Maximum number of land-borders for an english-speaking country

To clarify:

- land borders with non-english speaking countries, preferably one different language per border (USA without the "U" doesn't count)

- populations that have acquired english as a language through colonization, without also getting a massive influx of British settlers don't count

- can be alternate version of current anglo nation or an anglo nation popping up in a completely different place.
 
For some reason, the USA decides to respect the frontier with the Indians and doesn't encroach on their land, and neither does any other country. The Native American tribes then develop into what we'd recognise as states, one state for each tribe. Since each tribe occupied a relatively small area of land, this means a lot of states on the western borders of the US.
 
Britain keeps Uruguay during the Napoleonic Wars. British immigration soon outpaces the Spanish population and Uruguay remains a way-station between Portuguese Brazil, Spanish Buenos Aires and a Patois-speaking Paraquay.
 
OTL depending on your definitions of "English speaking" and "massive influx", but South Africa probably qualifies as it borders six countries all of which have different official languages (with the exception of Namibia, where English appears to be the sole official language despite being the mother tongue of a minute percentage of the population).

ATL you could probably push it close to double figures by confining British South Africa to the Cape Colony and keeping independent the Afrikaners and a few more of the native peoples that were conquered OTL.
 

Wallet

Banned
Damn, I never realized that English countries border so few nations. Australia, Britain, and New Zealand are islands. Canada only borders one nation, which is an English speaking nation. The US only borders two.

You could have an ATL Israel that speaks English. Have the majority of the population be American Jews, not European Hebrew speakers. Now you got an English speaking country that borders Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and could potentially border Saudi Arabia and Iraq. That's 6
 
Damn, I never realized that English countries border so few nations. Australia, Britain, and New Zealand are islands. Canada only borders one nation, which is an English speaking nation. The US only borders two.
New Zealand, Britain and Australia are all islands (or island continents), but they each share borders with 6 other sovereign states, which between them speak 4 different languages other than English.

It shouldn't be too hard to get a few more.

PoD: In the early twentieth century, the race to Antarctica becomes a bit more of a contest for international prestige. Denmark, Japan and Russia all send explorers to the Southern Ocean, and on the back of that all lodge territorial claims to part of Antarctica. (There's plenty of empty parts to claim, or alternatively they take part of what is Australian territory in OTL.)

The Soviet Union inherits Russia's claim in due course.

Presto: Britain, Australia and New Zealand each have land borders with 9 other sovereign states, which speak 6 other languages. If Maori counts to make NZ not fully English-speaking, then Oz and the UK can count 7 other languages amongst their neighbours.

(The borders for all Antarctic territorial claims, of course, meet at the South Pole.)
 

ben0628

Banned
English is an official language of India, which borders six countries: Bangladesh, Burma, China, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan.

Doesn't count since the OP says it needs to have a considerable amount of British settlers.

Kenya was a english speaking British settler colony and it borders Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia (5).
 
ATL you could probably push it close to double figures by confining British South Africa to the Cape Colony and keeping independent the Afrikaners and a few more of the native peoples that were conquered OTL.

Or maybe somehow Bantustans become recognised sovereign states.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I think if you had Britain more into getting "treaty ports" that would work. In the 19th century the whole Empire was considered part of just one country, so Treaty Quimper (say) would give a French border.
 
I think if you had Britain more into getting "treaty ports" that would work. In the 19th century the whole Empire was considered part of just one country, so Treaty Quimper (say) would give a French border.

Hong Kong, Gibraltar, those sort of agreements/territories could be seen across Britain.
 
I think there were even threads suggesting that Argentina could have ended up as an anglo country. Tough if there was a powerful anglo nation in the southern cone, it might absorb several of its smaller spanish-speaking ndighbours and end up with as few land borders as the US...
 
I feel like this might be cheating somehow but i don't see anything against it in the OP:

Sometime in the late medieval period the royal house of England inherits a bunch of land in the HRE. This land is eventually incorporated into the Kingdom of England.

Somehow, Germany never unifies, but the HRE still breaks up (and somehow doesn't mediatize) so this England borders hundreds of HRE statlets.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I think there were even threads suggesting that Argentina could have ended up as an anglo country. Tough if there was a powerful anglo nation in the southern cone, it might absorb several of its smaller spanish-speaking ndighbours and end up with as few land borders as the US...
Being anglophone does not grant superpowers.
 
For some reason, the USA decides to respect the frontier with the Indians and doesn't encroach on their land, and neither does any other country. The Native American tribes then develop into what we'd recognise as states, one state for each tribe. Since each tribe occupied a relatively small area of land, this means a lot of states on the western borders of the US.
Actually, it makes more sense for there to be dozens of small native Bantustans completely surrounded by the US. If the US didn't encroach on native land, that leaves out lots of opportunities for borders with the western tribes.
 
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Explain that to 90% of this forum. Apparently the cure of economic underdevelopment is just throwing enough Englishmen in the given mosquito-free part of the world.

I'd argue that the English-speaking world did well because by the start of the 18th century Britain had been able to develop stable, effective governmental institutions and a relatively robust system of property rights which incentivised hard work and innovation. This enabled it to punch above its weight and establish colonies across the world, which in turn inherited many of their institutions and systems of rights from the UK. In other words, whilst English-speaking countries have tended to do relatively well, that's because of their institutions and customs, not because they speak English. If we're trying to get a superpower Argentina, it would be better to give the country a stable government and strong protection for individual rights that to change its language.
 
I'd argue that the English-speaking world did well because by the start of the 18th century Britain had been able to develop stable, effective governmental institutions and a relatively robust system of property rights which incentivised hard work and innovation. This enabled it to punch above its weight and establish colonies across the world, which in turn inherited many of their institutions and systems of rights from the UK. In other words, whilst English-speaking countries have tended to do relatively well, that's because of their institutions and customs, not because they speak English. If we're trying to get a superpower Argentina, it would be better to give the country a stable government and strong protection for individual rights that to change its language.

I'll have to disagree. If we're comparing legal systems French post revolutionary laws are probably the most important to the development of the very notion of such a thing as a fundamental right. French tradition surely isn't as old as the Magna Carta, but the well-established French legal framework survived social unrest but never was able to stop it.

The key to the success of the English-speaking nations is mostly geographic. Firstly, the UK profited of being a European nation without experiencing the constant threat of war as the continental countries, making Britain also the perfect nation to control the seas. Secondly, the US lies on the biggest contiguous fertile area of the planet, any nation that manages to control the entire Mississippi basin and manages to populate it effectively will be a superpower. Finally, Australia and Canada are very similar and very exceptional: resource-rich, sparsely populated and uncapable of sustaining a higher population. I can only think of a handful of places like that outside the Anglosphere, like Siberia or Patagonia.
 
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