Thank you Barbs! I'm from Guinea Bissau and due to my love of geography, I've been watching your channel since around 2016. Fun fact: Guinea Bissau has 24% of his whole land area covered by water, whether is brackish water from the sea extension as far as 100km inland (estuaries) or hundreds if not throusands of rivers and swamps across the country. This vast network of waterways was a major contribuitor in defeating the portuguese during the war of independence as it was a logistic nightmare por tge portuguese army to move cargo across the country whereas for the PAIGC, it was a blessing for their guerrila warfare. I'm currently living and my masters in Japan where my research topic is Hydrogeology, with the hopes of becoming a hydrogeologist one day and help contribute for the development of my country. It is a fact that currently, we are one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, specially due to political infights but I dont see our geography a hindering factor and more like a blessing. We have one the best fisheries in all of West Africa due to the estuaries networks and mangrove forest, abundance of fresh water and highly fertile soil, not to mention the Bijagos islands which offer a high potential for eco-friendly tourism. We just need to get our act together. Thank you once again for the videos and keep it up!
Yeah you guys have also a bit of an issue with embassies as most countries don't have any embassy so if you lose your passport and cannot get one issued you have to try get a travel document from the government of the country you are in 😂 You end up seeing a few Guinea-Bissauans with travel documents, especially due to the lockdowns during the corona virus
I wanna hear the story of you ended up doing your studies in Japan! Far far far away! PS I'm from Taiwan, just a stone throw away from Japan, that's why I am feeling curious about your decision of going to Japan to study.
Don’t know if you will ever read this, but your video on Guinea-Bissau actually made me visit the country back in 2018. And what an experience it was! Traveled on a second-hand bicycle from Nouakchott, camped in the forests, stayed with locals in huts on Bolama and in the slums of Bissau, and visited several of the Bijagos islands by simple wooden boats as most ferry connections hadn’t been established by then. Saw a party at the king’s house on Orango. Waded through mangrove swamps following a guy to a secluded village. Had someone asking me for my old bread that had gone moldy already, had other people offer me homemade cashew apple liquor and showing me their pet monkey. And there were a bunch of deeply thought-provoking moments, to say the very least. While I had the idea to go as far as Gambia before, it was in the end your video that made me want to go even further, and possibly provided the last bit of motivation and courage needed to do that West Africa trip in the first place. So… thanks a lot for that, Barbs.
@@kingeddiam2543 Gestures, smiles, simple words. Occasionally there would be some people who were able to speak English, like some Biology students I met at a beach on Bolama, an English teacher in Bissau, an immigrant from Liberia or a guy on Orango who often dealt with people coming to see the salt water hippos. For sure, some knowledge of Portugese or even creole would have been even better, but it worked out just great. Also didn’t need much French in Senegal or Mauritania either.
@@seangates900 I can relate to the overplanning tendencies very well. First time in Mauritania however turned all planning attempts into a joke. It seems in some parts of the world you need to surrender to the “flow” of things which is what dictates what happens when, not the clock. But it’s also fun like that. Asking for the train departure in Mauritania you may get a timeframe of 6 hours if you’re lucky, so people may camp next to the tracks, cook food and make music until something happens. Bush taxis won’t go until everything and everyone is successfully loaded, and boat between the Bijagos need to adjust to the tides at least. On the other hand, if you’ve got a problem, people ususally have time to help you out or to find you someone who can. If you ever visit a country in West Africa, I recommend to set a very generous timeframe for yourself and a general route, try to get some local contacts and emergency hotel addresses if you can, and then go and see what happens. But do your reasearch about safety and stuff, and avoid the mosquitoes.
It really doesn’t help that Guinea Bissau’s initials are the same as Great Britain, so you can’t even type “GB” or something without the UK coming up first
As a Bissau-Guinean, I was truly surprised and excited to see you make a video about my country. It means so much to see even a yt video about it. The first video I watched on your channel was also about Guinea-Bissau, and I still remember how happy I felt back then to see a vid about it . Since that moment, I’ve been a fan of your work. I’m also glad to see mostly positive comments on this video.
@@Ballamizan That’s so nice to hear! Guinea-Bissau is such a beautiful country I hope you get the chance to visit someday. I also hope I get the chance to visit Hungary one day! A few years ago, I was trying to learn Hungarian, and I’m a huge fan of Hungarian folktales.
I’m from Nigeria and have visited Guinea Bissau very briefly. It is a beautiful little country with lovely people, but if I’m being honest it is easily the poorest country in the region. You’d be hard pressed to find a single paved road and the airport looks like the 1970s. And this is coming from a Nigerian, we’re not exactly the US or anything 😂. I hope they can improve
@@Leftatalbuquerqueno, I just meant much of the airport looked particularly old and run down. At least when I visited, I’m not sure if any upgrades have taken place since.
@@bababababababa6124I looked at photos online and yeah that airport literally looks like a tiny regional airport in my country. And that’s supposed to be their ONLY international airport. Yikes, no wonder they have no visitors
That crazy to me personally, as someone who grew up being obsessed with geography. For me as a kid, I always found it amusing that this country’s name was literally just that of its neighbour, but with an extra word attached - for a while, I started adding “Bissau” to the end of stuff to basically mean “2.0” - you know, like “Toy Story Bissau” or “Beaver Bissau” or summit. And yes, I was aware that the capital is named Bissau. However, I assumed as a kid that it was named after the country, instead of the other way around.
That "Bissau" thing is funny though it implies one country is an off-brand of another. I personally would've done that with Belarus or Moldova, as in "Belarus is the Bissau of Russia", "Moldova is the Bissau of Romania"
Loved this new format! You should consider revisiting with this format other under-the-radar countries! Your passion for the subject is contagious and makes us watch until the end!
From the heart of Guinea-Bissau, I express my gratitude for highlighting this significant challenge that we’ve faced for years. Our country is open to you with arms wide open! 🇬🇼 Obrigado from Biombo!
