The importance of wording the question correctly.

The other day I wrote the following question – “After Russia, what is the largest country in the world by area?”

Now, by my understanding the answer to this was Canada. However, that is actually incorrect for two reasons.

1. Firstly, we’ve not defined area and seemingly that could refer to:
   1. Total Area
   2. Land Area
   3. Water Area
2. Antarctica is a problem – we’ll get to this

Let’s say we change the question to “After Russia, what is the largest country in the world by land area?”. This now shunts Canada down to 5th place with Antarctica, China, and then the US above them, with Russia still at the top.

Let’s revise the question again and change it to “After Russia, what is the largest country in the world by water area?”. This puts Canada on top and Russia in second place, with it being US, India, and China respectively afterwards.

Time for another revision to the question, which this time works better. “After Russia, what is the largest country in the world by total area?”. Wikipedia says total area includes “the sum of land and water areas within international boundaries and coastlines.”.

With this revision to the question we still find Antarctica lurking just above Canada. However, that’s an issue in itself as “There are seven sovereign states who have made eight territorial claims in Antarctica” and it’s not technically a country, so it’s exempt from being an answer.

Hopefully you found this interesting.