What's the oldest country in the world?

have you ever wondered what's the oldest country in the world that is of all the countries they exist today which one of them has been around for the longest now I should first start by saying this question has no correct answer there are so many complications that arise when trying to tackle this question some modern-day countries can trace their history back to the dawn of civilization even before the invention of writing and pinpointing exactly when that country started can be very difficult and is all about personal opinion finding wait exactly to draw the line can feel arbitrary and it's ultimately a judgement call before living as some of the contenders for the world's orders country I'm going to first demonstrate these difficulties with an example country I've chosen France so how old is France when was the country established well in the year 481 a collection of Germanic people known as Franks from the kingdom of the Franks also known as Francia this is where the country of France faint its origin now in 843 the Empire was divided into three parts west francia being the one were interested in as this would leave her go on to become the kingdom of France in name 87 with the establishment of the kingdom where shares the same name and has very similar borders to his modern-day counterpart it now becomes reasonable to think about using this D as the establishment of the country but of course France is no longer a kingdom so maybe it's not fair to say the country actually began until it became a republic in 1792 with the French Revolution or maybe we could be extremely strict with our definition and go by his current Constitution when the 5th Republic was established in 1958 so when the trans become a country 481 843 97 1792 or even as recently as 1958 the point as the line needs to be drawn somewhere and not everyone is going to agree on where and therefore may seem arbitrary I think the key is to be reasonable and find a middle ground same for TT 1 or even 843 maybe a bit of a stretch and on the other end of the spectrum say 1958 and using its current Constitution as a bit unfair France was still France before the first Republic personally I would say 1987 a sphere it uses the name France as borders a very similar and they spoke French okay nether of God I the way let's begin we'll start by going all the way back to the dawn of civilization too far obviously but bear with me the general consensus among custodians and the so called cradle of civilization theory states that several civilizations developed independently of each other the for a list of these cradles where Mesopotamia in from Egypt the Indus Valley and the Yellow River civilization now three of these would ultimately go on to be countries that exist today ancient Egypt that one's obvious the Indus Valley eventually becomes India and the Yellow River civilizations beginnings of Chinese history so let's start Shana all ancient civilizations began along rivers and as you may expect best civilization began along the Yellow River and was today northeastern China now according to legend you the great founded the shayateen States sometime around 2000 BCE of course that states back before any written historical records and there's a lot of doubt as to whether or not the Shia dynasty even existed at all and then you the create may in fact be mythical moving on to the Shang Dynasty circa 1600 BCE this is the first dynasty in which there's actual archaeological evidence of his existence ancient texts in the form of Oracle bone script the modern Chinese language directly evolved from the writings of the Shang Dynasty then the next interstate the Shah dynasty lasted longer than any other dense day in Chinese history ruling China for nearly 800 years but despite this I'm actually going to skip over them and look at the Qin Dynasty which only lasts for 15 years despite his short lived it was though the Chen dynasty is of great significance in Chinese history it was the first dynasty of Imperial China and he managed to conquer all of the other states in the warring States Period unifying China for the first time it's also possible that the modern word China is derived from the word Chen although this is somewhat controversial the first emperor Qin Shi Huang was influential for his par and constructing the Great Wall of China as well as the Terracotta Army so in pedo rule in China lasted for more than two millennia until 1912 and the foundation of the Republic of China of course the country would later have a several or when the Communist Party took over in 1949 and proclaimed the country that we know today the People's Republic of China so China is unquestionably one of the oldest civilizations in history but putting an exact date and how long exactly the country itself has been around as difficult anyway moving on to the next country Egypt now Egypt is a country that is world famous for its ancient history when you think about Egypt probably the first things that come to mind are the pediments and the stank's these were Bell as early as 2500 BCE but Egypt's history goes back even further than that ancient Egypt was first debated in the Upper and Lower Egypt which are probably the opposite way around and may explain anyway the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt happened during 30 150 BCE with the very first veto of a United Egypt Egypt had a long and rich history before most countries even came into existence with more than 3,000 years of history before the beginning of the Common Era to put into perspective just how old into des think about this Cleopatra is closer in time to the present day than she edged the construction of the pyramids by about 500 years and also woolly mammoths were still around when they were being built and keep in mind the first fatal of Egypt was about 