@@Shonendo On 20 October we had a referendum to join EU(where just 50.5% voted for and 49.5% against), so there is a way higher chance for us to be a EU member than merging with Romania, but who knows
I haven't checked but it's highly unlikely the Unicode Consortium are to blame for not finding the flag when typing 'guinea'. They define Unicode characters and have examples of each but don't define their exact appearance or how to type them. The purpose of the consortium is to ensure compatibility, not consumer device UI. UI is up to the individual manufacturers. Blame Apple.
You got to the point. Do you think any rich CEOs are worried about a poor country? Rich CEOs are not even worried with tropical diseases let alone a flag.
I actually was in Guinea-Bissau just 1,5 months ago. Got the visa in Nouakchott, Mauritania. I was the 95. person to apply for a tourist visa at this embassy in 2024, they count it. In November. Yeah, there aren't many visitors but I had a great time there
4:50 looking at the comparison of the houses between Guinea Bissau and Senegal shows you everything you need to know about this country. How unfortunate
My father who is from Portugal, served his time in the army fighting against the independence forces in the late 60s-early 70s. We even have photos of him in his time down in Guinea Bissau. He never talked about it before his passing. Nothing against those people. I think most Portuguese people in a way desire to see these countries progress, especially in soccer and finally qualify for the World Cup. Definitely happy when Angola qualified, Cabo Verde so close. Mozambique hopefully can make a push some day.
It seems like Geogra-Talk is your new default format. It seems to work. But I hope you get to do more traveling and Letter To episodes, especially for Guinea-Bissau. And, you are right, the flag emoji for Guinea-Bissau is hard to find. As I typed it, the only flag emoji that popped up was for Guinea.
I'm a Filipino who used to live in the UAE, and I had a Fellow childhood friend who is from Guinea-Bissau🇬🇼, we were close friends back then but now, we haven't met eachother in awhile, I remembered all the memories we had with her, at the age 7, I asked her what country in Africa was she from, she said she was from Bissau🇬🇼, righ after she said it, I was buffled for how confused I was since I never heard a country like that (I knew some African countries when I was 7), now everytime I would hear someone talk about the beautiful country of Guinea-Bissau🇬🇼, I will always remember Esther, my childhood friend and the memories we had, Love Bissau from the Philippines 🇵🇭🤝🇬🇼💚
I've worked for the bissau-guinean team for UNICEF and it's sad that such bright and welcoming people are put to the side so much. Much love from Brazil
Is it America's fault, again? By the way I know there is a high chance that you, being from the Americas, will get offended that I use "America" to name the US, and if so
I'm from Iran and a few years ago, there was a football player from Guinea-Bissau who joined Esteghlal F.C, one of Iran's most popular football clubs and in public there were so many jokes made about his country of origin because of it was such an unknown and obscure country for Iranians, like instead of nowhere they would say Guinea-Bissau. Since I remember those days I actually remembered and cared about Guinea-Bissau :)))
What he means is if you go to the bottom-left of your keyboard and click the emoji search button, then after that type”Guinea”, you’ll get the Guinea pig, and the three other countries called “Guinea” but Guinea Bissau would still be missing.
@@mnm5165When I do that and search "Guinea", it shows me the flags of Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. I use an Android phone, I don't know if that is relevant or not. 🇬🇳🇬🇼
Yeap, in Android when you type "Guinea" you only get two flags, one of them is 🇬🇼. On my Mac, however, I face the same problem as Barbs. It's an Apple bug, the Unicode Consortium has nothing to do with it.
Thanks for being mature and realizing countries like Guinnea-Bissau are underdeveloped and neglected but the people have a lot to offer with rich history and cultures
I am honestly surprised that the water seems to be a big problem for trade, when in basically any other county having a lot of internal navigatable waterways is usually a major blessing making transport costs go way down. Unless Barbs forgot to mention that these rivers are way too unpredictable to be used for some reason.
Technically, there are no navigable rivers in the entire Africa. Navigate far enough and you will be stopped by rapids. That's why you cant navigate even from one country to another within Africa by boat/ship. We were blessed by a lot of nature, ease of transportation wasn't one of them.
@@NinaformI think you need to clarify the comment. Africa contains the longest and one of most ancient navigable rivers - the Nile. I think you may have meant sub Saharan Africa.
@@brontewcat That was my point. Yes it is navigable but you still cant move from Sudan to Egypt. Same with the Congo river. You cant navigate from DRC to republic of Congo...I think.
Rivers may be annoying for road building, but can be a huge source of development and income through hydro-energy. Of course that first needs a useful road network. So they need a lot of money and less corruption.
Hey Barbs, I just want to say, Geography Now is my favorite channel on TH-cam and it always makes me happy to watch your videos. So thanks a lot for your work and hope you're doing well!
10:20 that region of Senegal is called Casamance, it actually does see some tourism on its coast, but otherwise it's mostly known for... having an independence movement, lol.
@geographynow Barbs I'm very proud of this video. As an African American I'm glad you brought recognition to and underserved unrecognized African country. People don't give my ancestors a lot of credit and the fact that you're so impressed (and so am I) with how they right off the Portuguese is inspiring. Let's all give Guinea-Bissau a chance and raise the awareness and knowledge. 🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼
If you are doing underrated geography topics of the world these days, I would suggest topics like, 1. Islands of Island countries beside their main island 2. Thailand's Turtle island 3. Tribes that still have no contact with the modern world 4. Mysterious fauna and flora distributions of the world (Eg:- Dronagiri mountain /Hakgala mountain etc.) That is all I could think of for now. If I have missed some topic that is interesting feel free to comment.....
I have an american friend who once visited Guinea-Bissau a few years ago. She both almost died of malaria there (as she didnt take the right meds before she went) and she also met her husband who she loves to this day. Her family had come from there. Said it was a wonderful community
Honestly, if the next phase of this channel is shorter form geography deep dives, I'd be totally down. The thing that drew me into this channel originally was the passion Barbz had for the countries he was talking about. It's like, "I know you never think about this place but I'm going to convince you why you should care as much as me!" This video reminded me of that, I love it.
Hello small correction at 11:30 for the name José the correct pronunciation of the J in Portuguese is a hard J sound (like in French) - just think that if you make a video about a place that nobody cares about it's important to get the small details correct. Thanks for your work!
