At first glance, the alphabet seems neutral — a simple filing system, a way to impose order on the world. But when you line up all 193 UN-recognized countries and sort them by their first letter, surprising patterns emerge. Some letters are crowded crossroads of history and geography, while others are nearly empty.
This is not about importance or size. It’s about how language, colonial legacies, and naming conventions quietly shape how the world is indexed.
The Dominance of “S”
No letter dominates the global map quite like S.
With 25 countries, nearly 13% of all nations, S is the uncontested heavyweight. From Spain to Sri Lanka, Senegal to South Sudan, and Singapore to Suriname, this letter stretches across every continent.
Why? Partly coincidence — but also history. Many country names derive from:
- Saints (Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis)
- Geographic descriptors (South Africa, South Sudan)
- Older Latin, Arabic, or Sanskrit roots that translate smoothly into “S” in European languages
“S” is soft, adaptable, and historically convenient.
The Strong Second Tier: B, C, and M
Close behind are B, C, and M, each with 17 countries.
- B brings us Belgium, Brazil, Bangladesh, and a long list of African states whose names were standardized during the colonial era.
- C reflects classical geography and colonial cartography: Canada, China, Chile, Croatia.
- M is deeply tied to ancient kingdoms, ethnic groups, and empires: Morocco, Mexico, Myanmar, Mongolia.
These letters feel globally “balanced,” appearing naturally across regions without clustering too heavily in one part of the world.
The Quiet Letters
Some letters whisper instead of shout.
Only one country starts with:
- O (Oman)
- Q (Qatar)
- Y (Yemen)
And just two with Z (Zambia and Zimbabwe).
This isn’t random. These letters are linguistically rarer at the start of words in many dominant naming languages — especially Latin-based and Germanic ones — and they tend to survive only when local or Arabic names remain intact.
Oman, Qatar, and Yemen feel linguistically anchored to their regions, less filtered through European renaming traditions.
The Missing Letters
Two letters don’t appear at all:
- W
- X
There is no Republic of Westland, no Xanadu on today’s political map. While cities and regions use these letters freely, sovereign states do not. It’s a reminder that modern country names are surprisingly conservative — shaped more by tradition than creativity.
What This Tells Us About the World
This alphabetic imbalance isn’t trivia; it’s cultural sediment.
- Colonial administration standardized names into European alphabets
- Translation choices froze spellings that might have differed locally
- Religion, geography, and empire influenced which letters felt “natural” for statehood
If country names were invented today, from scratch, the distribution would likely look very different.
A Final Thought
We often think of the world map as spatial — borders, distances, continents. But it can also be read alphabetically, like a library shelf. And just like any library, some sections are packed, others nearly empty.
The alphabet doesn’t just order the world.
It quietly tells the story of how the world was named.
Leave a Reply