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Flavio Bolsonaro flees to U.S. after losing Brazil election, sources say (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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[–] 11 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Ok. I can't figure out what you mean by "second biggest." At first I assumed you meant "America" as the continent, rather than "South America," since Brazil is the biggest country in the latter by quite a wide margin (it's about four times the size of Argentina). But Brazil is the third largest Pan-American country after Canada and the US. So, ok, you must have a different definition in mind. Second-largest in the Southern hemisphere, maybe? But Brazil is bigger than Australia, by a million square kilometers.

Second-largest...uh...country with a large part of its mainland in UTC-3? (After Canada.) Second-largest country from which you can draw a direct line to Antarctica? (That one might be debatable, actually.) Second-largest country whose Northern border is closer to Canada than it is to its Southern border? (After the US, and yes, that's true.)

I need answers!

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

    I was thinking about several things at the same time, but yeah, seems like I was also wrong in the most obvious one: area. However, it's not that far away from the USA, being Alaska the deciding factor. Second in population and GDP.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    That's a good point about excluding Alaska in the area calculation; Alaska is almost 18% of the land area of the US, so pulling it is significant.

    From the perspective of population, I honestly don't know why I didn't consider that when thinking through this originally. It seems so obvious in hindsight, lol.

    GDP is a little bit more complicated. By pure GDP, it looks like Brazil and Canada kind of flip back and forth depending on the year (right now Brazil is just barely above Canada); though if you look at per-capita GDP, Canada is way higher up the list.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 child)

    But I don't think they are flipping back and forward anymore. Canada is facing a trade crisis now that the new NAFTA is over, and Brazil, if the current political environment settles as it should, is facing a brilliant future in BRICS, also being a power in Rare Earths. In any case, you can consider both 2nd in GDP. Finally, sure, GDP per capita is a different beast, that's the whole struggle of our lives in the "global south".

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  • [–] -2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I'm pretty certain South Africa is bigger than Brazil perhaps at second biggest country in the Southern hemisphere?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago

    Not even close. South Africa is like an eighth the size of Brazil. Australia is significantly bigger than South Africa, too, though slightly smaller than Brazil; and Angola, Peru, a good chunk of Congo, and Argentina are all (a) South of the Equator, (b) bigger than South Africa, and (c) smaller than Australia.

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