‘Kyrzbekistan’: Typo creates funny, fictional new country

MANILA, Philippines – In the world of journalism, typos simply can’t be helped. As much as a writer tries to avoid these little spelling or grammar hiccups, they will happen time and again. 

But one recent instance proves that a simple slip-up can lead to a social media sensation. 

On Wednesday, Jan 7, a New York Times piece about a rock climber kidnapped in a Central Asian country carried an unfortunate typo: instead of Kyrgyzstan, the country was identified as the non-existent Kyrzbekistan. 

“An earlier version of this article misidentified the country whose army chased Tommy Caldwell’s kidnappers,” the New York Times discloses. “It was Kyrgyzstan, not Kyrzbekistan, which does not exist.”

Instead of letting the error slide, however, netizens willed the fake country into life thanks to imaginative tweets. An “official” account for the country, @kyrzbekistan, eventually came to be, too. 

So what is Kyrzbekistan like? Here’s a sampling of what social media has been revealing about this intriguing new nation: 

Did we miss any hilarious tweets? Send them over in the comments section below! – Rappler.com 

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story spelled Kyrgyzstan as Kyrgystan.