today at work i had a heated argument cause a American used 3rd world country to refer nepal and India. so what is 1st 2nd and 3rd world country? according to my knowledge it was started by Brits who claimed all white countries are 1st coloured (brown and yellow) are second and black as 3rd. so as time went japan proved it's more developed than all Whites together so after that it went according to the income. have your say

3rd world indicates the developing countries.The term has nothing to with the colour of the people.

Just a question- Is nepal Developing or Deteriorating?
Nepal should be termed the 4th world country (i.e. country that is not developing!!!)

I have heard of 3rd world countries, but I have never heard any mentions of 1st and 2nd world countries.

There are are LDCs or Least Developed Countries. There are developing countries. There are under-developed countries. All probably meaning the same thing.

There are developed countries. There are G7 countries (some say G8, with Russia, but in my opinion, Russia really does not belong there). There are OECD countries. Blah blah blah.

But no, I have never heard of 1st world countries or 2nd world countries.

Good say Jai Nepal!!! should even nepal be termed as country???or we should be a state..hmmm..of our negibours..without whom we can't decide anything!!!economy,food,politics and politicians all comes from our friendly negibours!

सतीले सरापेको देश भने सब भन्दा बेश्!

सरापेको देश भने सब भन्दा बेश्!

The distinctions had nothing to do with the development of countries in the beginning. In fact, it was the cold war that gave rise to the definitions. Here's how it worked: NATO members and other countries supporting US were the 'first world', the eastern bloc under Soviet security umbrella and the Warsaw Pact countries supporting USSR were the 'second world' while all the other neutral were assigned the 'third world' which included Nepal, India and others. China was neutral yet considered second world due to its communist ideology. But slowly, the developed countries in Europe west to the Iron Curtain (the sphere of influence of US), Australia, New Zealand among others were also included in the First world countries and in the 90's the economic boom of Japan and South Korea and not to forget their stronger ties with US made them the first world or the developed countries. American mainstream media sometimes does refer to first world countries in lieu of developed countries.

as far as i know, 3rd world coutries refer to developing or least developed countries...but,i had never heard about 1st and 2nd world countries or ranked on the basis of color!!

nk

Originally,

First World--US
Second World--Soviet Union

Third World--Non-aligned nations that gained independence from colonial rule beginning after world war II from the western nations and from those that formed the former eastern bloc, and sometimes more specifically from the united states and from the former soviet union. For the most part the term has not included China.

politically, the third world emerged at the bandung conference (1955), which resulted in the establishment of the nonaligned movement.
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Later on, the third worls implied to all the developing and poor nations.

LooTe

I don't know the facts but the following definitions sounded plausible.

Source: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm
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The term "First World" refers to so called developed, capitalist, industrial countries, roughly, a bloc of countries aligned with the United States after word war II, with more or less common political and economic interests: North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia.

"Second World" refers to the former communist-socialist, industrial states, (formerly the Eastern bloc, the territory and sphere of influence of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic) today: Russia, Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland) and some of the Turk States (e.g., Kazakhstan) as well as China.

"Third World" are all the other countries, today often used to roughly describe the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The term Third World includes as well capitalist (e.g., Venezuela) and communist (e.g., North Korea) countries as very rich (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and very poor (e.g., Mali) countries.

Saudi Arab a 3rd world country, infact they have more money than whites!!!

Define the term Developing?

The classification is based on the level of industrialization and also where industrialization came first.