The Oldest Countries in the World

what are the oldest countries in the world it's a difficult question to answer because we need to define two things one what do we consider a country and two how do we measure the continuity of said country for instance do we consider certain early settlements in Greece as countries they're gathering as a whole or are they local city states that have nothing to do with Greece as we know it today and then the issue of continuity for instance Italy as a country is extremely recent only dating back to the 19th century but there was essentially a country existing in part of its territory before the Roman Empire does that count or should we count it as a precursor for all the countries in the territory it occupied so for the sake of this video I'm going to try and only mention the ones that have a serious continuity throughout the ages and I'm going to use one big criteria territory even if the regimes change the rulers etc if the territory sort of stay the same it's likely that the populations did too and from my perspective that's what makes a country its land its culture and its people therefore keep in mind that a lot of these were not countries per se back then but close enough that a certain continuity has remained until today allowing us to point to the ancient times as their origin points before we get started a quick thank you to serf short vbn for sponsoring this video I'll talk about them a little later on into the video now on to the country's first Ethiopia archaeologists have found skeletons and evidences of human life in Ethiopia dating back to millions of years ago but the establishment of the region as a country if we can even call it that that early on was a long time after that but also a long time ago in 980 BC this was when one of the first kingdoms known as the dumped rose to power Ethiopia is one of the few African countries that never fell into the hands of colonizers it uses the ancient gate as scripts which is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in world and for most of its history it existed as a kingdom and an empire passing through various dynasties and be known through different names such as Abyssinia and then transitioning into modern Ethiopia as a republic then moving on to Armenia we all know Armenia as a country today but its history goes back a long time legend says that hiked the legendary founder of armenia fought against bellows the Babylonian God of War in 2107 BC and then established the Armenian state the real story at least the one that we can actually verify with records takes place in 331 BC the kingdom of armenia was founded sometimes known as greater armenia its history is divided in two successive reins by three royal dynasties or indeed our taxi ad and our secede then coming to an end in 428 ad its origin is related to another country we will talk about in this video beginning as a province of the Achaemenid Empire the precursor of Persia with the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great it was incorporated into the Seleucid Empire then the Byzantine and then some smaller temporary states until reaching the current form that we know today but always somewhat maintaining its culture and people in roughly the same area when it comes to no change in territory we have one that stands out in Europe Portugal while definitely not as old as Greece or Ethiopia Portugal has maintained its firm borders for almost a thousand years making it one of the most identifiable oldest countries in the world especially because it defined its identity very early on Portugal is the oldest nation-state in the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe and the world its territory having been continuously settled invaded and fought over since prehistoric times founded in 1868 a county of Portugal gained prominence because of its military successes the kingdom of Portugal was later proclaimed following the Battle of auric in 1139 and independence from Leone was recognized by the Treaty of Zamora in 43 not only was it established fairly early but its main significance as a nation its people its culture and its language and even its national symbols and most of all its territory were also established very early on remaining unchanged until today all the way in Asia Japan Japan is also a contender as one of the oldest countries in the world the first Japanese Emperor Jimmu who is said to be the descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu ascended to the throne in 660 BC according to Japanese legend the country of Japan started appearing in written records in around 300 AD but it is very likely that they had existed way before that so whether you believe in legend or not Japan has certainly been around for a lot of time it has maintained its territory in the Japanese archipelago although sometimes expanding outside of it and its people have remained the same in fact they still have an emperor and they even got a new one this very year so I think Japan is a prime example of an ancient country lasting until today next to it is another example China China is one of the world's oldest and most refined civilizations and it's very first dynasty which was the Shia dynasty is said to have started as early as 2000 BC but a lot of its early history just like Japan is mixed with legends so we can't be 100% sure of its accuracy even the written records are somewhat flaw only emerging in 1600 BC so it may be 1,600 and maybe 2,000 maybe it's even before that it went under various rulers from a Mongolian dynasty to a manchu wand to European and Japanese occupation changing their own system from monarchies to empires and Republic's from 2000 BC to current times over 4000 years of history and existence ranging from early feudal China to the Ching dynasty and the current People's Republic and Taiwan just like we'll see in a minute regarding Greece ancient Egypt had little to do with modern Egypt but it's still worth mentioning the territory is slightly different and especially the location of major cities but it's still pretty much the same area Egyptian hieroglyphics where the worlds can all this writing system and the first Egyptian Kingdom was formed in the 4th millennium BC the ancient regime eventually came to an end with the country being taken over by the Persians the mom looks the Ottomans until reaching independence under its current for Greece like