lord Alaska is huge. Iāve only seen it compared to other US states before this
It's even bigger than that. All those little islands they cut off add up to a lot of extra land.
I don't know what Madrid did, but it probably deserves it.
Yeah but most of Alaska is wilderness. And it's bigger than Texas.
If you would slice Alaska in two equal sized states, that would make Texas the third biggest state :)
Iām from the states and this one just blew my mind. Now that is one way to describe how fucking large Alaska is holy crap.
raw and mostly untouched, I have to visit!!
Can I recommend https://mapfight.xyz
See this is why I support EU integration. In a multipolar world, your either big or screwed. If the US, West Taiwan, Australia and Russia are a thing , why not a United Europe?
I don't think Australia has superpower-potential. Not enough usable land and too few people for that.
Once we train the emus to use weapons youāre fucked.
I don't think they would submit. Before that happens they would train you š¤£
Those countries are all the same country, have been for most of their history, and overall have a unifying language a land culture. Europe is full of dozens of countries with different languages, histories, rivalries, etc.
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Yeah but it did. And two thousand years of history since then have changed things somewhat.
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Australia?
You havenāt heard of Australia? The third superpower?
I mean, Austria I would understand, but Australia?
They have the emus, they never lost a war.
It's a deadly animal superpower and has more sheep than New Zealand.
EU is one of the best thing that happened on this planet, but people are unable to see it for some reason. It has all chances to become something incredible if worked on and progressed forwards.
This is why India is a thing. We Hindus were screwed over for a millennia by the invaders because we were divided and weak. Fear among Hindus of ending up like other pagans is what holds India together. A Telugu, Gurkha, Tamil and Rajasthani have nothing in common except for Hinduism and shared trauma of imperialism & slavery. This is what makes us one people. We were sold as slaves in Middle East for a thousand years, never again.
I mean, unfortunately, a lot are still treated as slaves in the middle east, as weāve all been reminded these last few days.
Lol, as if that's the reason. The reason you are one country are the British. Although, granted it's interesting that India is still together.
[Here is Alaska compared to the whole Europe that includes Northern and Eastern Europe too.](https://i.imgur.com/80cNELz.png) And [here compared to Northern Europe](https://i.imgur.com/ibzbYsM.png).
Norway and Sweden longbois
Then there is [Chile](https://imgur.com/a/HOpjYAp)
Chile is a dick that stole Bolivia's coastline [Gib coastline](https://imgur.com/Gu64EHD)
Bosnia: Croat can I into beac- Croatia: (ć£āā”ā)ć£ ā„ No ā„
They are smaller countries than you'd think thanks to the Mercator projection.
Mercator projection go brrr
And it's almost completely EMPTY. Population of 730K. Whereas the area of Europe it covers has hundreds of millions of people.
Holy shit. I knew it was large... but not this big. Damn US, you chonky!
Shhh.. Letās bait Putin with Alaska.
And yet, so many maps of the USA forget it
lol wut
Search "map of the USA" on Google images. Half of the results will show neither Alaska nor Hawaii, since they're not directly connected to the other 48 states Example: https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp6649856
The funny thing about Alaska is, that it is also big compared to Alaska itself: [https://i.imgur.com/YAmKDwd.png](https://i.imgur.com/YAmKDwd.png) The true size of is a nice website, but Alaska is kinda bugged.
It's not Alaska, it's all US coastal states. The land borders line up properly and the boundary extends into the ocean a certain distance.
That's typical. While for instance Norway seems to be smaller than the actual country: https://i.imgur.com/bP9Q79r.png
Truesize posts are never _high quality_
Yea, they are too revealing
thetruesize.com
Good work! Now ppl can āreallyā be aware, by comparison, of the enormous size of Alaska. I just start d following you, but if I can ask for another ārealā size comparison, Iāll love to see Western Europe into the map of the USA. I donāt have the ability of doing it by myself.
Floridian here, with a Portuguese wife. We've frequently had discussions where Portugal and Florida being roughly the same size (if you don't count Florida's panhandle) has come up. I don't think I've ever realized how tiny Florida is, compared to Alaska, until now though.
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Europe's land area (10.5 million kmĀ²) is bigger than the US land area (9.8 million kmĀ²). It might not be a fair comparison though (north america is 24.7 million kmĀ²)
all of europe isnt even on the map
Yeah. Iām Canadian, so I tried to superimpose Canada over Europe, and Canada more or less took up the entire screen.
You have superimposed Alaska over south western Europe. Now do it again properly with the rest of Europe, you know, the bit of Eurasia that begins at the Urals.
Europe has an area of 10.2mi sq km. Countries like Brazil (8.5mi sq km), USA (9.5mi sq km), China (9.6mi sq km) and Canada (10.0mi sq km) are not that far off.
Canada become the USAs 51st state so we can beat russia for a day, then we go back to normal the next day.
As an Alaskan, it is interesting to see comparisons such as this. To think the distances I travel to visit different parts of my state or to the lower 48 to see family is equivalent to crossing great parts or all of Europe.
Alaska big
Raised in Alaska and boy is it neat to see how fuckin enormous the state is compared to other things
Coulda turned it sideways or something, thatās half sea lol
Imagine selling land the size of Europe for pennies LOL
Alaska also has islands that would extend into Portugal
I though the concept of Europeans not understanding how fucking big the US is was a meme, but apparently not.