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How can we define a robust metric for "most discontinuous country" and then rank all states according to it? (feddit.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/askscience

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More of a classification question, but I'm really curious about what the metric would look like if we try to be systematic about it.

For context, there's several countries that are more or less famous for being geographically discontinuous. Top of the mind nowadays is Azerbaijan, whose sizeable territory of Nakhchivan has no land connections with the rest of the country. There's also Equatorial Guinea, whose capital city is on island which is smaller than the continental territory. That's the same for Denmark, although we seem to think of it less, because of the much smaller distances and significantly more connectivity. Then you have Indonesia which I currently think might be the most discontinuous country, with territory spanning across at least 4 major landmasses but which are shared with other countries.

But then you have countries such as Greece, Japan, or even Sweden, which are more or less archipelagic countries but do not stand out in the way Indonesia or Azerbaijan does.

How can we define a measure of geographic discontinuity that gives us a reasonable ranking? I would imagine we start with some measure that looks how much of the whole territory is in one contagious unit (less prominent main landmass = more discontinuity) but perhaps we also introduce average distance between units.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it would ultimately depend on a use case for that metric, otherwise you're putting the cart before the horse. There are many measurements and calculations you could come up with, but no obvious (to me, anyway) interpretation of "most discontinuous": something is either in one piece or not. If you needed a metric like this for a practical purpose, your specific needs would be a starting point for designing one. If it's more of a shower thought, you sort of have "too much freedom" to be able to define anything that's necessarily meaningful.

Simple examples would be just "number of 'discrete parts'", "minimal area needed to span all territories" and things like that. Maybe you're more interested in "total distance from all satellites to wherever the capital is" or something, in a different context. The point is they'd all tell you radically different things, so it's important to know which one to ask for.

You could argue that something like Hawaii and Alaska's distance from the rest of the US makes the US score highly.
You could argue that any number of island nations score highly because after all, most of e.g. the US is in one part.
You could argue e.g. Norway's territories near both poles make it pretty high-scoring too.
You could argue that for whatever reason, distribution of area and population matter, and so on.