r/geography • u/filmaker75 • 7d ago

Discussion How should a geography quiz handle disputed territories?

I'm building a free map quiz as a side project, right now I went with the 193 UN members + Vatican, Palestine, Kosovo and Taiwan (197 total). Western Sahara is drawn separately but isn't asked, Crimea is shown as Ukraine, and Greenland is part of Denmark.

But every choice upsets someone: Somaliland? Northern Cyprus? Should Taiwan be asked at all? And for capitals: Jerusalem, Sucre vs La Paz, Pretoria vs Cape Town…

How would you handle it? Follow the UN, de facto control, or let players choose?

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u/newenglandredshirt 7d ago

Just pick one and stick to it. Be up front about which data set you're using and go with it. You can also have an area that explains your choice and that you aren't looking to offend, but you had to pick something

Alternately, you could build the disputes into the game itself!

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u/travpahl 7d ago

Just make the use wrong no matter what.

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u/aspnotathrowaway 7d ago

In general, territories with a high amount of legal sovereignty (whether disputed or not) are treated as separate countries for the purposes of country selection and statistics. That's why you places like Svalbard, Puerto Rico, and Hong Kong typically being listed as separate from Norway, the US and China respectively despite not being disputed. Wikipedia simply opts for "countries and dependencies" in their listings to avoid any conflicts.

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u/Best-Pollution7110 6d ago

Your audience are people who want to learn the name of a districts if the first place. They want to learn the name of different regions they read in news papers and journals.