To Be or Not to Be a Country... Just How Many Are There?

j.f.r.

5 min read

On the surface it should be a simple question: How many countries are there in the world? The number changes over time, to be sure, wars are fought, countries unify or split, and territories declare independence, but theoretically at any one time there should be a definitive answer, at least for the present moment, and yet...

It really dependents on who you ask and what the definition of country is...

According to the United Nations, as of 2024 there are 193 countries. (But keep in mind, according to the UN, Terrorist Nations are fit to lead human rights councils, so personally I don't find them a very authoritative source...)

To be considered an official country by the UN two thirds of United Nations member countries must diplomatically recognize a territory as sovereign & independent. (Including all five permanent members of the Security Council and at least four of the ten rotating members.)

Somewhat understandably, decisions about territories with disputed status' are highly influenced by potential political fall outs.

For example, the UN doesn't consider Taiwan a country even though they have their own military, currency and control their own borders. Only 11 UN member states (& Vatican City/ Holy See) recognize it as such, in large part because of the pressure and potential push back from of China, who maintains a One China policy that claims Taiwan is part of China. Interestingly, Taiwan does not assert independence nor disagree with the One China policy, it merely claims that Taiwan is the true head of that unified China. And from 1949 - 1971 the UN seemed to agree with Taiwan; because after the ascension of the communist PRC government in Mainland China, (which wasn't recognized by the UN until 1971,) Taiwan actually held China's current UN seat!

Vatican City/ (Holy See), Palestine and Kosovo are also not officially recognized even though they are recognized by over 100 individual member states.

Western Sahara (trying to declare independence from Morocco), South Ossetia, Abkhazia & Northern Cyprus all also aspire to official country-hood. (Vatican City & Palestine are unique, in that they hold permeant non-member observer status despite not being officially recognized by the body.)

So what makes a country a country? A certain size government? Military? It's own currency? Control over it's own borders?

Do a people really need and outside body like the UN's approval to be a country? Kosovo seems to meet all the normal criteria and certainly behaves like an independent country even without official status. (How long, for example, would it have taken for the UN to give the US official country status against Great Britain's wishes, had it existed back then?)

But if no outside approval is necessary then what would prevent every individual island or even disgruntled city/ county/ region from declaring independence?

Surprisingly, many essentially independently governed places we tend to think of

as countries are actually still under a parent country's rule, like -

Greenland The Faroe Islands Hong Kong & Puerto Rico,

(which could all probably get country status should their parent country release them.)

And there are dozen's more territories left over from the age of colonization.

Some toy with the idea of self governing from time to time

but most don't push for independence

because there are significant financial and political benefits to remaining a territory

of a successful, larger nation state for both the territory and it's citizens

Non-Countries fall into a few broad categories.

The first is Autonomous, Self Governing Quantum States,

(or Unincorporated Organized Territories) They include:

American Territories:

Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Northern Marianas Islands,

& American Samoa (of Polynesia)

Kingdom of Denmark Territories:

Greenland & The Faroe Islands

Chinese Special Administrative Regions:

Taiwan, Hong Kong, & Macau

New Zealand Territories:

Cook Islands & Niue (both of Polynesia)

Then there are the Dependent Territories & Provinces like:

New Zealand's Tokelau

United Kingdom Territories:

In the Caribbean - Anguilla and Montserrat (of the Leeward Islands | Lesser Antilles) , Turks & Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands

Bermuda, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands**, South Georgian & Sandwich Islands, British Indian Ocean Territory, Pitcairn Islands***

Saint Helena, Ascension Isl. & Tristin da Cunha***

& Crown Dependancies:

Channel Islands: Bailiwicks of Jersey & Guernsey and the Isle of Mann

France's Overseas Collectives, Departments & Regions:

In the Caribbean - Guadeloupe, Saint Martin (FR) & Martinique (both of Lesser Antilles),

French Guiana, New Caledonia, Reunion, Mayotte,

French Polynesia, Wallis & Fotuna, Saint Pierre & Miquelon

Kingdom of Netherlands Territories:

In the Caribbean - Aruba, Curacoa (of Lesser Antilles), Sint Maarten (N),

Bonair, Saba & Sint Eustatius

There are also (generally) unrecognized Breakaway States,

regions of a nation that for ethnic, cultural, historical or geographical reasons consider themselves separate entities from the parent country like:

Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (locally just Pridnestrovie) - a north eastern strip of Moldova, once an Autonomous Soviet Republic, whose status

was left in limbo by a ceasefire agreement (after the fall of the USSR) that never

formalized either it's independence nor it's reintegration with Moldova. Internationally

considered part of Moldova, but it functions as a de facto separate country.

[It's independence is recognized only by South Ossetia & Abkhazia, which are also disputed]

Lastly there are odd balls like Svalbard, so far removed geographically from the rest of it's country it feels independent and Antartica which isn't part of any one country at all.

So how many Countries Are there?

193 (UN countries)? 195 (UN countries + Permanent Non-Member States)?

201 (States claiming country-hood)?

204 - 217 (States that might as well be/ are thought of as countries)?

245+ (Total countries & territories)?

For the purposes of this site & my travel count my answer is:

196 Countries - 193 UN + Palestine, Kosovo & Taiwan

(I'm sorry the Vatican City is a city, no matter its sovereignty)

but, more broadly

218 Distinct States to be treated as individual destinations

on my travel check list :)

*Interesting Side Note, only one country has ever fully left the United Nations either by choice or banishment, and that was Indonesia (by choice.) In 1965, Indonesia withdraw from the U.N. in protest when it's rival Malaysia was granted a seat at the Security Council but it rejoined less than a year later in 1966.

** Disputed by Argentina.

*** Tristan is an Edinburgh settlement of 238 people and Pitcairn just 40, most the descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers. Both claim to be the worlds most remote inhabited island.