What is the most unlikely state to exist in DBWIs

Ha ha.

IMO, throw a dart at a map of Africa. Whatever you hit (unless it's Egypt or Morocco, or if it's a late POD, South Africa or Ethiopia) would be unlikely to exist, at least in its OTL form, in any DBWI.

I think an independent Madagascar seems plausible in a significant portion of ATLs.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
I think an independent Madagascar seems plausible in a significant portion of ATLs.

As do Algeria, Tunisia and Libya; their borders are debatable (they had less Sahara) but the basic countries did exist even if they were eventually made part of or vassals of the Ottoman Empire.
 
Belgium.
Jordan.
E. Timor.
Congo (Kinshasa) (ex-Belgian).

+ I've no idea why the Spanish Empire in the New World broke up into the particular countries that succeeded it.
 
east timor seems plausible as long as it's colonized by portugal and the rest of the region isn't.
congo itself seems plausible, given the pre-existing kingdom of Kongo and the likelihood of the Congo river being controlled by a single state; that it was Belgian previously is odd

many of the latin american states derived from the internal boundaries of spanish america
 
east timor seems plausible as long as it's colonized by portugal and the rest of the region isn't.

That's how it happened in OTL, of course. You could say the same for most post-colonial countries, however artificial, especially in mainland Africa. I don't think that there was any particular reason (e.g., ethnic boundaries, geography) why Portugal only ruled the part of Timor that it did.

congo itself seems plausible, given the pre-existing kingdom of Kongo and the likelihood of the Congo river being controlled by a single state; that it was Belgian previously is odd.

Kongo was much smaller, located in the coastal area. The Congo Free State was a colonial artifact assembled from the territories of an unrelated assortment of ethnic groups and native governments. It certainly hasn't proved too cohesive since independence. I'm not convinced that there's that strong a case to be made that one country would normally control the entire river. It wasn't even navigable before the Europeans showed up with dynamite. The Nile and Danube, for instance, aren't ruled that way.

many of the latin american states derived from the internal boundaries of spanish america

OK. Were those boundaries arbitrary or based on geography?
 
I'm not entirely sure. I do think that any state in OTL Chile would be separate from any state in OTL Argentina - the Andes are a substantial barrier, and isolate Chile to a significant degree.

Fair enough on the Congo, and on East Timor.
 
Mongolia... 99.9% it would be part of either China or Russia... Same with Nepal, Bhutan...

Vatican City...

All those African nations... half of them are arbitrary colonial borders... Hell OTL Africa would be ASB to most ATL observers...
 
Czechoslovakia. Seriously. Let's randomly throw together to related peoples never ruled as one for atleast 8 centuries, give their state a ton of ethnic minorities, and then act surprised when the project fails. Yugoslavia seems slightly more plausible, but even that too is unlkely. Both former countries I know, but the point stands.
 
east timor seems plausible as long as it's colonized by portugal and the rest of the region isn't.
congo itself seems plausible, given the pre-existing kingdom of Kongo and the likelihood of the Congo river being controlled by a single state; that it was Belgian previously is odd

many of the latin american states derived from the internal boundaries of spanish america

Are three or four states existing for a time at once all with the same name and only tangental ties to that name likely to exist? I have my doubts. Then again, look at all the states and places calling themselves "Rome" in some capacity.
 
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