How Many Countries Are There in the World?

By the Quizoland Staff · August 17, 2026

Short answer: 193 states are members of the UN, 195 if you add the Vatican and Palestine, and 197 in the broadest count, the one most geography games use. None of these three numbers is wrong—they simply measure different things. Here's what separates them, followed by the complete list.

How many can you name? Type in the names and watch the map fill in.

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Three Numbers, Three Definitions

There's no global authority in charge of deciding what counts as a country. A state is recognized as such when other states recognize it—so the count depends entirely on which criteria you choose.

Number	What It Counts
193	UN member states. This is the official count, and the only one based on a closed, verifiable list.
195	The 193 members, plus the two non-member observer states: the Holy See and the State of Palestine.
197	The previous 195, plus Kosovo and Taiwan, both partially recognized. This is the list used by most games and atlases.
249	ISO 3166-1 codes, which add 54 non-sovereign territories: Greenland, Puerto Rico, New Caledonia, Hong Kong, and others. These aren't countries, but they still need a code.

Palestine gained observer state status on November 29, 2012, through UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/67/19. The Holy See has held that status for a long time and has never applied to become a full member.

Why Kosovo and Taiwan Are Debated

These are the two cases that push the total from 195 to 197, and they raise entirely different issues.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008. It's recognized by a good number of states, but not by Serbia, nor by Russia and China—two permanent members of the UN Security Council, whose veto power keeps it out of the UN.

Taiwan is in the opposite situation: the island long held China's seat at the UN, until Resolution 2758 on October 25, 1971, transferred it to the People's Republic of China. Taiwan has functioned as a fully independent state ever since, with its own government, currency, and borders, but it's only officially recognized by a handful of countries.

How Many Countries per Continent

Based on the 197-country count, the distribution is very uneven: Africa alone has nearly twice as many countries as South America and Oceania combined.

Continent	Number of Countries
Europe	46
Asia	48
Africa	54
North America	23
South America	12
Oceania	14
Total	197

North America's count often comes as a surprise: it includes all of Central America and the Caribbean islands, home to about a dozen very small states. This is also the region people forget most often when trying to name them all.

The Complete List of Countries in the World

All 197 countries, grouped by continent and listed alphabetically.

Europe — 46 Countries

Albania
Germany
Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
North Macedonia
Malta
Moldova
Monaco
Montenegro
Norway
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
United Kingdom
Russia
San Marino
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Switzerland
Sweden
Czechia
Ukraine
Vatican City

Asia — 48 Countries

Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Myanmar
Brunei
Cambodia
China
North Korea
South Korea
Georgia
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Iran
Israel
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kuwait
Laos
Lebanon
Malaysia
Maldives
Mongolia
Nepal
Oman
Uzbekistan
Pakistan
Palestine
Philippines
Qatar
Singapore
Sri Lanka
Syria
Tajikistan
Taiwan
Thailand
East Timor
Turkmenistan
Turkey
Vietnam
Yemen
United Arab Emirates

Africa — 54 Countries

South Africa
Algeria
Angola
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Benin
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Comoros
Ivory Coast
Djibouti
Eswatini
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Equatorial Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Morocco
Mauritius
Mauritania
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Uganda
Rwanda
Central African Republic
Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
São Tomé and Príncipe
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
South Sudan
Senegal
Tanzania
Chad
Togo
Tunisia
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Egypt
Eritrea
Ethiopia

North America — 23 Countries

Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Canada
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominica
Grenada
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Dominican Republic
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Lucia
El Salvador
Trinidad and Tobago
United States

South America — 12 Countries

Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Guyana
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Ecuador

Oceania — 14 Countries

Australia
Fiji
Kiribati
Micronesia
Nauru
New Zealand
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
Tonga
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Marshall Islands
Solomon Islands

If you'd rather be quizzed than recite a list, the World Countries quiz asks multiple-choice questions about these same 197 countries: populations, areas, borders, currencies.

Does This Number Change?

Rarely. The most recent country admitted to the UN is South Sudan, on July 14, 2011, following its independence from Sudan. Before that, Montenegro in 2006. Over a lifetime, the number of countries shifts by only a handful: the biggest wave dates back to the decolonization of the 1960s, followed by the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

The most frequent changes aren't new states being created but name changes: Swaziland became Eswatini in 2018, Turkey officially registered "Türkiye" in 2022, and Macedonia became North Macedonia in 2019. The country stays the same, but the list changes anyway.