Anyone curious about G-B’s culture, listen to the band Super Mama Djombo and you can feel it. Assalariado and Gardessi are two particularly perfect tracks.
Thank you Barbs. You have a very uniqie combination of knowledge and enthusiasm. I like that you stay of the beaten path and bring light to unpopular topic which are super interesting
The funniest thing I just discovered is that the auto-subtitles for this video aren't able to recognize Guinea-Bissau whenever you mention it in the video.
4:12 I am currently in Cap Skirring, Senegal. And because of this video, I decided to visit this little exclave you mentioned. Oh, and because I'm going to Varela next, and so being able to cross the border here would be great. According to the military I met there, that side of the river is Senegal. And Guinea-Bissau only starts slightly further south. So I will have to drive all the way to Ziguinchor and Sao Domingos in order to legally get to Varela and Guinea-Bissau. If you zoom in on the satellite view, you will be able to see that there are villages on both sides of the border, but they don't have any roads that connect across the border.
You might have heard this quote: Geography is destiny. This is something we know about every country. They are defined by their geography, their cuisine, their customs, their culture and even their political system. Look this up, you might want to do a video someday. Also check books by Robert D Kaplan - great geographer and expert in geopolitics.
The Jola people are one of the most fascinating indigenous groups of Senogambia. Despite having a very horizontal social structure they were able to achieve autonomy from their imperial overlords for most of their history.
Ooh, I once met a girl from Guinea-Bissau in Brazil while visiting Fortaleza, she was very lovely. Even if the country is underdeveloped I'd still like to see what it is like, and what it has to offer. Maybe one day
the unicode consortium is just a standard, this issue seems to only happen for apple users, as the flag displayed is implemented by the software developers. The standard just makes it compatible with as much devices as possible. On android it seems fine
I lived in Bissau for a few years in the mid 90s. Traveled all over, including the Bijagos, and left just before the coup that toppled Nino Vieira (the first time). Beautiful country, lovely people.
Dude, you should continue the initial Geography Now series and give some of the unrecognized countries their own videos. Or do the US states, that would be awesome.
Hey Barbs! Cool video. We definitely should learn more about Guinea-Bissau. One of my favorite writers was born in Guinea-Bissau and raised in Brazil. Hearing you talk about the difficulties made me realize that it’s more than just the language that unites our countries-it’s really the great people. I think you would love Jacira's book O Estigma da Cor. Actually, I recommend it to everyone who speaks Portuguese (I think the English version isn’t available yet).
The Unicode Consortium didn't make up the list of emoji, and has *nothing* to do with the search feature on your phone. One of their core rules for including characters in Unicode, is that they have to already be in one or more other character sets that are actually used in practice. The original batch of emoji as-such were from a proprietary character set used by Dokomo cellphones, and subsequent ones have been added mostly from other cellphone character sets. (Some older Unicode characters might be retroactively classified as emoji, e.g., the four card-suit characters that were included in ASCII and inherited by every major computer character set thereafter, including the very first draft version of Unicode.) As for the searching, I suspect the hyphenated name may not be helping Guinea-Bissau in that regard. Search indexing tends to struggle with hyphenated words, because nobody's ever quite sure whether to treat them as words or as phrases, and either way causes problems of one sort or another in various contexts. (Relevancy ranking may also be an issue. In general, good relevancy ranking is statistics-based and attempts to lead with the search results that are most likely to be what the user is looking for. If Guinea-Bissau doesn't get much international attention, that would likely push it down the list; and cellphone IMEs like to keep the list short, due to limited screen real estate.)
As an Australian 1 fact I Kano about it is that the reason it’s got Bissau in its name is because Guinea was already independent so they called it Guinea Bissau after their capital bissau
Nah, calling it “Wyoming” would suggest that Guinea Bissau is a large, unpopulated wasteland. Which it isn’t, it’s a small, densely populated rainforest nation. If anything, due to its size and obscurity it’s closer to Vermont or something. The “Wyoming” of Africa would probably be Niger, C.A.R, Namibia or Botswana.
honestly feel the same way about Zambia, it is its kind of in the middle on the continent, it's big, not densely populated and nobody ever talks about it either, bcus it's the lesser known "Z" country
@@user-ow8gh5hc1efr Zambia is so secluded from everything and heavily overshadowed by Zimbabwe, it's the middle of nowhere of Africa outside of the Sahara
It’s not Unicode that controlls Apple Keyboard, Google Keyboard, Or Microsoft Keyboard. Auto Suggestions and Unicode implementation is up to platform developers to decide. And iOS, Android, and Windows all use different predictive text equations. Unicode could change general guidelines and recommendations for implementation, but cannot control everyone without either total organizational consensus, or third party cooperation. Unicode is made up of different individuals, organizations, and corporations , so it’s a group project.
Loving the new video. loving the new wrestling heel turn look Paul and hey, after 10 or so years of Geo-Now and after a couple months after the Zimbabwe video it’s good that Geo-Now has a more serious and in depth look at the world which is good regarding situations across the globe
หลายเดือนก่อน +5
The emoji search probably depends on platform, each system may have the search implemented differently. In case it does not find it from the first few letters, I assume the presence of the hyphen throws it off.
Flag emojis are a bit special because the Unicode Consortium doesn't define each flag emoji individually. Instead, there is a special character class called Regional Indicator Symbols which consists of the letters 🇦 to 🇿. A flag emoji is just a representation of the ISO 3166 two-letter country code written out using letters from this character class. For Guinea Bissau the country code is GW, so put 🇬 and 🇼 right next to each other to get 🇬🇼. I have no idea why it doesn't show up easily on an iPhone, you'd need to ask Apple for that.
