How big would it be? What hours would we work? What would the weather be like? We muse on the make-up of an ideal nation
Nearly 200,000 years ago, humans made their first strides out of Africa in a quest that would see them one day populate the whole world. Century by century, civilisations rose and fell from east to west; their varying cultures preserved and segregated by oceans.
Societies in what are now the Americas had no idea of the inventions being made in China. Indigious tribes in Australia knew nothing of the clans in Africa. Only in recent history have we joined the dots and only today do we have the whole picture.
And so, armed with these insights, imagine you are a wizard with the power to create a new nation on Earth in which to live, with different attributes cherry-picked from any countries you like. What would it look like? It would probably not, as far as Im concerned, be a land-locked municipality with the climate of Siberia, the food of Lithuania, the attitude of Parisians and the railway network of Britain.
I did some digging on the subject, reviewed the worlds 'happiest countries'and their customs, spoke to the rest of the Telegraph Travel team, and posed the question to readers - all to gather the material needed with which to invent a Franken-nation of excellence. Heres how it came out...
A good place to start, given our British tendency to pontificate on the weather; though like every other category to follow, a highly subjective matter.
Some appreciate proper seasons, others yearn for a permanent state of summer, and there are even those who choose to endure 100 days a year of total darkness. Personally, I favour desert conditions - hot and dry during the day, cool in the evenings - and steer clear of jungles; their claustrophobic humidity and multitude of insects. I'd settle on the climate of coastal California. Residents of this state have every reason to brag, and not just because it's so reliably sunny...
Warmth aside, California benefits from a host of topographic perks that make it unique. First, its terrain is exceptionally diverse (lofty peaks, rich forest, golden beaches). Crucially, its high mountain ranges shelter it from powerful polar gusts from the north, and the generally clockwise direction of the prevailing winds limit the force of Pacific storms.
Its equatorial position ensures plenty of sunshine, with warm wind that blows in from the eastern Mojave Desert. But the 'California Current' that brings cool ocean water down the east coast absorbs enough solar energy to keep the air from being too oppressively hot, and renders the humidity very low compared to other regions on the same latitude.
Unlike California, however, this Franken-nation would like to remain, like Britain, an island - not too far from the nearest mainland but far enough to enjoy our personal space. Ideal, too, in the event of an apocalypse.
Is bigger better? Undeniably, there are political advantages to having a far-reaching territory, not to mention the lifestyle privileges of being able to ski, sunbathe, swim and mountain-climb without stepping past your own borders.
But just like the running of a major corporation over a medium-sized company, there are drawbacks to being large. There's more to manage, it's harder to make significant constitutional changes should you need to, and the more land you cover, the more diverse its population and at-odds their prerogatives - precisely the reason Brexiteers think wed be better off out of the EU.
And while some of the biggest countries in the world, primarily the US and China, may indeed be the richest, it's actually the smaller nations that are the wealthiest per capita - a far better metric for the people living there. Qataroccupies just 11,586 sq km (that's 20 times smaller than Britain) and tops the list with a GDP per capita of nearly 100,000 (more than double that of the UK). Yes, they have oil, but other pint-sized nations with a high GDP per capita also include Luxembourg, Switzerland, Macau and Brunei.
On the other hand, with being a small country comes a limiting perspective. Natives from large nations like Australia and the USA often scoff when they hear a Briton describe their journey from, say, London to Edinburgh as being 'long'.
This is probably a category for the Goldilocks approach; not too big, not too little.South Africa seems like a good size, allowing for the diversity of landscape enjoyed by larger countries - from its great safari bushland in the east, its Kalahari desert conditions in the north west, and abundance of coastline either side - without being so sprawling as to be unmanageable. In short, just right.
Confucius had it right when he predicted 1,500 years ago on the prospect of swelling communities: "Excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife." Of all the problems our planet now faces, overpopulation is the elephant in the room. So how many people should our Franken-nation add to the mix?
Thinkers and planners have been tossing theories around as to what makes the ideal population density since long before Confucius. These days, at least according to renowned Stanford population analyst Paul Ehrlich, the optimum population worldwide - "enough to guarantee the minimal physical ingredients of a decent life to everyone" is 1.5 to 2 billion people. We're currently at 7.7 billion, hurtling fast towards 9 billion by 2050.
