POLL - geographic location of our members

[Monique]

This poll is to determine the global localization of all our members.

Physicsforums has a worldwide network of participant of all ages and cultures, it would be interesting to evaluate where they are from. I tried to come up with a fair map of the world, which I eventually based on social/cultural boundaries from a geography book.


Make a choice and mention in a post which country you are from exactly, and gender would be nice too :)

THANKS!

 

[Monique]

Me: female, from the Netherlands

 

[iansmith]

Male from Canada

 

[meteor]

Male
Location: Barcelona,Catalonia,Spain,Old Europe,planet earth,solar system,milky way,local cluster,Virgo supercluster...
A huge city and a lot of things to do! http://www.wademan.com/VisionQuest/Pyrenees 200 Barcelona.jpg

 

[Beren]

Male, Morgantown WV, US

 

[krab]

Male; Canada

 

[Gale]

female, new england US

 

[Beren]

One question, why is it "important"?

 

[Pandemonium]

Mistake

I'm a male from Singapore in Southeast Asia.

Just want to point out something... you spelt Malaysia wrongly.

 

[Pauly Man]

Male, Australia

 

[Zero]

This is a cheesy way to try to get dates, you know...

 

[phi1978]

Male, England/UK

 

[Monique]

Originally posted by Zero
This is a cheesy way to try to get dates, you know...

Very funny, Zero. This poll will tell us something about our audience. I am sure we have many non-North American people, and I would like to know how many and from where. The importance, for instance could lie in planning future chat events.

And for the gender, I am more interested to find out how many females are in this science community, since right now I can count us on one hand..

I'd also like to find out whether there are any other Dutch people here, otherwise I have some serious recruiting to do.

Justified?

 

[Monique]

Originally posted by Pandemonium
I'm a male from Singapore in Southeast Asia.

Just want to point out something... you spelt Malaysia wrongly.

I am sorry, Pandemonium, that was the dutch spelling :) I am not even sure if Oceania is the correct expression, but I guess we'll learn sooner or later since some of our members are Australian :P

Ah! The poll is locked, I cannot correct the spelling..

 

[Another God]

Male, Australia

Yeah, Oceania seems to be pretty normal, and although Australia is often put into Oceania, I don't really think of it that way...Australia seems pretty stand alone to me.

Another option is 'Australasia', which covers Australia and all the islands up to Asia

 

[Monique]

Well, that is why they are both mentioned seperately, although in the same catagorie. What exactly falls into Oceania? New Zeeland?

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Monique
Well, that is why they are both mentioned seperately, although in the same catagorie. What exactly falls into Oceania? New Zeeland?

It depends somewhat on who's creating the categories. IMO, the Pacific island states* are there, as is/including New Zealand. Papua New Guinea? Australia??

Very few people, vast suface area.

*(not all are fully independent): Fiji, Nauru, Tonga, Samoa, Kiritabi, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Marshall Islands, Palau, Solomons, Federated States of Micronesia, Tahiti (Tuamotu Achipelago), Northern Marianas. Hawaii, American Samoa, and Guam 'belong' to the US; the Galapagos Ecuador.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Male Canada, and why do you lump all North Americans together? there are differences you know, cultural ones.

 

[Monique]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Male Canada, and why do you lump all North Americans together? there are differences you know, cultural ones.

That is true, and I am aware of the cultural difference between people from the US and Canadians, since I've lived in a bordercity where the two countries are only separated by a river. I'd also have to make a different category for people from California vs Mississippi, for instance :)

But Robin, could you look up for me how many countries there are in this world? It would be impossible to list them all seperately, at least this is an approximation since the US is more culturally alike with Canada, than say, Mexico. And that is also why I ask people to list their countries in their posts. I could make the same case for people from the Netherlands and Germans..

At least the poll gives a nice global visualization.

 

[dduardo]

male, Miami, FL

 

[Monique]

For those intested: I did a little data mining myself. The following data was extracted from the member's profiles (active since 9-1-3 and more than 10 posts), unfortunately many people haven't got their location listed.

But it turns out that at the moment at least 28 countries are represented, which is kinda nice.

A file is attached with the worldmap, the resolution is not too great since file attachements are restricted in size.