Wow, I posted on your Instagram asking about Guinea Bissau to you, asking if you were interested in visiting since it was so remote. And you responded. Idk it’s so cool to see one of my random geography question marks come up in your interests too. The lusophone world needs to know more about Guinea Bissau 🇬🇼
I am a Spanish adolescent that for the most random reason has actually visited Guinea-Bissau. The Bijago Islands are used by the few Europeans working there for tourism, as if they were private islands in which you can relax and tan. Then there is the question of narco state, I am not in the position to give any details on it, but it's the main issue why other countries won't look. Apart from the corruption and poverty, the country's capital is somewhat charming. The only good restaurants are held by Europeans, and the most important buildings are embassies or government institutions. Once you leave the capital, the routes are gone. If you thought the country needed bridges, think first how someone is supposed to drive through the entire country with constant potholes. It's sad because the bissau-guineans are really nice people, they just lack the motivation of building a better country since each time a construction begins, it is easily destroyed by the weather. International help is needed.
The Bijago archipelago has Jolas?! I’m overjoyed to learn this, as when I lived in The Gambia I lived with Jolas & learned to speak the Foyni dialect. I knew they were in Casamance Senegal too, but I never knew so far south as those islands
I swear I read or watched somewhere that Guinea-Bissau is the country with the longest average time to start a business. Wait, that may have been in your country episode, I guess.
@GeographyNow Woah, it's Barbs! You're awesome man, been a subscriber since the A countries. Thank you for all that you do, and I'm glad you're still going.
As a Southeast Asian obsessed with rivers and rivers-based civilizations, I LOVE this video, and look forward to more videos about unique geographical features affecting countries and societies like this!
Literally a GUINEA PIG gets more recognition.....
Even NEW Guinea gets more recognition
Hi
@FederatedStatesofMicronesia Yes
その通りだ
Now that you made a video about it. There's also another country named Equitorial Guinea.
Thank you Barbs! I'm from Guinea Bissau and due to my love of geography, I've been watching your channel since around 2016. Fun fact: Guinea Bissau has 24% of his whole land area covered by water, whether is brackish water from the sea extension as far as 100km inland (estuaries) or hundreds if not throusands of rivers and swamps across the country. This vast network of waterways was a major contribuitor in defeating the portuguese during the war of independence as it was a logistic nightmare por tge portuguese army to move cargo across the country whereas for the PAIGC, it was a blessing for their guerrila warfare.
I'm currently living and my masters in Japan where my research topic is Hydrogeology, with the hopes of becoming a hydrogeologist one day and help contribute for the development of my country.
It is a fact that currently, we are one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, specially due to political infights but I dont see our geography a hindering factor and more like a blessing. We have one the best fisheries in all of West Africa due to the estuaries networks and mangrove forest, abundance of fresh water and highly fertile soil, not to mention the Bijagos islands which offer a high potential for eco-friendly tourism.
We just need to get our act together.
Thank you once again for the videos and keep it up!
Love from England, I am also from 🇬🇼
Yeah you guys have also a bit of an issue with embassies as most countries don't have any embassy so if you lose your passport and cannot get one issued you have to try get a travel document from the government of the country you are in 😂
You end up seeing a few Guinea-Bissauans with travel documents, especially due to the lockdowns during the corona virus
I wanna hear the story of you ended up doing your studies in Japan! Far far far away!
PS I'm from Taiwan, just a stone throw away from Japan, that's why I am feeling curious about your decision of going to Japan to study.
Great that you have taken a positive stance on the development of your country rather than view it as hopeless situation
Love from germany 🇬🇼♥️🇩🇪
Don’t know if you will ever read this, but your video on Guinea-Bissau actually made me visit the country back in 2018. And what an experience it was!
Traveled on a second-hand bicycle from Nouakchott, camped in the forests, stayed with locals in huts on Bolama and in the slums of Bissau, and visited several of the Bijagos islands by simple wooden boats as most ferry connections hadn’t been established by then. Saw a party at the king’s house on Orango. Waded through mangrove swamps following a guy to a secluded village. Had someone asking me for my old bread that had gone moldy already, had other people offer me homemade cashew apple liquor and showing me their pet monkey. And there were a bunch of deeply thought-provoking moments, to say the very least.
While I had the idea to go as far as Gambia before, it was in the end your video that made me want to go even further, and possibly provided the last bit of motivation and courage needed to do that West Africa trip in the first place.
So… thanks a lot for that, Barbs.
Wow! How did you communicate?
What an awesome comment. Sounds like a great trip too!
This is how I aim to travel, despite my tendency towards overplanning. I salute you.
@@kingeddiam2543 Gestures, smiles, simple words. Occasionally there would be some people who were able to speak English, like some Biology students I met at a beach on Bolama, an English teacher in Bissau, an immigrant from Liberia or a guy on Orango who often dealt with people coming to see the salt water hippos. For sure, some knowledge of Portugese or even creole would have been even better, but it worked out just great.
Also didn’t need much French in Senegal or Mauritania either.
@@seangates900 I can relate to the overplanning tendencies very well. First time in Mauritania however turned all planning attempts into a joke. It seems in some parts of the world you need to surrender to the “flow” of things which is what dictates what happens when, not the clock. But it’s also fun like that.
Asking for the train departure in Mauritania you may get a timeframe of 6 hours if you’re lucky, so people may camp next to the tracks, cook food and make music until something happens. Bush taxis won’t go until everything and everyone is successfully loaded, and boat between the Bijagos need to adjust to the tides at least. On the other hand, if you’ve got a problem, people ususally have time to help you out or to find you someone who can.
If you ever visit a country in West Africa, I recommend to set a very generous timeframe for yourself and a general route, try to get some local contacts and emergency hotel addresses if you can, and then go and see what happens. But do your reasearch about safety and stuff, and avoid the mosquitoes.
It really doesn’t help that Guinea Bissau’s initials are the same as Great Britain, so you can’t even type “GB” or something without the UK coming up first
GIGABYTE!
Gravity Bong also.
So why not GuB or GuBi for short?
@@alekto101 or I guess G-B? cuz there IS a "-" in the name?
@winstonzhou4595 but how would one read it, though? G dash B?
