Once upon a time, European countries had lots of colonies and other depedencies throughout the world. Now they have relatively few, mostly small islands in the Caribbean Sea, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean. More broadly, there are many fewer dependencies, and more independent countries, than before.
So here’s the question: What places in the world are still
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run by different countries for an indefinite time in the future (don’t count Iraq, for instance), and not just as a pure military base or as research outpost such as an Antarctic zone (note that what constitutes a “foreign country” naturally requires somewhat subjective calls about what’s a different country and what’s part of the same country — Kaliningrad, for instance, is I think really, truly a part of Russia, as is Alaska for the U.S.),
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on a continent or on island(s) that contain at least 5000 square kilometers of land, or about 2000 square miles (this gets rid of the pinpoint islands),
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not contiguous (or straight across the sea — naturally, a subjective matter) with the country that runs them (so don’t count Tibet and China, Western Sahara and Morocco, Northern Ireland and England, or Svalbard and Norway; this is one rough and imprecise way of judging whether the dependency should indeed been seen as a separate place rather than part of the same country)
If you want to get honorable mention, be the first to send the full list (or the closest that anyone gets to it) with the assurance that you didn’t just look it up in (1) online reference sources, or (2) in this post. The answer is
(here)
(I say using the cool new hidden text feature).
UPDATE: When submitting answers, please pay close attention to the rules above — I got several messages, for instance, that mention Guantanamo or other bases (which violates rule 1) or that mention small islands or archipelagoes such as the Faeroes or Bermuda (which aren’t large enough to fit within rule 2).
FURTHER UPDATE: Congratulations to reader Lewis Baston, who by my reckoning came closest to getting these right.
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