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>I'd now refer to my country as a country in the global south

Meaning what, in the southern hemisphere and not Australia or new Zealand?

It isn't a geographical denomination, but rather socioeconomic and political. Most of the countries in the global south denomination are actually in the northern hemisphere.

That seems like bad jargon.

Most people's mental map has basically all of Africa in the southern hemisphere, but geographically that is far from the case.

We have 195 countries in the world and only 33 of those are entirely on the southern hemisphere.

Here is one example of an illustrative map:

https://i.redd.it/w2tv9dda1xzy.png

Whoever came up with the term must think that the “south” starts at the tip of Italy

Yeah, basically. That puts almost all countries in Africa, and the Middle East, Mexico, India etc., in the "south".

Or not necessarily that the inventor of the phrase thinks like that themselves, but rather that they think most people think that way.

idk, the "West" seems pretty bad too

Well, most of earth’s landmass lies in the northern hemisphere.

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