What in the World? Tokyo (2021) Olympic Medals

The Paris 2024 Olympics have commenced! 🏅 Taking a look back at the previous Summer Olympics, which country did not win medals at Tokyo in 2021? The answer is listed further below!

A — CHILE
B — VENEZUELA
C — UZBEKISTAN
































































Answer:
A — Chile, which won 1 gold and 1 silver medal at Paris 2024 but none at Tokyo 2021

Uzbekistan Exports

According to National Geographic MapMaker (mapmaker.nationalgeographic.org) and MIT's Observatory of Economic Complexity (atlas.media.mit.edu), the following items are major exports of UZBEKISTAN: alcoholic beverages, aluminum bars, animal food, animal hides, automobiles, cabbage, chemicals, clothing and textiles, copper and iron products, copper wire, cotton, cucumbers and zucchinis, dried fruit, dried legumes, equipment and machinery, fertilizers, flavored water, fruit juice, gold, grapes, insulated wire, monofilaments, nuts, onions, packaged food, paper pulp, peat, perfume plants, petroleum products, pitted fruit, polymers, precious metal scraps, printed material, radioactive elements, refined copper, root vegetables, tobacco, utility meters, valves, wheat flour, yarn, and zinc.

According to February 2017 statistics from the International Monetary Fund (data.imf.org), countries and territories buying and importing most of those exports include Turkey (top importer), Russia, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, France, Ukraine, Iran, India, Poland, Tajikistan, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, Belarus, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Indonesia, Georgia, Mongolia, Spain, the United States, Portugal, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

Uzbekistan Endangered Species

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ for UZBEKISTAN in Central Asia lists 12 critically endangered species and 16 endangered species. Uzbekistan's twelve critically endangered species are as follows: Calligonum calcareum shrub, Dreissena caspia freshwater mussel, Dwarf Sturgeon (Little Amu Darya Shovelnose) fish, Pyrus korshinskyi pear tree, Ribes malvifolium gooseberry plant, Saiga antelope, Shovelfish, Slender-Billed Curlew, Snow Crane, Sociable Plover, Syr Darya Sturgeon, and Zygophyllum bucharicum flowering plant. The Calligonum calcareum shrub is endemic to the Sokh River valley in eastern Uzbekistan, near Kyrgyzstan. Even though Syr Darya Sturgeons are currently considered to be critically endangered, they may be extinct in Uzbekistan as well as in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Some endangered species are the Asiatic Wild Dog, Common Aldrovanda, Egyptian Eagle, Snow Leopard (Ounce), Saker Falcon, Steppe Eagle, Tiger, White-Headed Duck, and Wild Apricot.

Countries with Z in their Names

There are sixteen countries with Z in their names. Two countries start with the letter Z: Zambia and Zimbabwe. Other countries with the letter Z in their names are Azerbaijan, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, New Zealand, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Zaire was a former Z country, but that became the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Geography of Uzbekistan

The previous post talked specifically about the Ustyurt Plateau, a land feature in western UZBEKISTAN. Focusing on a countrywide scale of the former-Soviet country, it is interesting to note the contrast between the western and eastern portions. The western half features water bodies like the Aral Sea, a lake called Sariqamish Ko'li, and the Amu Darya river. However, the climate is arid and desert-like regardless of local efforts to grow crops with the help of irrigation. Also, the west is generally low in elevation. Meanwhile, some parts of eastern Uzbekistan are higher in elevation thanks to mountain ranges. Contrasting with the west, the east boasts naturally fertile areas like the Fergana Valley, so it is easier for the Uzbek people to grow crops in the east rather than the west.

Ustyurt Plateau

Hovering above the 56th degree longitude line, the Ustyurt Plateau is found along the border between KAZAKHSTAN and UZBEKISTAN. It is less than 200 miles east of the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland water body/lake that is completely surrounded by land. The plateau is in the southwestern part of Kazakhstan and western Uzbekistan. The Ustyurt is not very high in elevation - in fact, it is barely above sea level - which defies the typical perception of what a plateau is. However, the land is higher than the surrounding area, especially compared to land in the northwest (Kazakhstan) where there is a depression below sea level.

"Stan" Countries in the World

Have you noticed that many Central and South Asian countries have the suffix of -stan? This generally means 'country' and is added to the ethnic group that makes each 'Stan Country' unique. For example, -stan is added to Uzbek, the largest ethnic group in UZBEKISTAN. The remaining 'Stan Countries' are AFGHANISTAN, KAZAKHSTAN, KYRGYZSTAN, PAKISTAN (unlike the others, Pakistan's name isn't derived from ethnic group + stan; people are called Pakistanis, not Pakis or Paks), TAJIKISTAN, and TURKMENISTAN.

Uzbekistan

UZBEKISTAN (Oʻzbekiston) is a former-Soviet country located in Central Asia, landlocked and east of the Caspian Sea. There are 5 bordering countries: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The capital is Tashkent, also spelled Toshkent. The currency is the Uzbekistani Som, and its ISO 4217 currency code is UZS.