Google Maps, Country Facts and Route Planner
UZBEKISTAN, a central Asian republic of the former USSR, declared itself independent in 1991. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the north, Turkmenistan in the west, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the east, and Afghanistan in the south, and it encompasses the southern half of the Aral Sea. The Republic of Uzbekistan also includes an autonomous state, the Karakalpakstan Republic, in the far west, close to the Aral Sea.
VANUATU is a parliamentary republic that has been independent since 1980. It was formerly known as the New Hebrides and jointly held by France and Great Britain.
VENEZUELA forms the northernmost crest of South America. Its northern coast lies along the Caribbean Sea, and it is bounded to the west by Columbia, to the south by Brazil, and the southeast by Guyana.
VIETNAM is an extended narrow socialist republic in southeast Asia that runs down the South China Sea coast. It incorporates the ancient kingdoms of Cochin-China, Annam, and Tonkin.
The country was formerly divided into a Communist north and republican, Western-backed south, but the two parts reunited in 1976 at the close of the Vietnam war.
WALLIS AND FUTUNA ISLANDS, in the south-central Pacific Ocean, is the smallest and weakest of France’s overseas territories. The two island groups are 230 kilometers or 142 miles apart.
WESTERN SAHARA is a disputed west African territory with a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. A thinly populated desert country of rocky plains and plateaux with low hills in the extreme northeast, it is rich in phosphates. Formerly Spanish Sahara, the entire territory has been claimed and administered since 1979 by Morocco, against the wishes of an active separatist movement, the Frente Polisario.
WESTERN SAMOA lies in the Polynesian sector of the Pacific Ocean, about 720 kilometers or 447 miles northeast of Fiji.
YEMEN is a republic bounded by Saudi Arabia in the north, Oman in the east, the Gulf of Aden in the south, and the Red Sea in the west.
The republic was formed after the unification of the previous Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) in 1990.
Several large islands, notably Socotra in the Indian Ocean, Perim in the Bab el Mandeb, and Kamaran in the Red Sea, belong to Yemen. The Hanish Islands in the southern Red Sea are claimed by Yemen and Eritrea in Africa, which lies opposite Yemen across Bab el Mandeb’s narrow straits.
ZAMBIA, located in central southern Africa, is essentially a massive plateau surrounded by Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. Bordering it to the south is the River Zambezi, and to the southwest, the Kalahari Desert. It has some other large rivers, including the Luangwa and the Kafue, and some lakes, the largest of Lake Bangweulu.
ZIMBABWE is a landlocked country in southern Africa. Bounded to the west by Zambia and Botswana, to the north and east by Mozambique, and to the south by South Africa, Zimbabwe is a country with spectacular physical features, teeming with wildlife.
It is bordered in the north by the River Zambezi, which flows over the wide Victoria Falls before entering Lake Kariba. In the south, the River Limpopo marks its border with South Africa.