As a Bissau-Guinean, I was truly surprised and excited to see you make a video about my country. It means so much to see even a yt video about it. The first video I watched on your channel was also about Guinea-Bissau, and I still remember how happy I felt back then to see a vid about it . Since that moment, I’ve been a fan of your work. I’m also glad to see mostly positive comments on this video.
would love to visit Guinea-Bissau! cheers from Hungary
@@Ballamizan That’s so nice to hear! Guinea-Bissau is such a beautiful country
I hope you get the chance to visit someday.
I also hope I get the chance to visit Hungary one day! A few years ago, I was trying to learn Hungarian, and I’m a huge fan of Hungarian folktales.
@kailani5911 I would love to visit your country. But I would most likely stay along the coast.
I’m from Nigeria and have visited Guinea Bissau very briefly. It is a beautiful little country with lovely people, but if I’m being honest it is easily the poorest country in the region. You’d be hard pressed to find a single paved road and the airport looks like the 1970s. And this is coming from a Nigerian, we’re not exactly the US or anything 😂. I hope they can improve
So, the staff there all wear polyester bell bottoms and platform shoes?
@@Leftatalbuquerqueno, I just meant much of the airport looked particularly old and run down. At least when I visited, I’m not sure if any upgrades have taken place since.
@@bababababababa6124I looked at photos online and yeah that airport literally looks like a tiny regional airport in my country. And that’s supposed to be their ONLY international airport. Yikes, no wonder they have no visitors
We're talking about third world countries 70's not first world countries 70's
If a Nigerian is saying this about your country then you really need to get your act together
This country is so obscure that you yourself, @GeographyNow, have gotten their flag mixed up for São Tomé e Príncipe's flag in 12:54 .
it does look kinda similar
🇸🇹🇬🇼
That crazy to me personally, as someone who grew up being obsessed with geography. For me as a kid, I always found it amusing that this country’s name was literally just that of its neighbour, but with an extra word attached - for a while, I started adding “Bissau” to the end of stuff to basically mean “2.0” - you know, like “Toy Story Bissau” or “Beaver Bissau” or summit.
And yes, I was aware that the capital is named Bissau. However, I assumed as a kid that it was named after the country, instead of the other way around.
That "Bissau" thing is funny though it implies one country is an off-brand of another. I personally would've done that with Belarus or Moldova, as in "Belarus is the Bissau of Russia", "Moldova is the Bissau of Romania"
For us it's the other one that is the 2.0
Any Portuguese refers the other one as Guiné-Conakri.
There is also Guiné-Equatorial
@@pauvermelhoDo you just call your country Guiné?
So "Papua new" meens 3th and "ecuatorial" meens 4th now.
@@miss.nadiii Sure, why not?
Loved this new format! You should consider revisiting with this format other under-the-radar countries! Your passion for the subject is contagious and makes us watch until the end!
Glad that you're able to find new things to do on this channel!!
Yeah they ended the country series that they did so many years
I'd listen to Barbs read the phone book. He's a really interesting guy.
hope he doesn’t fall for anything with reactionary politics
From the heart of Guinea-Bissau, I express my gratitude for highlighting this significant challenge that we’ve faced for years. Our country is open to you with arms wide open! 🇬🇼 Obrigado from Biombo!
0:27 me living in Moldova, witch is the least visited country in Europe: we should hang out sometime
Been there
Been there!
Love Moldova had some great times in Chisinau and villages
Looking forward to the day Moldova merges with Romania and are one again :)
@@Shonendo On 20 October we had a referendum to join EU(where just 50.5% voted for and 49.5% against), so there is a way higher chance for us to be a EU member than merging with Romania, but who knows
Loving these geogra-talks, you really bring to light some randomly awesome topics. Hope this becomes your niche in the post-country episode era.
I haven't checked but it's highly unlikely the Unicode Consortium are to blame for not finding the flag when typing 'guinea'. They define Unicode characters and have examples of each but don't define their exact appearance or how to type them. The purpose of the consortium is to ensure compatibility, not consumer device UI. UI is up to the individual manufacturers. Blame Apple.
yeah im using gboard and guinea bissau comes up when i search literally just "g"
You got to the point.
Do you think any rich CEOs are worried about a poor country?
Rich CEOs are not even worried with tropical diseases let alone a flag.
definitely seems like the apple autocomplete problem. it definitely appears when i start typing guinea on my android/gboard.
For sure an Apple thing. It comes up quick on android 🇬🇼 after just gui
🇬🇼it came for me really quick in ios
Ig they have seen this video and corrected the mistake 😂😂
I actually was in Guinea-Bissau just 1,5 months ago. Got the visa in Nouakchott, Mauritania. I was the 95. person to apply for a tourist visa at this embassy in 2024, they count it. In November. Yeah, there aren't many visitors but I had a great time there
4:50 looking at the comparison of the houses between Guinea Bissau and Senegal shows you everything you need to know about this country. How unfortunate
Seriously, how poor do you have to be to make Southern Senegal look developed?
Didn't even notice at first. Very unfortunate.
Holy crap I didn't even notice
One thing for sure, the way you talk about this country really shows the passion you have for what you do. Much respect
A guinean here ❤🇬🇼 been watching you for the longest 6 years I think, this is so random but cool, thanks haha
My father who is from Portugal, served his time in the army fighting against the independence forces in the late 60s-early 70s. We even have photos of him in his time down in Guinea Bissau. He never talked about it before his passing. Nothing against those people. I think most Portuguese people in a way desire to see these countries progress, especially in soccer and finally qualify for the World Cup. Definitely happy when Angola qualified, Cabo Verde so close. Mozambique hopefully can make a push some day.
Thanks
It seems like Geogra-Talk is your new default format. It seems to work. But I hope you get to do more traveling and Letter To episodes, especially for Guinea-Bissau. And, you are right, the flag emoji for Guinea-Bissau is hard to find. As I typed it, the only flag emoji that popped up was for Guinea.
I'm a Filipino who used to live in the UAE, and I had a Fellow childhood friend who is from Guinea-Bissau🇬🇼, we were close friends back then but now, we haven't met eachother in awhile, I remembered all the memories we had with her, at the age 7, I asked her what country in Africa was she from, she said she was from Bissau🇬🇼, righ after she said it, I was buffled for how confused I was since I never heard a country like that (I knew some African countries when I was 7), now everytime I would hear someone talk about the beautiful country of Guinea-Bissau🇬🇼, I will always remember Esther, my childhood friend and the memories we had,
Love Bissau from the Philippines 🇵🇭🤝🇬🇼💚
What about China?
