HOW MANY COUNTRIES ARE THERE?
The number of sovereign countries in the world has not been fixed.
On the eve of the First World War, imperialism had reduced the number of independent countries to just 59. The advent of decolonization was the leading cause of the dramatic increase in the number of countries.
In 1939, the number of independent countries was 73. In 1950, there were 89. In the 1960s there was an explosion of new countries with the biggest increase in Africa. Here, 25 new states were formed in 1960-64 alone. In 1950, only 4 African countries were independent, compared to today’s 54. Many were formed because of civil war or multi-ethnic policy, the most common conflicts since the Second World War.
In 1972, there were 148. The Caribbean and Pacific in the late 1970s and 1980s drove numbers up. The same occurred with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, so in 1994 there were 190 UN countries.
Sovereign, universally recognized countries not in the UN before, like Switzerland and Tuvalu, joined at the start of this century.
Since then, there have been only 3 newly independent countries in the United Nations. South Sudan, Kosovo, Montenegro, and East Timor are the world’s youngest countries. This is the longest interval since 1898 with the Philippines. It was 11 years between 1932 (Iraq) and 1943 (Lebanon). The current period of 13 years since South Sudan’s independence in 2011 is the longest without a ‘new country’ since the end of the 19th century. That’s the longest in more than 125 years.
It doesn’t look like a ‘new’ one will form before 2027 at best (it is expected to be Bougainville in Papua New Guinea where a huge copper mine is expected to bring the poorest part of PNG into affluence).
Today, 193 United Nations (UN) members constitute every country.
Nomad Mania accepts those who visit every country according to the countries at the time of completion.
DEFINE WHAT MAKES A COUNTRY
Apply online for visa-free entry to the United States you have more than 250 choices for ‘country where you live’. That is probably a pretty ambitious number as it includes Bouvet Island, an uninhabitable icy knoll belonging to Norway in the South Atlantic (for Penguins that need a visa).
Private-sector lists are just as odd as those compiled by governments. There are 242 ‘countries/territories’ on the options Hotmail offers from which you can register an e-mail account.
The International Postal Service requires membership in the Universal Postal Union, which non-members of the UN need approval by at least two-thirds of that body’s members. The African Union refuses to recognize Somaliland’s independence because it dislikes changing African borders.
For Star Trek fans there is even a ‘Neutral Zone’, a diamond-shaped bit of desert between Saudi Arabia and Iraq that vanished after the 1991 Gulf War.
That is the trouble with such lists. Places that are not real countries at all end up on them and places that approximate a bit more closely to countries (at least in their own eyes) may be absent. For example, the list excludes Abkhazia and South Ossetia, self-proclaimed states that broke away from Georgia with Russian backing. Just three other countries: Nicaragua, Venezuela and the islet of Nauru – recognize those breakaway ‘statelets’ as independent.
German thinker, Max Weber, defined statehood as “the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence”. That may be a practical approach but it doesn’t end the confusion. Somalia fails to meet this criterion, yet still counts as a sovereign state. However, its northern bit, Somaliland, has met this standard with increasing impressiveness since it declared independence in 1991. It has a currency, car registrations and even biometric passports. But only private firms such as DHL, a courier company, link it to the outside world.
The debate goes on. Any attempt to find a clear definition of a ‘country’ soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies.
There are many ways to count the places one visits in the world. Here I list six options.
1. United Nations. 193
2. United Nations Plus. I use 197 – 193 members in the UN + Taiwan and Kosovo, the two independent countries in the world that do not belong to the UN and the 2 non-member observer states: the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine = 197.
There are six disputed territories – Western Sahara, Somaliland, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and N-K/Artsakh.
There are 61 dependent areas – places commonly confused as being countries include Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Greenland which are all dependencies of UN countries.
Even the components of the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England) are counted by some.
None of these are countries, states or nation-states.
Another way to look at it is Uganda is the world’s youngest country since ~50% of the population is under 14. By those rights, Italy is the oldest.
Many of the new countries are tiny. 36 have fewer than 500,000 people.
3. Diplomatic recognition is not much of a guide to real life. Taiwan is the one outsider – Taiwan meets most of the requirements of an independent country or state status – is not just a country, but a rather important one, It fails to be recognized by much of the world, due to pressure from China, Taiwan is recognized less and less. Countries with formal diplomatic ties to Taiwan have shrivelled to around 12 in 2024 – mostly small, cash-strapped islands (and thus do not have official relations with Beijing): Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Holy See, Marshall Islands, Palau, Paraguay, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Eswatini and Tuvalu.).
The other non-UN member that can clearly be defined as a country or ‘sovereign’ state is Kosovo. A third of UN members recognize Kosovo, but the UN itself does not!
Also, note Israel joined the UN in 1949, but 19 of its members do not accept the Jewish state’s existence.
4. A 206 list. 193 + 2 UN observers (Vatican City and Palestine) = 195 + 2 some UN recognition (Taiwan and Kosovo) = 197 + 2 some UN involvement / free assoc. with NZ (Niue + Cook Islands) = 199 + 7 self-declared, non-UN states (Western Sahara, Somaliland, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, N-K/Artsakh, Northern Cyprus,) = 206
A great Google Sheets list of all 107 disputed territories:
https://docs.google.com/…/1ni6COaq0pIDPfLbdR0x9…/edit…
Another with 249: https://www.jetpunk.com/…/249-countries-of-the-world…
5. Olympic Countries– 206. The National Olympic Committees comprise the International Olympic Committee. The ones not included in my 197 list are Aruba, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Cook Islands, Guam, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, the British Virgin Islands, and the US Virgin Islands.
6. FIFA Countries – 209. FIFA recognizes 209 national associations and their associated men’s national teams. There are 129 women’s national teams. FIFA has more member states than the UN as FIFA recognizes 23 non-sovereign entities as distinct nations, such as the four Home Nations within the United Kingdom and politically disputed territories such as Palestine.
Of the 197 states, 8 countries are not members of FIFA: Federated States of Micronesia, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, United Kingdom, Republic of China (Chinese Taipei or Taiwan), Kosovo, and Vatican City.
24 are not internationally recognized sovereign states but are members of FIFA: American Samoa, Anguilla, Aruba, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Curacao, England, Faroe Islands, Guam, Hong Kong, Macau, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Tahiti, Turks and Caicos Islands, US Virgin Islands and Wales.
In addition, the 206 Olympic Countries are Anguilla, Curacao, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Macau, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Tahiti, Turks and Caicos, England and Wales. That makes 219.
Potential FIFA members have been divided into three categories:
1. Independent states not in FIFA: Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Monaco, Niue, Palau, Tuvalu
2. Non-independent territories: Guadeloupe, Greenland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Martinique, Northern Mariana Islands, Réunion, Sint Maarten, Zanzibar), and
3. Politically sensitive areas (Abkhazia, Crimea, Gibraltar, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia).
Avid football fans have made seeing football games in all FIFA member states their “country” goal. About 500 Germans and a few British are in this loosely affiliated “club” and most know each other. One well-advertised traveller visited 207 “countries” in 3 years (and didn’t fly to any of them) and became famous. His 207 countries were FIFA states.
A German man with the most FIFA countries has 180, and the fellow I talked to had 129.