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McDonald's is one of the most successful restaurant franchisers in the world, with locations in over 100 countries and territories. The spread of McDonald's reached a significant milestone towards the end of the Cold War when an outlet opened in Moscow . Thirty thousand people queued to eat there on its opening day. A new outlet is opened every three hours somewhere in the world. In its spread around the world it has encountered both eager anticipation and vocal opposition. The choice of locations near cultural monuments (and the tourists attracted to them), such as the restaurant located near the Spanish Steps in Rome , has brought the company into conflict with Preservationists in many ancient cities, although its restaurants in such locations are usually designed to harmonize with their surroundings, dispensing with brightly colored signs. At the same time, the standardized menu and the requirements for suppliers are often jarring to local sensibilities and disruptive to longstanding food-industry practices. A major expansion into a new region can, for example, trigger wholesale changes in the raising of potato crops. At the same time, McDonald's has also been credited with increasing the standards of hygiene and service in many of the markets it has entered. One false Urban Myth suggests that Sarajevo and Pyongyang are the only Capital Cities in the world without outlets, when in fact there are 97 capital cities without a McDonald's outlet. As the following list indicates, McDonald's currently operates in fewer than half of the world's countries: LIST OF COUNTRIES # (1940) USA – including the possessions of Puerto Rico 10 November 1967, the U.S. Virgin Islands 4 September 1970, Guam 10 June 1971, Saipan 18 March 1993, American Samoa 29 September 2000. # (1967) Canada - 1 June # (1970) Costa Rica - 28 December # (1971) Japan - 20 July - with the opening of an outlet in Tokyo the company established a presence in Asia for the first time. # (1971) Netherlands – 21 August – also in Netherlands Antilles from 16 August 1974 ( Sint Maarten from 15 December 1995), and in Aruba from 4 April 1985 # (1971) Panama – 1 September # (1971) Germany – 22 November # (1971) Australia – 30 December - with the opening of an outlet in the Sydney suburb of Bankstown the company established a presence on the third new continent in the span of six months. # (1972) France – 30 June – including the possessions of Martinique 16 December 1991, Guadeloupe 8 April 1992, New Caledonia 26 July 1994, Tahiti 10 December 1996, Reunion 14 December 1997, French Guiana 22 February 2000. # (1972) El Salvador - 20 July # (1973) Sweden – 27 October # (1974) Guatemala – 6 June # (1974) United Kingdom – 1 October - England 1 October 1974, Wales 3 December 1984, Scotland 23 November 1987, Northern Ireland 14 October 1991, Isle Of Man 15 December 1997, Gibraltar 13 August 1999. # (1975) Hong Kong – 8 January – the first outlet opened. (formerly a British crown colony, transferred to the People's Republic of China in 1997) # (1975) Nicaragua - McDonald’s outlets ceased operation during the Nicaraguan civil war and re-established a presence on 11 July 1998 after an absence of two decades. # (1975) Bahamas – 4 August # (1976) New Zealand – 7 June # (1976) Switzerland - 20 October # (1977) Ireland – 9 May ( Grafton Street , Dublin ) # (1977) Austria – 21 July # (1978) Belgium 21 March # (1979) Brazil – 13 February - with the opening of an outlet in Rio De Janeiro the company established a presence on the continent of South America for the first time. # (1979) Singapore – 20 October # (1981) Spain - 10 March # (1981) Denmark - 15 April # (1981) Philippines – 27 September # (1982) Malaysia – 29 April # (1983) Norway – 18 November # (1984) Republic Of China – 28 January # (1984) Andorra – 29 June # (1984) Finland – 14 December # (1985) Thailand – 23 February # (1985) Luxembourg – 17 July # (1985) Venezuela – 31 August # (1985) Italy - 15 October # (1985) Mexico – 29 October # (1986) Cuba - 24 April - available only in Guantanamo Bay and inaccessible to Cubans. # (1986) Turkey – 24 October # (1986) Argentina – 24 November # (1987) Macao - 11 April (formerly Portuguese Special