(Central & South American countries defined as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, as well as the Caribbean countries of Guyana, Belize, Jamaica, Bahamas, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago. It also includes Cape Verde and Mauritius, since they have more traits of Latin America than Sub-Saharan Africa)
Determining the countries most similar to Central & South America requires considering various social, cultural, economic, and political factors. One way to answer this complex question is by analyzing the data from the Country Similarity Index. The index attempts to quantify how similar countries are to each other relative to other countries, using a variety of statistics from five broad categories: demographics, culture, politics, infrastructure, and geography.
According to the data, Colombia is the most average country in the region. It is at the border between Central America and South America, so it is centrally located within Latin America. The country has coastline on both the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Like the vast majority of nations in the region, its people natively speak Spanish and are mostly Catholic. Colombia has a diverse mix of people with Native South American, European, and African ancestry. It is neither the one of the poorest nor one of the richest countries in the region. Like other countries in the region, it is democratic but tends to have a low degree of rule of law.
It is no surprise that the data suggests that Spain is the most similar country outside of the region to Central & South America. Spanish colonization had a profound and lasting impact on the culture, language, and traditions of the region. As a result, Spanish is the official language in most of these countries. Due to Spanish missionaries, the majority of these countries are predominately Catholic as well. Since Spain is in southwestern Europe, it is on of the closest countries in Europe to Latin America. Spain’s average temperature is warmer than most European countries, since it is further to the south. In fact, some of its regions support tropical vegetation. It also has a diversity of climates, like the Central & South America region.
However, few countries are extremely different from this region. The data suggests that the least similar country to Central & South America is the Middle Eastern country of Yemen. It is located in the Arabian Desert across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Unlike other countries in on the Arabian peninsula, its infrastructure is far less developed in part due to on-going civil war. Yemen’s laws tend to be much more conservative than Latin America’s laws, since many people in the country are devout Muslims. In addition, to predominately Muslim countries, three of the top least similar countries are in East Asia.