@@cashewnuttel9054😂😂😂what’s wrong with you dude
What was your "friend" doing in Philippines. Was she born there?
@@cedricliggins7528no, she was from Bissau raised in the UAE, we became friends in my time in the UAE
I hope Esther sees this
I've worked for the bissau-guinean team for UNICEF and it's sad that such bright and welcoming people are put to the side so much. Much love from Brazil
Is it America's fault, again?
By the way I know there is a high chance that you, being from the Americas, will get offended that I use "America" to name the US, and if so
@@cashewnuttel9054 i actually dont care. and literally no one mentioned or attacked the usa, no need to get defensive.
This was great. I’m loving the direction the channel is going, and getting Unfiltered Barbs
Fun Fact: This country with one leader able to successfully complete the term is still one more than Pakistan
What?
Huh?
You're thinking of Pakistan's prime ministers, he was talking about this country's presidents.
Average lindu so obsessed with Pakistan 😂😂
So fun
I'm from Iran and a few years ago, there was a football player from Guinea-Bissau who joined Esteghlal F.C, one of Iran's most popular football clubs and in public there were so many jokes made about his country of origin because of it was such an unknown and obscure country for Iranians, like instead of nowhere they would say Guinea-Bissau. Since I remember those days I actually remembered and cared about Guinea-Bissau :)))
🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼 there is no Guinea Pig emoji for me bruh
What he means is if you go to the bottom-left of your keyboard and click the emoji search button, then after that type”Guinea”, you’ll get the Guinea pig, and the three other countries called “Guinea” but Guinea Bissau would still be missing.
@@mnm5165When I do that and search "Guinea", it shows me the flags of Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. I use an Android phone, I don't know if that is relevant or not. 🇬🇳🇬🇼
It depends on which language your keyboard is set to
Maybe on android it's like that? Idk
Yeap, in Android when you type "Guinea" you only get two flags, one of them is 🇬🇼. On my Mac, however, I face the same problem as Barbs. It's an Apple bug, the Unicode Consortium has nothing to do with it.
Thanks for being mature and realizing countries like Guinnea-Bissau are underdeveloped and neglected but the people have a lot to offer with rich history and cultures
I am honestly surprised that the water seems to be a big problem for trade, when in basically any other county having a lot of internal navigatable waterways is usually a major blessing making transport costs go way down. Unless Barbs forgot to mention that these rivers are way too unpredictable to be used for some reason.
It’s a big problem for large-scale trade, especially international.
Yeah but sometimes the direction and width of a river can really mess thing up...
Technically, there are no navigable rivers in the entire Africa. Navigate far enough and you will be stopped by rapids. That's why you cant navigate even from one country to another within Africa by boat/ship. We were blessed by a lot of nature, ease of transportation wasn't one of them.
@@NinaformI think you need to clarify the comment. Africa contains the longest and one of most ancient navigable rivers - the Nile.
I think you may have meant sub Saharan Africa.
@@brontewcat That was my point. Yes it is navigable but you still cant move from Sudan to Egypt. Same with the Congo river. You cant navigate from DRC to republic of Congo...I think.
0:43 they updated it actually, I just tested it and the flag of Guinea-Bissau appeared
And yes I’m on iOS
@@MAG_Doger doesn’t appear on my phone and I’m on the newest IOS
@@MAG_Dogerdidn’t work for me
Rivers may be annoying for road building, but can be a huge source of development and income through hydro-energy. Of course that first needs a useful road network. So they need a lot of money and less corruption.
money money money.....
I'm on a Pixel 8 Pro with Gboard. Guinea-Bissau 🇬🇼 flag is fairly easy to find. Just type "Guinea" and it pops up. Maybe this is an Apple issue?
100% apple issue. I have a galaxy and it was no trouble 🇬🇼
Yeah it’s an Apple issue I don’t get it
@@livwaketypical apple behaviour
It's an apple issue, or other vendor issue. Has nothing to do with the unicode consortium, they're not responsible for keyboard searching of emojis
On my Galaxy S24 Ultra, I see the emoji recommendation by just typing "gui"
6:45 "The Bangladesh Complex" always pass through my mind with " how can they live with that many river islands??"
Come to Bangladesh and see how we live ❤❤❤
Boats !
You are one of the most real and successful TH-camrs ever Ty for your content I learned about 🇬🇼 thanks to u
More recognition for Guinea-Bissau 🇬🇼
Definitely
Yea@@GeographyNow
Hey Barbs, I just want to say, Geography Now is my favorite channel on TH-cam and it always makes me happy to watch your videos. So thanks a lot for your work and hope you're doing well!
I love when he talks about lesser known countries and makes a whole video about them!... wait-
(12:52 that was sao tome and principe's flag btw)
I think Barb threw in the ST&P flag to keep us on our toes.
EXCELLENT video, man. Thank you for bringing awareness to such a great country in Mama Africa! Nuff said.
10:20 that region of Senegal is called Casamance, it actually does see some tourism on its coast, but otherwise it's mostly known for... having an independence movement, lol.
@geographynow Barbs I'm very proud of this video. As an African American I'm glad you brought recognition to and underserved unrecognized African country. People don't give my ancestors a lot of credit and the fact that you're so impressed (and so am I) with how they right off the Portuguese is inspiring. Let's all give Guinea-Bissau a chance and raise the awareness and knowledge. 🇬🇼🇬🇼🇬🇼
If you are doing underrated geography topics of the world these days, I would suggest topics like,
1. Islands of Island countries beside their main island
2. Thailand's Turtle island
3. Tribes that still have no contact with the modern world
4. Mysterious fauna and flora distributions of the world (Eg:- Dronagiri mountain /Hakgala mountain etc.)
That is all I could think of for now. If I have missed some topic that is interesting feel free to comment.....
as a Bangladeshi, I get it, Guinea-Bissau, condolences
No dont
0:21 I use it when people ask my roots 🔥🔥🔥
I have an american friend who once visited Guinea-Bissau a few years ago. She both almost died of malaria there (as she didnt take the right meds before she went) and she also met her husband who she loves to this day. Her family had come from there. Said it was a wonderful community
Honestly, if the next phase of this channel is shorter form geography deep dives, I'd be totally down. The thing that drew me into this channel originally was the passion Barbz had for the countries he was talking about. It's like, "I know you never think about this place but I'm going to convince you why you should care as much as me!" This video reminded me of that, I love it.