Too many humans living egg-and-bird is obviously not a good thing. But neither, some say, is having a very sparse population; the countries with the fewest residents today (Mongolia and Greenland) tend to be so because of their harsh environments and you could argue, are a bit lonely.
Personally though, as someone who prefers empty sand dunes to city breaks, I say the less people the better. Other countries with low population densities include the likes of Namibia, Australia and Iceland - all very appealing domains. In Icelands case, its about nine people for every square mile.
How people like to get from A to B varies hugely, no more so than on our travel desk. If Oliver Smith had his way, our Franken-nation would have the bicycle-friendly ethos of the Netherlands. Adrian Bridge is only ever truly happy on a train. Gavin Haines has entirely given up flying.
Ideal, then, would be a country built to accommodate all modes of transport. For an ultra-efficient rail network, we should look to Japan's bullet trains. For tip-top cycle lanes, Scandinavia wins hands down - in Copenhagen, for example, more than 60 per cent of its residents get to work or school by bike.
Back to Asia we go for the best underground metro system, where Hong Kong's MTR is immaculately clean, brilliantly quick and reliable, Wi-Fi fitted and widely praised by travellers the world over.
As for the roads, the World Economic Forum reckons the United Arab Emirates has the best system in terms of both its infrastructure and quality of the tarmac. I'd also adopt Germany's Autobahn system for motorways.
Oh and please, pavements withpedestrian slow lanes.
Spanish? Greek? Chinese? Japanese? Thai? Mexican? Indian? Or dare we say it, British? No, its Italian cuisine that gets my vote.
Indulgent dishes - pizza, pasta, tiramisu - and an abundance of fresh produce - olive oil, tomatoes, artichoke, basil - strike an elegant balance between health and gluttony. And I appear to be in good company. Last year, an international YouGov study polled people on the topic across 24 countries and Italian came out on top, followed by Chinese (Britains favourite) and Japanese.
Our own cuisine didn't fare so well. Despite 90 per cent of British responders signalling their approval, foreigners do not agree. The biggest haters were the Japanese, along with the Germans, Spaniards and French.
Looking back over the greatest innovations of all time, it is inventors from China and the UK who have proved most prolific. China gave us paper, the compass,
the first mechanical clock, gunpowder, rockets and alcohol. Britain can take a bow for introducing the steam engine, the telephone, the lightbulb and the World Wide Web; not to mention carbonated water, the lawnmower, the Mackintosh coat and Dolly the cloned sheep.
Currently, however, Switzerland has been ranked as the world leader in innovation for the seventh year running, by the Global Innovation Index report, followed by Sweden and the US. The UK takes fifth place. Why does Switzerland keep winning, aside from its exports of velcro, the Red Cross, and direct democracy? Lacking much in the way of natural resources, it's a country that has been forced to be creative in other ways.
Says Credit Suisse: "Since the country was largely spared the ravages of the Second World War, it was in an excellent position, with intact, export-oriented production facilities, to benefit from Europes post-war reconstruction. Also helpful is Switzerlands liberal, stability-oriented economic policy and traditional emphasis on hard work, dedication and education." The country holds more patents than any other country in relation to population.
What of the more tangible creature comforts? Switzerland's tap water please, it's the cleanest in the world and totally negates the need for plastic bottled mineral water. But Japans high-tech loos, I'm told, are far superior to our Western bogs (though Hazel Plush sings the praises of Dubai's lavish public bathrooms). Also Japan's multitude of vending machines - there's one on almost every block and they sell a vast array of essentials (groceries, umbrellas, tights, wine) - so convenient.
The country with the fastest internet? That depends on which report you look at, but Singapore and Taiwan generally dominate - both countries in which the average time it takes to download a HD film is about eight minutes, compared to half an hour in the UK.
I'd also yoink Finland's abundance of saunas (it is estimated that there are two million of them, for a population of 5.3 million).
