And then we're promised land from an African prince if they could survive in a haunted cave that nobody wanted.

Welcome to the world's Onley accidental underground country by Buddhist monks from Russia.

Everybody have your host barbs.

At the time of filming this episode.

As you know, the Corona virus pandemic isolation period is going on.

So I'm gonna have to film all my episodes in my office until further notice.

Oh, what the art is here.

What kind of coffee are you drinking from?

From a geography now mug.

I'm drinking from that.

Well, it looks so good in this geography now.

Sure, if you would like to be like art and get a job if you now, sure, you could do so at where Geography now dot com Anyway, oftentimes, kids equal co is overlooked by most people from the maps because half the time you technically can't see it.

Much of it is literally underground.

When you live in the desert and need to flourish, sometimes you got to be a little creative.

When it comes to these people, the very essence of their existence depends solely on creativity.

Let's jump to the map now.

Shall we wait?

Quacka gets its name from the words keep see, which means poison and Quacka, which means cave.

Why would a country be called Poison Cave?

It's a very long story.

We'll discuss it later in this episode, but basically it kind of had to do with a dare that makes no sense.

I am more confused than ever.

Great, we're on the right track.

First of all, the country is landlocked, located in the Sahara, close to the tri point of ***, Chad and Libya.

The nation, which is shaped like a submarine, is about 4500 square miles or 12,000 square kilometres in size, making it just bigger than the country of gutter.

Within the country, there are only two main settlement towns, the Capital girl, which is situated entirely within the Mogadishu's A crater.

From there, the only other inhabited town is Kira CRA, right next to the kid, a great reservoir the country is served by the one and only international airport with only a single runway.

Raksha International Airport only service is three international flights to Nia May, N'Djamena and Callista.

Getting around in Kitty Quacka might seem daunting, as there doesn't seem to be any roadways connecting the towns and airport.

However, the interesting thing is that the country has invested in one of Africa's largest feats of engineering and has developed the Q one and Q two highways that connected the three points of habitation.

You can't see them, though, because the roadways are almost entirely underground and have pit stops along the way.

These were constructed to avoid the harsh desert temperatures and conditions above ground and allow optimal transport.

Otherwise, the only other means of transport abroad would be the trans Saharan highway that passes through from Libya and continues on to Agadez, ***.

Now here's the fascinating thing.

Go aboveground.

Kitty Quack only has two main settlements, the ones we talked about but below ground.

The country has more subterranean villages with a higher population than those above.

In fact, the capital girl has more subterranean dwellings than above it.

Cuchara is actually 1/3 largest town with only about 15,000 people.

Along the cue to Underground Highway, you find the second largest village about ASHA, which has about 34,000 people, making it the world's largest subterranean town.

Yeah, these people do not want to get sunburned.

I mean, in the summer months, surface temperatures can reach above 120 F 50 degrees Celsius.

More people actually prefer to live underground that above ground as the temperature is easier to regulate.

This is why many of the subterranean houses have pipe vents, installed many homes and businesses what kind of rugged and rustic with thes raggedy stone walls, while others are more modern and developed with shopping centers and tiled walkways.

Now that I think about it, I think I did a video about this topic anyway.

Some top notable spots in case if you'd like to visit, include the Temple of Alton, the throne hearts of Section, the abandoned fortress of in ASHA, the pillars of Kiev, huh?

And the Hula Underground oasis.

Yeah, so as you can kind of tell by now, this country kind of likes to keep things literally on the down low, but above ground lots things are happening to.

Which brings us to you.

Thio.

Kitty Quacka historically was actually a land that the native mob, a tribe in the area, actually kind of feared because they believe that all the land around the marketing's a crater was cursed and filled with ghosts and overall death.

Turns out it was actually just a natural gas leak.

See, the Mocha Dean's a creator is actually situated on the Wootton Natural Gas cavern, a deposit in the middle of the Sahara.

This cavern has flammable floor pockets.

That leak can explode if exposed to fire.

Foolish travelers in the past would often camped by not knowing about the hazard.