Territory, transfer to People republic of China in 1999) # (1988) Serbia & Montenegro – 24 March - the first outlet opened in Belgrade while the city was still part of Yugoslavia . # (1988) South Korea – 29 March # (1988) Hungary – 30 April # (1990) Russia - 31 January - (then part of the Soviet Union ) - 103 restaurants in Moscow , Moscow Region, St. Petersburg , Nizhny Novgorod , Yaroslavl , Samara , and Kazan (2006) # (1990) People's Republic Of China - 8 October, Shenzhen . # (1990) Chile – 19 November # (1991) Indonesia – 23 February # (1991) Portugal - 23 May # (1991) Greece - 12 November # (1991) Uruguay - 18 November # (1992) Czech Republic - 20 March (then part of Czechoslovakia ) # (1992) Poland - 17 June # (1992) Monaco - 20 November # (1992) Brunei - 12 December # (1992) Morocco – 18 December - with the opening of an outlet in Casablanca the company had expanded into Africa and had a presence on all continents except Antarctica. # (1993) Iceland - 3 September # (1993) Israel - 14 October # (1993) Slovenia – 2 December # (1993) Saudi Arabia – 8 December # (1994) Kuwait – 15 June # (1994) Oman – 30 July # (1994) Egypt – 20 October # (1994) Bulgaria – 10 December # (1994) Bahrain – 15 December # (1994) Latvia – 15 December # (1994) United Arab Emirates – 21 December # (1995) Estonia – 29 April # (1995) Romania – 16 June # (1995) Malta - 7 July # (1995) Colombia – 14 July # (1995) Slovakia – 13 October # (1995) South Africa – 11 November # (1995) Qatar – 13 December # (1995) Honduras – 14 December # (1996) Croatia – 2 February # (1996) Samoa – 2 March # (1996) Fiji – 1 May # (1996) Liechtenstein – 3 May # (1996) Lithuania - 31 May # (1996) India – 13 October # (1996) Peru – 18 October # (1996) Jordan – 7 November # (1996) Paraguay – 21 November # (1996) Dominican Republic - 30 November # (1996) Belarus - 10 December; the company claimed this as McDonald's "100th country" although this calculation included many non-sovereign territories # (1997) Ukraine - 28 May # (1997) Cyprus - 12 June # (1997) Macedonia - 6 September # (1997) Ecuador - 9 October # (1997) Suriname - 18 December # (1998) Moldova - 30 April # (1998) Lebanon – 18 September # (1998) Pakistan – 19 September # (1998) Sri Lanka – 16 October # (1999) Georgia - 5 February # (1999) San Marino – 6 July # (1999) Azerbaijan - 6 November # (2001) Mauritius - 4 July # (2006) Zimbabwe - 1 April FORMER LOCATIONS # (1997-2002) Bolivia - confirmation lacking # ( ? - ? ) Barbados - confirmation lacking # (1994-2003) Trinidad And Tobago - confirmation lacking # (1985-1995) Bermuda - confirmation lacking # (1995-2005) Jamaica GOLDEN ARCHES THEORY OF CONFLICT PREVENTION In Thomas L. Friedman 's 1999 book '' The Lexus And The Olive Tree '' the following theory was presented: "No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's". While the observation may be true, the conclusions to be drawn are unclear. The global expansion of McDonald's restaurants is a relatively recent phenomenon when put into the context of the history of warfare, and, with a few notable exceptions, has proceeded into relatively stable markets. The veracity of the observation itself depends upon a flexible interpretation of the term " War ". Some conflicts that provide possible counterexamples include the 1989 United States invasion of Panama , the bombing of Serbia by NATO forces in 1999 , and the ongoing skirmishes between factions of India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region. Furthermore, it could be argued that conflict between Separatist groups that aspire to nationhood amounts to a type of warfare against what they consider to be foreign governments, thereby pitting the Basque region against the nation of Spain , for example. Additionally, the erstwhile practice of giving Declarations Of War at the commencement of a conflict is not generally observed anymore; for example, the USA has never declared war upon another country since the end of World War II, but unquestionably has fought several wars since then. For example, the states of Lebanon and Israel have been under a state of war since 1973 , which did not hinder the establishment of McDonald's franchises there in 1998 and 1993 , respectively. Also see Golden Arches . SEE ALSO REFERENCES |