It might surprise you to learn which country boasts the world's best healthcare system, according to the World Health Organisation: France, with a fairly complex orchestration of both private and public practises, largely funded (about 70 per cent of it) by the government, the rest generally covered by insurance.
Writing for The Local, London-based French blogger Muriel Demarcus says he experienced quite the culture shock when he first encountered the NHS. In the UK, he states, it's much harder to get an appointment, the GPs don't take patients seriously enough, surgery waiting lists are too long, and a trip to the dentist is at least double the price compared with France.
"The weird thing is that, come to think of it, the health budget is similar in France and in the UK (OK, a bit higher in France, but not massively higher)" he writes.
French hospitals it is, then. One thing I'd certainly want for our Franken-nation, however, would be a Swiss Dignitas-style clinic which permits terminal patients to end their lives should they wish to, with the dignity we afford our pets. Keeping people alive against their will when they're suffering seems ludicrous to me, not to mention expensive. Last year, the largest ever poll on human euthanasia, conducted by Populus, revealed that 84 per cent of Britons support it too.
Where to start? With the very sensible rules that surely every country should adopt, perhaps. In Argentina, you are automatically an organ donor unless you choose to opt out; a policy which saves thousands of lives a year.
The fact that more than a third of the world's food goes to waste every year is a travesty. Thus, in France, it is illegal for large supermarkets to throw away unsold food; they must instead donate it to those in need.
I'd also instigate a single-use plastic tax (something MPs are currently pushing for) to incentive the use of recyclable packaging.
Beyond that, in the interests of not igniting war in the comments box, we'll leave aside the more divise matters of drug legalisation, university quotas, religious rights, animal welfare laws and Heathrow's second runway - in favour of lighter topics...
Of everyone we heard from on this - the single foreign tradition to come out as most desirable? Siestas. All of us, it seems, are tired and would welcome a better work-life balance. Some countries are starting to address it. In the US, and particularly Silicon Valley, 'nap pods' for company employees have been springing up in recent years (I tested one in London), and low and behold, they have proven to increase, not limit, productivity.
What, then, of the four-day work week, which Jeremy Corbyn was widely ridiculed for proposing in the run up to the last general election? Not as mad as you might think. In summer 2019, Microsoft tested it out in its Japan offices. For the duration of the trial, the company reported a 40 per cent increase in productivity and, bonus, a 23 per cent reduction in electricity costs. A similar experiment has since been conducted in New Zealand, where a 20 per cent uptick in efficiency was observed.
In fact, the more you drill into the figures, the more it becomes clear that the countries around the world with the shortest working hours (Germany, Denmark Norway, the Netherlands) are actually among the most productive, certainly according to the World Economic Forum. "The average German worker is reported to be 27 per cent more productive than his or her British counterpart," its latest findings read. The Germans, depressingly, work an average of 26 hours a week, compared to 42.3 hours in the UK.
Putting aside our primal cry for rest, another enviable trait to have emerged from our inquiries was the Medditerran tendency to dine later in the evening than we Britons typically do. According to Laura Fowler, this approach reigns in Tel Aviv: "Locals there traditionally go out to dinner once the kids are in bed, and bars stay open as long as there are people drinking in them. Why close when everyone is having a good time?"
One Britishism, though, I think we can all agree on keeping is that which no other nation can compete on: proper, traditional pubs.
Our Franken-nation: a beautiful island of mountains, forest and beaches, about the size of South Africa, with the sunny climes of California. A population comparable to Iceland, with the healthcare system of France. Bicycle lanes to rival the Netherlands'. Hong Kong's zippy underground network, and internet as fast as Singapore's. Italian food, Swiss tap water and British pubs. We'll have Japan's bullet trains, thank you very much, as well, and its loos and its vending machines. We shall work less, like the Germans, and spend more time in saunas and the great outdoors, like the Finns.
Siestas will anchor our warm days, and as our deeply enriching lives draw to an end, we won't degenerate in nursing homes, but check into Digitas, get into bed and go to sleep.
What have we got right? What have we got thoroughly wrong? Nominate the traits you admire most from other countries and we'll publish the best of them.
More:
The anatomy of a perfect country what makes a nation great? - Telegraph.co.uk
