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| The only country that is bordering Kyrgyzstan with a name not ending in -stan is China |
TODAY is Independence Day in Kyrgyzstan, marking the country’s independence from the Soviet Union on August 31, 1991.
1. The name of Kyrgyzstan comes from a word in the Kyrgyz language meaning “we are forty”, thought to be a reference to the original 40 clans which unified to form the country.
2. Kyrgyzstan is in 40th place in the world league table of the amount of tea drunk per capita.
3. The flag of Kyrgyzstan features a yellow sun with 40 uniformly spaced rays in the centre of a red background.
4. The only country that is bordering Kyrgyzstan with a name not ending in -stan is China.
5. Its neighbour Uzbekistan goes one better and is entirely surrounded by countries ending in -stan.
6. The village of Barak in Kyrgyzstan is an exclave entirely surrounded by Uzbekistan territory.
7. The Kyrgyz for “one” is “bir” pronounced “beer”.
8. A popular drink in Kyrgyzstan is “kumyz” which is made from fermented horse milk.
9. If country names were allowed in Scrabble, Kyrgyzstan would score 30.
The only one-word country scoring more is Mozambique.
10. Today is also the Independence Day of Trinidad and Tobago, and of Malaya, dating back before it became part of Malaysia.
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