This isn't exactly a poll, it's more a series of test cases for beliefs about what areas of land and what people should be part of which independent country, and what's a valid reason for independance, annexation, redrawing of borders, and federalization. Not all the options are mutually exclusive, and some of them are ludicrous. So here's a list: ==== QUEEN AND COUNTRY(IES) ==== - Ireland: should be Ireland (Eire, present day, NI part of UK) Ireland (Eire, 32 counties) split into Ireland and independant Northern Ireland part of the UK (1922 never happened) - Gibraltar: should be British Overseas Territory part of Spain (revert treaty of Utrecht) independant split in half - Channel Islands: should be British Crown dependencies (status quo) part of the UK part of the EU part of France Norman Free State - Hong Kong: should be British Overseas Territory SAR of China Part of China independant - Falklands: should be British Overseas Territory Argentine independant - Scotland part of the UK independant other Crown dependancy / constitutional arrangement - Wales part of the UK independant other Crown dependancy / constitutional arrangement ==== MIDDLE EAST ==== - Iraq: status quo status quo ante bellum tres partes divisa est part of Iran - Iran should be run by: Theocracy Absolute monarchy (pre 1979) Constitutional monarchy (pre 1953) Anglo-Iranian Oil company (aka British Petroleum) US puppet state - Israel + Palestinian Territories: status quo status quo + west bank + gaza strip pre-1967 borders delenda est no solution exists - Yemen East of Aden? - Bahrain (aka US Fifth Fleet base) - L'Algerie Francais n'est pas Francais ==== NORTH AMERICA ==== - Hawaii should be: part of the US independant kingdom - Puerto Rico should be: part of the US Spanish colony independant - Texas should be: part of the US part of Mexico Spanish colony independant - The southern US should be: part of the US independant (Additional US fold-out section: consider Alaska, Louisiana, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Territorial_Acquisitions.png and the Indian reservations) - Canada: status quo independant Quebec Quebec returned to France ==== CENTRAL ASIA ==== - India should be: 1948 borders current state defederalised include Kashmir - Pakistan: include East Pakistan (Bangladesh) include Kashmir what exactly is going on with the "tribal areas"? to what extent is the US at war with Pakistan? - Afghanistan - Caucasian fold out section: Hard to find any non-disputed territory here. Worth mentioning "Nagoro-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast" for its excellent name. ==== EAST ASIA ==== - Taiwan: independant part of China China is part of Taiwan, not the other way round (KMT) - Tibet: should be Part of China Part of India independant - Korea should be: part of China part of Japan part of the US split down the middle reunified - Indonesia: one country fragment by language ==== EUROPE ==== - Spain should be: one country Spain + Basque defederalised - Germany should be: divided united include Austria include Sudetenland defederalised (revert Bismark) - Belgium united divided (distinct countries) divided among its linguistic neighbours should be broken up and sold for reparations to the Congo - The Netherlands part of Spain (qv its national anthlem) independant federation defederalised (increased confusion over "Holland") - Macedonia part of Greece FYROM should be renamed to "Phil" for convenience - Albania Do you remember the Albanians? - Cyprus: should be Greek Turkish independant split down the middle - former Czechslovakia - former Yugoslavia - Turkey Kurdistan? - Europe itself One country Full federal Eurozone Status quo De-Euroisation Germany + impoverished client states with mandatory cuts in state spending ==== NORTH AFRICA ==== - Western Sahara independant part of Morocco EU fishing colony - most other countries subject to government disputes but not territory / secession disputes; generally this is because population and resources concentrated in cities. We have yet to see what will emerge from the rubble of Libya. ==== SOUTH AMERICA & SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA ==== - Given that most of the territorial chaos here can be directly blamed on colonialists with rulers, I'm only going to mention the partition of Sudan by plebiscite. I'm not even going to mention most of the states created from the fall of the USSR and its client states. That provides a plentiful supply of bizarre and sometimes tragic examples of assembling small states out of the ruins of an empire, just has happened since the falls of the Roman, Holy Roman, Austro- Hungarian and Ottoman empires.