A Bissau-Guinean here and I've been keeping track on your work a while ago. Props to this vid. Well done!
Hello small correction at 11:30 for the name José the correct pronunciation of the J in Portuguese is a hard J sound (like in French) - just think that if you make a video about a place that nobody cares about it's important to get the small details correct. Thanks for your work!
Fascinating episode Barb, thank you. Feeling sad for the natural disadvantages the people have to face there. Good luck ahead.
Anyone curious about G-B’s culture, listen to the band Super Mama Djombo and you can feel it. Assalariado and Gardessi are two particularly perfect tracks.
Thank you Barbs. You have a very uniqie combination of knowledge and enthusiasm. I like that you stay of the beaten path and bring light to unpopular topic which are super interesting
The funniest thing I just discovered is that the auto-subtitles for this video aren't able to recognize Guinea-Bissau whenever you mention it in the video.
4:12 I am currently in Cap Skirring, Senegal. And because of this video, I decided to visit this little exclave you mentioned. Oh, and because I'm going to Varela next, and so being able to cross the border here would be great.
According to the military I met there, that side of the river is Senegal. And Guinea-Bissau only starts slightly further south. So I will have to drive all the way to Ziguinchor and Sao Domingos in order to legally get to Varela and Guinea-Bissau. If you zoom in on the satellite view, you will be able to see that there are villages on both sides of the border, but they don't have any roads that connect across the border.
Guinea Bissau has never been forgotten by me, I take geography seriously
6:18 "geez what the hell is in this stuff" LOOOOL 🤣🤣🤣
You've just won yourself a new subscriber, good sir! 👍🏼
You wrongly put the Sao Tomé and Principe flag in 12:56 !!! Very insightful video, I enjoyed it !!
Glad someone else noticed that 😂
This was really fascinating, thanks for sharing. It is interesting to see all these really tiny countries in the history behind them.
You might have heard this quote: Geography is destiny.
This is something we know about every country. They are defined by their geography, their cuisine, their customs, their culture and even their political system.
Look this up, you might want to do a video someday.
Also check books by Robert D Kaplan - great geographer and expert in geopolitics.
Yap
I read this comment and I bet this Kaplan guy had something to do with 19th century crazy theories, so I went to check. Turns out I was right.
Thanks for the video. Great effort, reinforcements my knowledge
The Jola people are one of the most fascinating indigenous groups of Senogambia. Despite having a very horizontal social structure they were able to achieve autonomy from their imperial overlords for most of their history.
Ooh, I once met a girl from Guinea-Bissau in Brazil while visiting Fortaleza, she was very lovely. Even if the country is underdeveloped I'd still like to see what it is like, and what it has to offer. Maybe one day
the unicode consortium is just a standard, this issue seems to only happen for apple users, as the flag displayed is implemented by the software developers. The standard just makes it compatible with as much devices as possible. On android it seems fine
I lived in Bissau for a few years in the mid 90s. Traveled all over, including the Bijagos, and left just before the coup that toppled Nino Vieira (the first time). Beautiful country, lovely people.
Poor GB
The sad thing is that when you say that people will automatically assume “Great Britain”
💷 that what pops up when I type GB on emojis
@@bababababababa6124 Well obviously 😂 Britain is a far far more important and significant country
I could apply to Great Britain right now as well.
Welcome back I have missed your brilliant imforative videos. Your videos should be shown at every school in the USA.
including the drinking booze on air? 🤔
Dude, you should continue the initial Geography Now series and give some of the unrecognized countries their own videos. Or do the US states, that would be awesome.
Hey Barbs! Cool video. We definitely should learn more about Guinea-Bissau. One of my favorite writers was born in Guinea-Bissau and raised in Brazil. Hearing you talk about the difficulties made me realize that it’s more than just the language that unites our countries-it’s really the great people.
I think you would love Jacira's book O Estigma da Cor.
Actually, I recommend it to everyone who speaks Portuguese (I think the English version isn’t available yet).
We love your videos❤🎉
At 12:45 that is not the Guinea-Bissau flag. It is the flag for São Tomé and Principe.
12:58*
Bro, thanks for keeping us updated with things like that.. you're cool. But don't drink too much... You're a star!
one of the most respectful and knowledgeable partition to a company I ever watch.
The Unicode Consortium didn't make up the list of emoji, and has *nothing* to do with the search feature on your phone. One of their core rules for including characters in Unicode, is that they have to already be in one or more other character sets that are actually used in practice. The original batch of emoji as-such were from a proprietary character set used by Dokomo cellphones, and subsequent ones have been added mostly from other cellphone character sets. (Some older Unicode characters might be retroactively classified as emoji, e.g., the four card-suit characters that were included in ASCII and inherited by every major computer character set thereafter, including the very first draft version of Unicode.)
As for the searching, I suspect the hyphenated name may not be helping Guinea-Bissau in that regard. Search indexing tends to struggle with hyphenated words, because nobody's ever quite sure whether to treat them as words or as phrases, and either way causes problems of one sort or another in various contexts. (Relevancy ranking may also be an issue. In general, good relevancy ranking is statistics-based and attempts to lead with the search results that are most likely to be what the user is looking for. If Guinea-Bissau doesn't get much international attention, that would likely push it down the list; and cellphone IMEs like to keep the list short, due to limited screen real estate.)
Absolutely fascinating video.
Fun Fact: The Anthem was Made by a Chinese Person
You're not wrong i actually look on wikipedia
Really ? Where can I check ?
