Book of Nations: An Introduction to Every Country on Earth devotes a page to each country with a map showing its location, the country’s flag, some fun facts, and key information that includes the capital city, total area, population (and population density), demographics (by ethnic origins), and prominent biomes. Some national parks might be listed as well.
The book was published in 2023, so the information is fairly current. The author, Rebecca Allen, relied on the Encyclopedia Britannica’s list of countries—196 of them, acknowledging that there are many territorial disputes. For instance, Taiwan and Kosovo are both given their own pages, but the fun facts for each mention that their claims of independence are disputed by some other countries.
The book is divided into continental areas: Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America. Countries are listed alphabetically within each section.
The book is designed in full color and has loads of photos and illustrations—there are 12 pages listing image credits near the back of the book! While there’s at least one image on each country’s page, pages with four additional photos from one or more countries are scattered throughout each section.
The book is available in hardcover or as a PDF. The PDF has a hyperlinked index near the beginning that takes you quickly to each country, but otherwise, both editions are the same.
Note that Book of Nations is recommended but not required for use with Beautiful Feet Book’s World Geography & Ecology course.
Summary
Book of Nations is a very useful reference tool for world geography, and it’s also a lovely book to browse through at your leisure.
