Open Questions

Disclosed uncertainties and unresolved debates the atlas has flagged against a specific entity rather than folded silently into that entity's own description: a disputed boundary, a contested naming, a measurement whose sources disagree. An open question belongs here when the uncertainty itself is the noteworthy fact; a plain gap in coverage, where nothing is yet known rather than something being genuinely contested, is not an open question and does not belong in this category.

Open Questions

Do the seven national territorial claims in Antarctica hold any real legal weight, given that the Antarctic Treaty freezes them without resolving them?

Does Africa have 54 countries or 55, depending on whether Western Sahara counts as a sovereign state?

How many continents are there: five, six or seven?

How much carbon will permafrost thaw actually release this century, and how much of it will come from abrupt rather than gradual thaw?

In what century was Shymkent actually founded?

In what year was Hargeisa founded?

In what year was Warri founded or first settled?

In what year was Wau founded?

Is Australia alone, or the wider region of Oceania, the seventh continent?

Is Zealandia, the largely submerged landmass in the southwest Pacific, an eighth continent?

What is the elevation of Warri above sea level?

What is the total area of Central Europe?

What is the total area of Northern Europe?

What is the total area of Southern Europe?

What is the total area of the Levant?

What is the total area of Wau in square kilometers?

What is the total area of Western Europe?

What is the total population of Central Europe?

What is the total population of the Caucasus?

What is the total population of the Mediterranean region?

When was Sanjay Gandhi National Park established: 1942, 1969, 1974, 1981 or 1996?

When Was Timbuktu Founded?

Where does Europe end and Asia begin?

Where does North America end and South America begin: at the Darien Gap on the Panama-Colombia border, or farther north at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico?

Which islands and peoples actually belong inside Melanesia, and does the category itself still hold together?