 

[iansmith]

Originally posted by Monique
A file is attached with the worldmap, the resolution is not too great since file attachements are restricted in size.

Where is the attachment?

 

[Monique]

Wait a little while, all the attachment have to go through the system administrator before they show up :)

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

If I recall it properly, the UN is about ~190 countries, something like that.
Did you want a list of their names?

PSsst even in Canada there is French and English, Irish, Scotish, Ukranian, First Nations, Etc (Sorry rude?) and many more, diversity in what had been called the Canadian Mosiac by some Canadians.

 

[Kerrie]

female, portland, oregon usa

quit whining robin...america and Canada are neighboring countries and have enough in common to justify them as similar nations...

 

[Monique]

From the CIA website: there are 268 nations.

 

[FZ+]

Male.

What do you mean, from? Country of birth? Nationality? Current residence?

(a) China
(b) British
(c) England

 

[Monique]

:) Mainly where your computer is standing at this moment, but if you feel very strong ties with you home country just say where your heart is.

 

[Sonty]

male, originally from romania, now in belgium for at least a year. couldn`t you just ask greg? by the way, greg could you put a sign in the profile to know each member`s sex?

 

[jonnylane]

Male, 21, Born in Wales, UK. Now living in Leicester, England.

Pilgrim in an unholy land...

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Kerrie
quit whining robin...america and Canada are neighboring countries and have enough in common to justify them as similar nations...

Please select out and quote whatever part you seem to dream as "Whining" Otherwise your judgment, well, speaks for itself.
There is NO whine in what I wrote, simply an extrapolation on some (inside) knowledge.
EDIT Sp.

 

[pace]

Europe, Norway. Male. 24.

 

[Mentat]

I am male. My current residence is in Michigan, U.S.A., but I was born in Puerto Rico.

 

[Monique]

Originally posted by Sonty
male, originally from romania, now in belgium for at least a year. couldn`t you just ask greg? by the way, greg could you put a sign in the profile to know each member`s sex?

Hi Sonty, I asked but it is hard to extract the data from the profiles.. I tried manually but many people's profiles are incomplete. At one time there used to be quite a lot of females at PF, I am not sure about the situation now.

 

[Sonty]

oh, yeah, right. the locations like "the universe", "the milky way", "the S-matrix space" don't count.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Monique
From the CIA website: there are 268 nations.

Yes, what I used is the UN, and it is "Memeber Nations" sooo the cia's is probably closer to the total number.

 

[Monique]

The World Factbook

For those who don't know: the CIA website has a really neat 'booklet' called the World Factbook.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

Information from all the 268 nations is very accessible, with a toggle box. Information is also available for the whole globe, under 'World'.

It really nicely lists all the countries' profiles like details about Introduction, Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, Transnational Issues.

Population growth for the Netherlands: 0.5% World: 1.17% China: 0.6% India: 1.47% United States: 0.92%

All the data is update every year, so it is very recent information.

 

[Zargawee]

Am I a bit too late ?

Male , Jordan (Middle East)

And check the Population growth in Jordan

 

[Monique]

Whoa! 2.78% What is the reason for that?

 

[Zargawee]

The Early Marriage .

We In Jordan mostly rely on farming , which needs too many workers , so the owner of the farm usually get as kids as he can , so that he can get "free workers" , and this half of the reason behind the high percentage .

The second reason is that some poeple try to get a male baby, so they keep getting kids until they get that male kid.

That was in the past , in the current days , things have much changed , and poeple realized that this is a serious problem , and would increase the unemployment in our country , so , this habit is no more common between poeple , but as I heard , some families in the Badia* Still have this habit , but they are very little percentage of poeple In Jordan.

*Badia : It's the Jordanian Desert

 

[Monique]

Very interesting to find out the situation behind statistics :)

I was actually trying to see if there were any deviations from the sex ratio in certain countries, but I haven't really seen any very clear signs of it. Maybe the effect is too small to measure.. I have heard that in some cultures female babies are actually killed since they place more of a burden on a family than a male baby does.

The low percentage of population growth for instance in China (
0.5%) is caused by the government restricting the number of babies a family is allowed to have: 2. A friend of mine from China comes from a family with 3 kids.. where they had to hide the pregnancy of the third child since the dad would loose his job if the government found out, who knows what else.

