Those who enjoy winning at the geography category in trivia games might like to file away for future use what I'm pretty sure is the world's longest official country name, beating "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea", and even "The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" and "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". The Economist happened to mention recently (1/20/07) that in order to get into the World Trade Organization without making the People's Republic of China hopping mad, Taiwan (oops! I said it!) had to be extremely careful about how it was officially known (forget all about that "Republic of China" stuff). It was admitted as "the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu (Chinese Taipei)". That's the name. Don't get it wrong.
Posted by Geoffrey K. Pullum at January 28, 2007 05:08 PM