Showing posts with label south ossetia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label south ossetia. Show all posts

Sunday, December 30, 2018

All About South Ossetia's 2017 Name Change

South Ossetia (purple) and Abkhazia (green) within the claimed borders of Georgia. Click to enlarge. Map by ChrisO based on UN map of Georgia (public domain; source).

Adding "State of Alania"

At PolGeoNow we promise to inform our readers any time one of the world's countries changes its name, even if it's just a modification to the country's official long name, or a switch in the name's preferred English translation.

But there was one name change we missed out on reporting last year - depending on what you consider a "country".

In April 2017, people in the disputed Republic of South Ossetia voted to change the self-declared country's full name to "The Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania". The name change referendum reportedly passed with about 80% of valid votes in favor, though many countries strongly condemned the whole process, seeing it as part of an ongoing Russia-led attempt to steal the region away from Georgia (the country, not the US state).

Map: Which Countries Recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2018?

This is our new, completely redesigned map of which countries consider disputed South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be independent from Georgia. From now on, PolGeoNow will report on any changes to Abkhazian or South Ossetian recognition with updates to this map.

Map of what countries recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent from Georgia in December 2018. Includes Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, new recognizer Syria, disputed or withdrawn recognitions from Tuvalu and Vanuatu, and unrecognized countries Transistria, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), and Western Sahara whose self-proclaimed governments also recognize the so-called Georgian breakaways.(Colorblind accessible)
Click to enlarge. By Evan Centanni, modified from public domain blank world map.
Contact us for permission to use this map.