Quick — where exactly is Nambia on the map?
As President Donald Trump spoke to African leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday, he made not one but two references to a country called Nambia. "Nambia's health system is increasingly self-sufficient," Trump said approvingly at one point.
Unfortunately, there's a problem — Nambia doesn't exist. The president's comments about a nonexistent country swiftly invited ridicule online, with many suggesting that Trump had created an entirely new nation by combining two existing ones: Zambia and Namibia.
A White House transcript of Trump's comments corrected his error, making clear that he had not intended to invent a new nation and had, in fact, been referring to Namibia, which is in southern Africa.
Namibia isn't often the subject of Western attention. The country of just 2 million was granted independence in 1990 after a long civil war and is perhaps best known for its diamond mining industry.
Hage Geingob, Namibia's U.S.-educated president, was in the room when Trump spoke. In public at least, he offered no reaction to the suggestion that he was the leader of "Nambia."
