How Many Countries Are There 2022

Just how many different countries are there? The solution to what seems to be a straightforward query is fairly involved.

The issue arises because various groups adopt varying views on what constitutes a nation. There isn’t a consistent tally for the number of nations, and it might vary widely depending on where you look.

However, the United Nations is widely acknowledged as the final arbiter on questions of statehood. There are now 193 member nations in the United Nations. It also acknowledges the Holy See/Vatican City as an observer state and Palestine as a non-member observer state.

However, not even the United Nations’ ranking is without contention. Taiwan (Republic of China), which was a member of the United Nations from 1945 to 1971 but is now regarded as a part of mainland China, is not recognised by the United Nations at this time despite having maintained its independence throughout that time.

Similarly, in 2020, around half of the United Nations’ members still saw Kosovo as a province of Serbia rather than an independent state.

Vatican City, Taiwan, and Kosovo are recognised as independent nations on Britannica’s list of countries, bringing the total number of recognised nations to 196.

The list of sovereign nations on Wikipedia, for its part, reflects the United Nations’ list of 193 member states and two observer states, to which it adds eleven more, such as Taiwan, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, the Cook Islands, and more, for a total of 206.

Unlike its little cousin, Iceland, Greenland seems like it should be its nation given its size and location between the north Atlantic and Arctic seas.

Greenland isn’t a member of the United Nations, and although it has broad autonomy over its internal affairs, it ultimately answers to Denmark, a much larger European nation than Greenland’s neighbour, Iceland.

Greenland and the Gaza Strip, for example, are listed separately from the rest of the United States by certain sources because they are dependent or disputed regions. Because of this, the CIA Factbook maintained by the United States government has information on 237 different countries.

Also See: Human Development Index (HDI) by Country 2022

This shows that counting the world’s nations is more complicated than it may seem. As a result of the dynamic nature of politics, sovereignty concerns are also unlikely to be settled very soon.

Below is an exhaustive list of not just countries but also territories and areas that have some degree of self-governance but are not generally recognised as full-fledged countries.