 

[Nereid]

Re China: Isn't the 'one child' policy still in place? It is having all kinds of interesting social effects; for example, pretty much a whole generation has little or no direct experience of 'brothers' and 'sisters' (of course there are aunties and uncles, each with their own word - 'younger sister of my mother' is quite different from 'older sister of my father', for example - but few people under 30? 40? have their own).

Re deviations in sex ratio: they exist, and can be quite extreme. Not only in China, but in many Asian (and other?) countries. Female infanticide is, IIRC, not infrequent in the economically poorer parts of some countries. Prospective parents in places like South Korea can well afford sex tests and abortion is cheap and easy. There are considerable difficulties in getting reliable stats, especially in places where the authorities have strong views on what the data should say.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

I just would have like to have not been "lumped in" with the US, cause that seems to happen waaaaay to often, and Canada is different then the US. You've got at least three people here from Canada, why are we counted as US?

 

[Monique]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
I just would have like to have not been "lumped in" with the US, cause that seems to happen waaaaay to often, and Canada is different then the US. You've got at least three people here from Canada, why are we counted as US?

I am sorry? I am not sure to whom you are saying this and in reply to what?

 

[Zargawee]

By Monique
I have heard that in some cultures female babies are actually killed since they place more of a burden on a family than a male baby does.

That was maybe before 1500 years ago ... Get new info

Mr. Robin Parsons
You've got at least three people here from Canada, why are we counted as US?

If you want to list each country alone , then I would also complain , why Jordanians are combined with Southren africans ?
Mr. Robin Parsons , It's just that placed are close together ,that's why they are considered one untit.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Monique
I am sorry? I am not sure to whom you are saying this and in reply to what?

Author of the poll, and, see my previous posts.

 

[Monique]

Oh, I wasn't aware we were still discussing that. Please think in perspective, Robin. You are being very short-sighted.

There are people here from Romania, Finland, Belgium, UK, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Austria, and the Netherland. And how dare I, they are ALL clumped together in Europe! I have some guts, don't I? :)

I could have divided it in Eastern, Western, Old Europe and the Scandinavian countries. But then I have to further subdivide the other catagories too.

Believe me: China and Japan are WAY more different from each other than Canada and the US. Unfortunately not many people from that area of the globe have responded, but how was I supposed to know?

So, the last time I checked: North America consists of two nations: Canada and the United States. If you like to see how many people are from US and how many from Canada, I encourage you to start another poll.


BTW, the jpg I posted on page 2 is now active!

https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=77609

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Monique
So, the last time I checked: North America consists of two nations: Canada and the United States.

Funny, Last time I looked, there were three, Canada, the US, and Mexico. 3 very different places.

Most of Europe has very old ties, to itself.

About as "short sited" as the land-mass that is Canada, I know some of it, as I have covered lots of it's face...roughly the equivelant of driving around all of Europe, how many times? (to cover Canda once)

 

[Monique]

Well, you are right: that is not very smart of me not to recognize that Mexico is also North-America.. but then WHY! are you complaining that you are put in one batch with people from US? You should be complaining that you are put in the same category with people from Mexico :S !?

You are also right that Canada is a very large country.. let me check: yes, it is the same size as the US and the same size as Europe (seperately). But Canada still represents a SINGLE culture (maybe two if you are VERY picky about english/french speaking parts) but in the Netherlands there are also two regions which speak different languages and the same for Belgium.

Size does not matter, Robin. Europe is made up of all small nations. You are true in that too, Europe has strong ties: to ITSELF. Every country has been isolated from the others by different currencies and different languages.

Let me ask you this: have you ever traveled to Europe Robin? Which countries have you been to?

And please could you explain to me why you think Canada is so different from the US? Both are countries with a relatively short history and are made up of immigrants.

 

[Monique]

Well, I just checked my geography book, the page where the world is devided in different social catagories, based on cultural boundaries.

It actually indicates that Mexico fall is the category Latin America. Be carefull! I didn't say category 1: North America category 2: South America. I said category 1: North America, category 2: Latin America.. so I was right :)

For support: http://www.adobe.com/support/images/world.gif