How many countries ARE THERE REALLY?

There is a conspiracy afoot. The plot is to ensure that no one ever knows exactly how many countries there are in this world, thus eventually paving the way for some Wag the Dog esque scenario in which we end up going to war with some made-up country that no one has ever heard of, yet sounds plausible enough to exist.

The Olympics, FIFA, Ebay, the UN.... all use radically different lists of "countries." Some say there are 192... others 250!

Luckily I am here to solve this mess.

Fake Countries Vs. Real Countries

I'll skip the tiresome "blah blah blah but what constitutes a country" discussion. Basically a country exists if it has a sovereign government and can grant citizenship. Colonies, territories, and dependencies have governments that are subsidiary to the veto power of a higher national authority, and can only grant their residents citizenship in that country's name.

However, in today's day and age the few surviving colonies and dependencies of this world have evolved into fairly independent regions, culturally at least. The sheer span of geography makes it difficult to argue that there is no difference between a guy living in Amsterdam and a guy living in Aruba, despite what the law may say.

As well, some of today's "real" countries are so mind-boggingly tiny they're almost completely irrelevant. Indeed, in many cases their independent populations may actually be smaller than the populations of some of the world's un-sovereign colonial dependencies.

Different organizations have found their own way of achieving a practical compromise, which we will now explore.

 

The common list

Many websites ask you to "select your country" from a drop-down menu in order to register for or purchase something. These lists vary, but they almost always have over 200 names on them. The most comprehensive one I have seen to date is the following, which I got off some e-dating site. It contains 239 "countries" in all:

* note, the country formerly known as Yugoslavia is now two separate countries, Serbia and Montenegro so this list is a tad out of date. For the purposes of the rest of this essay I will count "Yugoslavia," whenever it appears, as two countries.

The U.N. list

Now, unlike dating sites, the United Nations only recognizes 192 countries, ie: real self-governing sovereign countries and not phoney baloney colonies.

If you have not already guessed, the names of the real countries appear in black in the above chart, and the imposters in blue.

The only "real" country not counted in the UN's 192 total is the Vatican City, which voluntarily abstains from full UN membership, and has only "observer" status. The UN still recognizes it as a sovereign state, however, so I will include it in the grand tally.

Here are the 47 nations from the previous list that are not considered real countries by the UN, and why:

Taiwan is, for all intents and purposes a sovereign country. It has an independent government and issues its own passports. However, the Government of China has an obsession with maintaining symbolic control over all Chinese-speakers, and thus insists that Taiwan is "part of" the People's Republic. Even though this claim makes no logical sense, other countries (and the UN) respect China's fantasy for diplomatic reasons, and thus don't acknowledge Taiwan as being an independent country. When Taiwan wants to be recognized by some other body without causing a diplomatic stir, it goes by the name "Chinese Taipei."

The United Nations only recognizes 16 of the 47 above regions on their official list of "Non-Self-Governing Territories" (marked with a star* above). This official list is famously arbitrary, and does not ascribe to any sort of consistent logic of classification. It was written in the 1950's, at a time when anti-colonialism was all the rage and the UN believed it could guilt-trip the major imperial powers into liberating their colonies if there was a clear "checklist" to refer to. In the end, a lot of petty political squabbles resulted in the UN only acknowledging certain colonies of certain powers in an attempt at compromise. Today, the list is hopelessly anachronistic.

It's worth noting that the UN has granted the Palestinian Territories permanent "observer" status, a rank no other non-independent nation has been able to achieve. A couple dozen countries recognize Palestine as an independent country, so I guess this is only fair.

Now let's compare the 193-country UN list to the lists used by other places:

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

Do you remember that one episode of Futuramma when they went to the huge "Central Bureaucracy" where all the bureaucratic rules for the entire universe were made? Well that's sort of what the ISO is. They're an international body that tries to ensure that standard procedures for certain bureaucratic matters are followed in all countries of the world. A large part of this includes approving country codes and signals for use by telecommunications and shipping organizations.

Perhaps most notably, they also are the gang who approve URL suffixes for different countries. So they're the ones who decided that Canada gets ".ca" while Cameroon gets ".cm"

The ISO recognizes 240 entities, and I believe the first long list of countries is largely based on the official ISO one. The only difference is that the ISO recognizes the Aland Islands which are part of Finland, a place the above list ignores for reasons unknown.

The ISO also recognizes an additional list of nine auxiliary areas that are not part of their formal 240 country list, but are still granted official codes and designations for bureaucracies to use. They are:

The ISO also has codes for vaguely-defined places like "the European Union" and "Metropolitan France." Sometimes you'll see these regions listed on "select country" menus, which means the person who made it likely stole the ISO list but never bothered to edit it.

Lonely Planet- The Travel Book- total 230

In 2004 the Lonely Planet people, makers of the famous of tourist guide series, released a new volume entitled The Travel Book, A Journey Through Every Country in the World. On the cover, the book claims to profile 230 "countries." Yet inside the book only 217 places are profiled with full country status. The other 13 places are explicitly recognized as being "dependencies" and stuck in the very back of the book in a special index.

Here are the 25 non-official countries the Lonely Planet people profile:

Note- The United Kingdom is not included, but "England" is, so I'm counting that as part of the original 193

* counted as one country

FIFA (International Federation of Association Football)- total 205

Everyone loves soccer! It's the world's game!

The only countries that don't compete in FIFA are a handful of tiny island nations with populations of less than a million, plus Monaco and the Vatican, Europe's smallest countries.

Because soccer is so damn popular in the British Isles, FIFA allows the four component territories of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) to compete independently.

FIFA is unique in that it also recognizes Tahiti as a separate entity. Tahiti is part of French Polynesia and thus part of France. There is no French Polynesia proper team for some reason.

So there are essentially 11 British teams in all.

The IOC (International Olympic Committee)- Total 202

The Olympics truly are the world's most international body. Only the Pope refuses to send a delegation.

SUMMARY- the definitive list of not-quite-countries

All the places that appear on the FIFA list also appear on the IOC list and in the Lonely Planet book. The extras on the Olympic list can thus be recognized as representing the "core group" of pseudo-countries. Only American Samoa is the odd one out, Lonely Planet doesn't consider them a full country.

OH NO, MORE COUNTRIES!

Breaking news! As of July, 2011, there is a new country called the Republic of South Sudan. As time goes on, the country will likely incorporate itself into all the international organizations above, including the UN. As of this writing, however, they're still largely unrecognized.