And when it came time to get warm, it was kind of like, What a long journey, I guess I need to camp here for the night.

And what a better way to camp in setting up a nice hot campfire.

I'll just light up this tender and okay, then, Wow, there's scorpions everywhere.

This place is terrible.

Yeah, that's kind of why nobody really wanted to live here for the longest time anyway.

The country is entirely situated within the Saharan desert with arid dunes and rocky outcroppings that extend to the surface the nation's tallest point being Patricia Peak, right on the Mocha Dean's a crater.

The country also has no rivers and the largest body of water, of course, being the kicker.

A reservoir in the cubicle crater.

This sits on the Cuchara Aquifer, a deep underground hydration deposit that fortunately feeds salty, brackish water into the Creator.

Naturally, since the kicker of reservoirs, the only natural water source for them, they've invested heavily in desalinization plants that pretty much hydrate the entire country.

And after the people came in and settled the area, they actually found the way to harness the natural gas deposits.

And that's where they get a lot of their money.

From today, Kitty Quacka is the smallest African country dependent on the petroleum industry.

It makes about 2/3 of their exports, and over half of their GDP is dependent on natural gas.

Most of the petroleum industry is state run, and almost all the profits are redirected into the nation's fund reservoir, which in return also distributes into infrastructure development.

We should hang out sometime.

This is basically how they were able to expand their tunnel system to accommodate over half of the entire population.

And with the arid hot landscape, There are also some species you confined skipping around in the desert.

And what that here's Gary Harlow to explain a za country walked away in the middle of the Sahara.

You would think that it would be impossible for anything to survive, but think twice because he has some of the most face aligning Spacey's that Kimmy Pham specifically, and I only in this country such is the blue spotted Drop the Saharan a beast baboon, that reservoir claw fish, the desert spot tourists.

The three lighted Drew flying 11 don't get cars on the national animal, the Hartley venomous and fatal Cave Whip Scorpion.

And that little Farsi guys beloved by all, for good reason.

But we'll discuss that light, and that's all for May.

They thank you, Gary.

And speaking of animals, food, which is sometimes made of animals.

Sorry, it's just it's true now, of course, with almost no aboveground arable land, most food from Kitty Quacka is actually imported from their neighbors.

As a desert country, you would assume, yeah, they probably grow, you know, typical desert crops like dates and they do.

To some extent, however, they're also well known for their underground temperate produce.

They use the cave systems, their advantage.

And with the more cooler, humid climate, they've been able to harvest various species of moss and fungi, which are commonly used in kids.

Equal cuisine such as Moscow Foe say Moss, pearl cake, mushroom homis and the national dish Moss, mushroom stew.

Yeah, caves, boss deserts and scorpions.

Things getting kind of interesting, aren't they?

Well, you haven't seen anything yet, because once you meet the people of this country, you're gonna have your mind's blown in three two.

Now, kids, the clock is probably Africa's strangest demographic anomaly because of two reasons.

Number one.

It's the only African country that was colonized by Asians and number two.

It technically wasn't really colonized because nobody really wanted it in the beginning.

At this point, you're probably more confused than ever.

You better perfect.

That's great.

Here's the graph.

First of all, the country has about 101,000 people and is the African country with the highest percentage of Buddhist per capita.

The nation is just over half native Kitty Mob A at about 52% followed by the second largest group that kid See Comic at around 30% from there, about 14% are after a Slav, whom are mostly Russian descended Europeans that have either mid for generations upon the 18th century or migrated from Russia in the second Slavic waiver, the 19 seventies.

From there, the remaining 4% are other groups, mostly Berber or Nyla Saharan African groups that have moved in from surrounding countries.

They use the East African shilling as their currency.

They use the type Q plug outlet, and they drive on the left side of the road, but with left hand steering wheels as well.

So at this point, you're probably going way.

Asians, Buddhists, Africa.

What the Calm down, you ignorant swizzle twit.

I'll explain now, as we already explained in the Russia and Russian Republics, explained videos.

