How Many Countries Are There?
- Jeremy Penman
- Sep 8, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 13, 2021
For a long time now I've had the goal of visiting every country in the world, so naturally I wanted to create a list to track my progress. You'd think that this would be a pretty quick task. Look at a map and count every country. The problem is, depending on the creator of that map you'll get different answers. As it turns out the term country is a lot less clear than you'd expect. Taking a look at the official definition "A country is a distinct territorial body or political entity (i.e. a nation)." is a start and generally speaking if they have a common language, culture, distinct government or currency, it's a country.
Let's start with the United Nations though. This is supposed to represent all sovereign nations worldwide and should give us a great initial idea and list. The UN has 193 member states. So, at its strictest definition there are 193 countries. Boom. Post done.
Except the UN also has 2 observer states (non voting members of the UN) in Vatican City and Palestine and are both clearly countries. Let me explain. The Vatican fits the definition of an independent country, but chooses to remain an observer state, primarily because the Pope does not want to vote and affect international policy. That brings us to 194.
Palestine
Palestine on the other hand is not a fully fledged UN member state, but for all intents and purposes Palestine fits the definition of a country. This was confirmed in 2012, during a UN General Assembly vote with 138 countries voting in favor of recognizing Palestine as a country. You'd think with 71% of the world's countries voting in favor, that Palestine would be admitted to the UN, but to be in this super exclusive UN club, you can't have pissed off France, China, USA, Russia or The UK. These 5 countries are the big boys at the UN table and can veto membership. In Palestine's case the US, UK and France have all not recognized Palestine, mostly due to the desire for Israel and Palestine to work together to come up with a 2 state solution. As well as vigorous lobbying done by the Israeli Governments to prevent full international recognition.
International Recognition of the State of Palestine
As you'll see this a common issue. A distinct territory that has a unified culture/ethinic group, but one country decides not to recognize its status, and the remaining world doesn't want to sour relations with that country. At this point its safe to say there are 195 countries.
Taiwan
Taiwan is a lot like Palestine and I'd argue has an even stronger claim to being a country despite only being officially recognized by 14 of the 193 UN member states and the Vatican due. This low number is the cause of a large and continued campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to discredit them as a legitimate country. Taiwan still retains unofficial diplomatic relations with a further 57 countries. At one point Taiwan had a seat at the UN, but in 1971 this seat was given to China. Ever since China has used its grip on the world economy to pressure countries in solely recognizing their claim and denying Taiwan's.
International Recognition of Taiwan (Blue) vs China (Red)
China claims Taiwan is part of greater China, despite its government having no control over Taiwan since 1949. After World War II concluded in 1945, the Chinese civil war (1927-1949) resumed. Chinese Nationalists called Kuomintang fought against the Chinese Communist Party. With the Nationalist forces depleted from facing the brunt of the Japanese invasion in mainlaind china, the Communist's won this war and gained control of the entirety of mainland China. The Kuomintang retreated to the island of Taiwan in 1949 and set up a democratic society that has existed ever since. What started as two government ideologies had split China into two countries, very similar to the situation in North and South Korea.
Despite the struggles Taiwan has been through and continues to experience, they have had a separate currency, government, passport and at this point culture. This brings our total country count to 196.
Kosovo
Next is Kosovo. Very similar situation to Taiwan. Currently recognized by 93/193 member states. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 from Serbia. Serbia doesn't recognize Kosovo and is closely allied with Russia and China, which both vetoed little Kosovo's membership. Despite this Kosovo fits the country definition. This site is just adorable: https://www.kosovothanksyou.com/ In it Kosovo thanks each country, in their native language, that has recognizes it's independence.
Countries come and go. In my lifetime 34 countries have been created, so this list is ever changing and will vary depending on opinion. More importantly we haven't even touched on the many unrecognized territories/nations that may or may not be countries depending on who you ask. The following tongue twister explains it best:
What makes a country a country, is that other countries say it's a country.
CGP Grey, a fantastic educational youtuber, has an amazing video which attempts to clarify this incredibly messy and complicated question https://youtu.be/4AivEQmfPpk. He rightly proposes that any answer other than approximately 200 will always be up for discussion.
Politics aside, and if I have to put a number to it, the math looks like this. There are 193 UN member states + 2 observer states + Taiwan and Kosovo = 197 total countries. This number will undoubtedly grow as there are many other groups/nations that are partially recognized in some form. At the very least there are 197 countries and for now that's the goal. To visit all 197 countries of the world, in my lifetime and to share these experiences with you!
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