600 years before the pediments before becoming the modern-day country that is today though Egypt was conquered and ruled by several other civilizations it was first conquered by the Persians twice and from there it was conquered by the Greeks the Romans the persons again the Arabs the Ottomans and eventually colonized by the British before finally gaining independence in 1953 so even though Egypt is undeniably one of if not the oldest country in the world it was ruled by other civilizations for more than 2,000 years of its history this makes it a little more difficult to directly connect the ancient Egypt's invaders of the third millennium BC to the country that is today moving on to our next country now as we look at the third of the three countries I mentioned earlier one of the cradles of civilization the end this valley which would eventually become India this is where the name of the country comes from now again saying the Indus Valley is when the country of mDM's is stylish is way too big of a stretch but putting an exact date on when the country was a style stuff the Vedic period of Indian history begins around 1500 BCE actually thought to be some 400 years after the collapse of the endless Valley Civilization the period is named as such because of the Vedas the oldest structure of Hinduism arguably the oldest religion in the world and still the most prominent religion in the country of India to this day after the expanse of various political entities the sect century BCE saw the rise of sixteen great kingdoms called mahajanapadas where jana para means country and maha means great but even if we class these as countries there was still no unified India or centralized government at this time the first time India was unified into one state was the Maori Empire founded in 332 BCE geographically it was one of the largest empires of its time about 1.5 times the size of the modern the country of India with estimates putting its population around 50 million and there once again became fragmented after this class and 180 BC many empires came and went but one of the most significant was the Gupta Empire said to be a golden age in Andean history with advancements in technology science our culture and philosophy otherwise its greatest extent in 400 seee it only ruled the northern power of wars today India after the fall of the Gupta Empire the subcontinent once again became fragmented for more than a millennium there was no centralized Indian state this changed however in the late 16th century when the Mughal Empire took control and by the start of the 18th century high control of virtually all of wars modern-day India shortly after it reached his peak 4 million square kilometers of land area and a population of over a hundred and fifty million the Empire rapidly declaimed throughout the rest of the 1700s it was during this time of the Mughal Empire in which the Taj Mahal was built one of the most famous wonders of the world eventually the British took control of why study India Pakistan and Bangladesh known as British Raj this lasted until 1947 when India gained their independence and in 1950 it became the Republic of India with the current constitution that is spelling used today so the idea of a unified Indian state is something has only existed sporadically throughout his history from several different empires expanding from several different parts of the subcontinent even though Indian history dates back several thousand years it could be argued that India didn't actually become a country until after achieving their independence from the British just 70 years ago the next country I'm going to look at as Japan the Japan actually does have a specific date as to when the country was founded the 11th of favority sexxxy BCE according to legend the country was founded by Emperor mu a direct descendant of the goddess of Sun Amaterasu the Japanese monarchy is the oldest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world with Japan's current emperor being the 125th Emperor tracing his ancestry all the way back to Emperor jammu so well let me seem like Japan is a fairly easy country to determine when it was founded that's actually not the case emperor Jimmu is generally considered to have been methodological in fact there is little to no evidence that any of the first nine Emperor's even existed at all so while Japan is still a very old country it would be difficult to consider as a contender for the world's oldest country especially since the first known written mention of Japan is in an ancient Chinese text from the first century CE II the next country we are going to look at as Iran for most of us has today known as Persia in the Western world the foundation of the country can possibly be traced back to sex 25 BCE when several median tribes unified into one centralized state to defend themselves against the Assyrian Empire later and 550 BCE the Achaemenid Empire also referred to as the first Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus degrees which would go on to become the largest empire of its time and the largest of any empires before that extending at its height from the Balkans and northern Africa all the way to the endian subcontinent in the east the Empire later failed to Alexander the Great in 330 BC II Iran would go on to be ruled by several other dynasties with a major turning point in the 7th century BCE and the Muslim conquest of Persia it wasn't until 1501 another major Persian Empire mare's the Safavid Empire often referred to as the beginning of modern Persian history there was the first dynasty of Islam as its official religion the Islamic Revolution in 1979 put in aims of the parent monarchy when the pallava dynasty was overthrown and replaced by the Islamic Republic that is today the name Persia fell out of use in the middle of the 20th century when it was