The Republic of Kalmykia, found in Russia, is the largest Buddhist community in Europe.

Back in the 16 hundreds, the Oreo Mongol people migrated all the way from what is now eastern China into the Kalmykia Republic, which is now in Russia.

If you thought that migration was pretty far, who Oh no, the comics definitely were not done migrating.

Do you remember back in the Djibouti episode, we mentioned that there was a very brief settlement from Russian Cossacks in Djibouti called Seagal.

Oh, now, this settlement didn't really last very long, and the French came in and they kind of deported all the Russians back to Russia.

However, amidst that group were some Cal Nick Buddhist monks.

As the French came in, the colonies were like, Oh, we're not sticking around.

We gotta run into the desert.

Long story short.

These Buddhist monks got lost in the Sahara and met a prince of the mob.

A tribe named in ASHA.

Basically, it kind of went down like this.

Hey, Saharan Prince Guy.

We've been traveling.

We need a place to stay.

Can we live in your lands?

There's a haunted cave that keeps killing people over there with explosions.

And it has lots of scorpions.

Nobody wants that land.

If you can survive there, you can have it.

And I promise my people will support you 100%.

Whoa!

Okay, Score.

Great deal.

Well, for one, it's pretty hot.

I guess we should get out of the sun.

You guys got any shovels?

and that's kind of how it started.

The comics discovered which areas had gas fumes to avoid, and after digging extensively, they found a way to swell up the aquifer to fill in the reservoir.

Over the next few decades, word spread back to the motherland.

A lot more comics came in, and that's how the two main groups that Kitty, Mama and Kitty count me kind of worked together to create this nation.

They were brought together through the stress of survival.

The people of this country are called kitty quarks, and that is also the name of the national language, which is basically kind of like a fusion between the native mob, a language and comic.

It's written in both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabet, kind of like an homage to the Russian roots of the comic people.

As a country with strong ties to Kalmykia, of course, Buddhism was brought in, and today about 1/3 of the country adhere to the religion.

Many of the temples and shrines are found especially underground, and they're pretty well maintained today.

You can see a lot of traditions, like women that were the kids Equant comic dress also camel racing and desert chest are very famous pastimes as well.

Well, we kind of pretty much already explained the brief history of the country.

So let's just kind of jump into the famous people, shall we?

Some famous notable people from Kitty Quacka might include Gustaf Rush on a level.

Brennan, Pascoe, Gordon Seychelles, Duncan Welch are in question.

Johnson know Esha Carlos Gosh y Fernando River Ashley, Adam Keefe, Shoshi Tim Geisha, Samarie ao Is she in Leith?

Back?

Shiva.

So they're Ugo Asian Buddhist desert tunnel people that work with natives and they made a country and there's lots of natural gas, and they use that money to make their country.

That's basically kitty Quacka.

You get the deal a lot of their development so dependent on their relations to the outside world, though.

And of course, that means we gotta finish off this episode with when you're a small desert nation with petroleum industry in the middle of nowhere and everybody around you is watching, you kind of have to play your cards right with diplomacy.

First of all, when it comes to friends, Kitty Quacka is, of course close to their immediate neighbors.

***, Chad in Libya.

These countries provide the most trade in Libya kind of acts as their closest gateway to Europe through the Mediterranean.

Recent conflict years in Libya, though, have been rough in the import sector, so now they depend more on Niger's connections through Algeria to circumnavigate northwards.

Canada and Russia are key players that invested in the subterranean construction projects, as Russia is world renowned for having some of the world's deepest and fortified underground tunnel systems.

And Montreal, Quebec has the world's largest underground commercial network.

Kitty Quacka took notes from contractors that flew in to help with projects, and today the country's have close ties.

And, of course, much of the population of Kitty Quacka has Russian heritage.

Mongolia and Thailand and Japan are key players in Buddhist tourism, as all three countries are Buddhist powerhouses.

Mongols connect well, too, as the Orient comic population are essentially their cousins.

When it comes to their best friends, however, the kitty quarks will always go back to the motherland, the Kalmykia Republic of Russia.