I mentioned is also a tough call but I think it should still be listed here because despite being separate in ancient times it shared and together created a specific culture ancient Greece wasn't a country it was a civilization and this is the case with a lot of these early countries it can be dated back to the 12th century BC blasting all the way to their joining / being conquered by the Roman Empire after the fall of the Romans it remained as a part of the Byzantine Empire in fact a lot of people claimed that throughout all its existence even before separation into East and West the Roman Empire was always divided into the West being truly Roman and East being Greek when the Byzantine Empire collapsed it became under Ottoman rule sometimes directly and in some territories not so much having more local rulers if you will in 1832 it became its own independent Kingdom eventually evolving into the current form of Greece that we know while Greece today has different borders to that of ancient Greece and was composed of various independent city-states much of its original culture remains evidence and establishes it as one of the oldest countries in the world the world's oldest Republic at least in continuity is a very old country as well San Marino the country gets his name from Saint marinus a stonemason from the Roman Empire who lived in a province in modern-day croatia in the year 301 Marino's founded an independent monastic community on Monte Titano therefore allowing the claim to be the oldest extant sovereign states as well as the oldest constitutional republic the nation is governed by the constitution of san marino a series of six books written in latin in the late 16th century they dictate the country's political system san marino is considered to have the earliest written governing documents still in effect I feel like this deserves a special place in the list because it's the most untroubled and unchanged of all of them not a lot has happened since its foundation that troubled its existence or changed the way they function they came under threat from Napoleon but managed to impress him enough to be their ally and they were neutral in most of Italy's Wars a fun fact is that they made US President Abraham Lincoln an honorary citizen he replied saying that San Marino proved that government founded on principles of a republic is capable of being so administered as to be secure and enduring Persia / Iran is also an example of an incredibly old country this one is a good example of how countries change in their shape and designations the first dynasty of the Persian Empire was created by the Achaemenids established by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC eventually Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenids and created the Seleucid Empire but that was also not meant to last being defeated by the Parthians and then came a time of trouble they were invaded a lot by the Arab dynasties and also briefly by the Mongols these Arab dynasties ruled the territory for a long time from 651 onwards the last dynasty of Persia was the pala v1 which ended in 1979 with a revolution that turned a country into Iran as we know it today and finally further east mongolia when we think of ancient mongolia our mind instantly jumps to one person jenji sky at least mind us and while he is the strongest and most well known figure of old mongolia the country was around for a long time already before him various nomadic tribes ruled the area of present-day mongolia from as early as 300 BC the Keaton people who used a kind of mongolic language founded a state known as the liao dynasty in 907 ad in 1206 jinja's khan was able to unite and conquer all of the mongols forging the largest contiguous empire in history conquering vast regions of asia and almost reaching into europe eventually the Empire collapsed and Mongolia was ruled by the Chinese then under Soviet influence but eventually asserting themselves once again as their own sovereign nation however diminished they may be today compared to the old days they still resist and have maintained their existence for hundreds and hundreds of years like I mentioned today's video was made possible by surf shark VPN we live in a time where privacy seems to be a thing of the past but it doesn't need to be Surf shark VPN is an online service that allows you to protect your personal data and access online content in a safe way it allows you to do four key things when you are online one secure your personal data the fact that it's personal indicates no one else should have access to it to access geo-specific content surf shark lets you access pretty much all streaming services libraries no matter where you are 3 bypass geo pricing people from different places might see different prices on hotels etc with a VPN service this won't happen and for avoid internet censorship if you travel to a country that bans Twitter for instance you can just use surf shark and access it without a problem they were nice enough to sponsor this video and also provide a great discount for viewers of the channel so if you want to try surf shark VPN just go to Surf shark deals slash knowledge enter promo code knowledge and gets 83 percent off and three extra months for free now we also have a lot of other examples of countries that date back a long time and the truth is we can do this with pretty much any country it's true that only a few like the ones I mentioned here have a somewhat more direct line from ancient times to modern States but any existing country can trace back its existence to those ancient periods so these were some of the world's oldest countries how they first emerged how they evolved and how they remain today as living representations of our history thanks so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it subscribe if you have any opinions thoughts Corrections pretty much anything you want to say just leave a comment below I will see you next time for more general knowledge you

Channel: General Knowledge

Views: 2,513,926

Keywords: generalknowledge, funwithflags, countriesthatdon'texist, the oldest countries in the world, what was the first country in the world, how old is egypt, how old is china, oldest european country, ethiopia, armenia, portugal, san marino, mongolia, persia, china, egypt, japan, greece, ancient greece

Id: _otlhyWO09M

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2019