requested in 1935 that the country be referred to as Iran the historical name of the country used by its native people so the final country I'm going to look at is Greece the Greeks are often credited as being the cradle of Western civilization being the birthplace of Western philosophy as well as democracy the first advanced civilization on the Greek mainland was Mycenaean Greece the civilization lasted about five centuries and after its collapse we entered a period of Greek history known as the Dark Ages in which there is very little archaeological evidence after the Dark Ages is when the Greek city-states really began to emerge and a period known as the archaic period the classical P begins around the taint of the second person invasion was she successfully followed by the Greeks the Classical period in Greek history is a - since repeated in which Greece experienced that Golden Age most of the famous Greek historical figures are from this period the Greek philosophers Socrates Plato and Aristotle the conquest of Alexander the Great and also the Parthenon was built during Mustang - however at this time the Greek city-states were actually at war with one another and the Peloponnesian War it wasn't until philip ii of macedon united the previously independent city-states by founding the League of Corinth with the notable exception of Sparta Philip actually died just one year later when Alexander the Great took over and truly hated all of the city-states and even went on to conquer most of the ancient world including Persia and Egypt the death of Alexander the Great began the Hellenistic period in Greek history when Greek culture was at its peak with great influence in Western philosophy our literature of architecture and politics ancient Greece came to an end with the conquest by the Romans in 146 BC II which was the end of a Greek independent state for nearly two millennia Greece was part of the Roman Empire then accepted the Byzantine Empire until the mid 15th century CE II when it was conquered by the Ottomans the Greeks became independent in 1822 during their war for independence and founding of the first Hellenic Republic the country switched between monarchy and Republic several times in its modern history before finally becoming the third Hellenic Republic that is today well commonly referred to as Greece the country's official name actually as the Hellenic Republic so again while Greece is obviously a very old country when Ashley became a country as debatable Mycenaean Greece would probably be a bit too early but somewhere in the Classical period or Hellenistic period would be reasonable when Greece experienced their golden age and the city-states where he mated 336 BCE and the foundation of the League of Corinth are maybe the death of Alexander the Great which began the Hellenistic period in 323 BC could be two potential dates as the way in Greece really became a country so those are my contenders for the world's oldest country China Egypt India Japan Iran and Greece I think it's important that the Restless some connection from the ancient times to the modern day country and that there be some continuity in time that is it's possible to trace the current country back through its predecessors to arrive at whatever date we determine to be is the establishment anyway keeping in mind that this is just my personal opinion and that I have no authority whatsoever on the matter my pick for the oldest country in the world as Egypt I chose Egypt because even though the country was ruled by several other civilizations throughout its history the days of ancient Egypt has certainly not been forgotten far from it in fact thousands of tourists visit Egypt every year for the sole purpose of visiting the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx through the various boring rulers the Egyptians never lost a heritage and the culture continued to thrive and in terms of sheer age Egypt became a unified state long before anyone else did of course a kids could be made for any one of the countries that I talked about in this video China Iran India for example would all be great answers for the world's oldest country there are plenty of other countries that I didn't even mention they could also be considered because there are just so many ways to approach this question using any number of criteria to determine the answer before ending I would also like to give a special honorary mention to one country san marino by many people's accounts san marino as the oldest country in the world it all really depends on what metrics and criteria we use using a fairly strict set of criteria san marino very likely would be considered the oldest the clearing and center parents from the romans in 301 c ii and his current constitution dates back to 1600 however i personally wants to use a slightly more loose definition to allow a little more leeway so like I said this is simply my opinion and you're perfectly free to disagree with it however any answer is always going to be off for debate and ultimately there is no one right answer because determining when a country actually became a country is always going to be something arbitrary when we're dealing with countries that are potentially thousands of years old and with a lack of archaeological evidence and limits written records some things are just impossible to determine thanks for watching

Channel: WonderWhy

Views: 1,976,924

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Keywords: oldest country, wonderwhy, china, egypt, india, iran, persia, greece, japan, cradle of civilization

Id: nx4VdNPhV-4

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/CoachSnigduh]

The problem is that "country" doesn't have a strict definition. Seeking an answer to this question is futile. A more conclusive answer might come from asking what is the oldest government.