@@aleksplavcev8044 On the Wikipedia article, a man called Xiao He made the anthem and its called 'Esta É a Nossa Pátria Bem Amada'
I'm Chinese. That is crazy (and interesting)!
99% of things in Africa were made by foreign powers or funded by them
Just a comment to support Paul and his work! May your flask will be always full, mind clear and heart happy!
As an Australian 1 fact I Kano about it is that the reason it’s got Bissau in its name is because Guinea was already independent so they called it Guinea Bissau after their capital bissau
Awesome rant!
Seems to me like Guinea-Bissau is like the Wyoming of Africa. Nobody talks about Wyoming like with GB 🇬🇼
Nah, calling it “Wyoming” would suggest that Guinea Bissau is a large, unpopulated wasteland. Which it isn’t, it’s a small, densely populated rainforest nation. If anything, due to its size and obscurity it’s closer to Vermont or something. The “Wyoming” of Africa would probably be Niger, C.A.R, Namibia or Botswana.
except everyone talks about Wyoming because of how empty it is lol, people dont talk about gb at all tho
honestly feel the same way about Zambia, it is its kind of in the middle on the continent, it's big, not densely populated and nobody ever talks about it either, bcus it's the lesser known "Z" country
@@user-ow8gh5hc1efr Zambia is so secluded from everything and heavily overshadowed by Zimbabwe, it's the middle of nowhere of Africa outside of the Sahara
Western Sahara is the Wyoming of Africa! 🤠❤🇪🇭
It’s not Unicode that controlls Apple Keyboard, Google Keyboard, Or Microsoft Keyboard. Auto Suggestions and Unicode implementation is up to platform developers to decide. And iOS, Android, and Windows all use different predictive text equations. Unicode could change general guidelines and recommendations for implementation, but cannot control everyone without either total organizational consensus, or third party cooperation. Unicode is made up of different individuals, organizations, and corporations , so it’s a group project.
Loving the new video. loving the new wrestling heel turn look Paul and hey, after 10 or so years of Geo-Now and after a couple months after the Zimbabwe video it’s good that Geo-Now has a more serious and in depth look at the world which is good regarding situations across the globe
The emoji search probably depends on platform, each system may have the search implemented differently. In case it does not find it from the first few letters, I assume the presence of the hyphen throws it off.
Just a small thing: I think it's down to your phone manufacturer, not unicode. It comes up on the stock Android keyboard 🇬🇼
The Unicode concortium has no influence on how keyboards implement their emoji search.
Yeah Samsung users have no issues finding it
Yes! Go there someday! I would really enjoy that video of a place not too many people have shown in the way of culture and traditional foods etc. 🥳🌷👍
Flag emojis are a bit special because the Unicode Consortium doesn't define each flag emoji individually. Instead, there is a special character class called Regional Indicator Symbols which consists of the letters 🇦 to 🇿. A flag emoji is just a representation of the ISO 3166 two-letter country code written out using letters from this character class. For Guinea Bissau the country code is GW, so put 🇬 and 🇼 right next to each other to get 🇬🇼.
I have no idea why it doesn't show up easily on an iPhone, you'd need to ask Apple for that.
Wow, I posted on your Instagram asking about Guinea Bissau to you, asking if you were interested in visiting since it was so remote. And you responded. Idk it’s so cool to see one of my random geography question marks come up in your interests too. The lusophone world needs to know more about Guinea Bissau 🇬🇼
god I hate how I immediately recognize the shape of that country, its a testament to how much of my life was wasted on geoguessr
I am a Spanish adolescent that for the most random reason has actually visited Guinea-Bissau. The Bijago Islands are used by the few Europeans working there for tourism, as if they were private islands in which you can relax and tan. Then there is the question of narco state, I am not in the position to give any details on it, but it's the main issue why other countries won't look. Apart from the corruption and poverty, the country's capital is somewhat charming. The only good restaurants are held by Europeans, and the most important buildings are embassies or government institutions. Once you leave the capital, the routes are gone. If you thought the country needed bridges, think first how someone is supposed to drive through the entire country with constant potholes. It's sad because the bissau-guineans are really nice people, they just lack the motivation of building a better country since each time a construction begins, it is easily destroyed by the weather. International help is needed.
"for the most random reason has actually visited Guinea-Bissau." child of diplomats or development workers?
@@mobo7420 no but great guess hahahahh
You also missed with the county having muddy river waters, they don’t have good beaches for tourists, ocean is muddy and no sandy beaches
I don’t really think about this country a lot. Thanks for teaching me!
Ranking:
Guinea-Bissau - 1
Western Sahara - no data
You mean South Morocco
Nah fam that's Northern Mauritania (i know that claim was dropped but it's gonna be claimed again)
The Bijago archipelago has Jolas?! I’m overjoyed to learn this, as when I lived in The Gambia I lived with Jolas & learned to speak the Foyni dialect. I knew they were in Casamance Senegal too, but I never knew so far south as those islands
12:55 flag on the right is Sao Tome and Principe, not Guinea Bissau. Was that on purpose?
Was just about to point that out
Definitely not
I love how your doing these in depth videos on some of your older content.
I swear I read or watched somewhere that Guinea-Bissau is the country with the longest average time to start a business. Wait, that may have been in your country episode, I guess.
Yeah, that was literally in my Guinea-Bissau episode! Lol
@GeographyNow Woah, it's Barbs! You're awesome man, been a subscriber since the A countries. Thank you for all that you do, and I'm glad you're still going.
germany:
As a Southeast Asian obsessed with rivers and rivers-based civilizations, I LOVE this video, and look forward to more videos about unique geographical features affecting countries and societies like this!
13:33 - He said BOOBA…. Heh heh, heh heh! (Shut up, Beavis!)
Great video.
Idk, i live in switzerland and use a samsung smartphone and the emoji shows up when i type in "guin"
schwör
s unicode consortium hett mitm keyboard ui nüt ztue
As a South African, thank you for talking about our African little brother
And thanks for the video idea
Forgive a thing, so that you can let go of it. Forgive a person, so that they can be left behind.
Random swagged out knowledge