Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - How Many Countries Are There?

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

If you wanted to know how many countries there were in the world it should be a pretty easy thing to find out. Go to a map, count all the countries, and voila! However, it isn't even remotely close to being that simple. Defining what is a country is extremely difficult and has been a point of contention in many wars and conflicts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you wanted to know how many countries there are in the world, it should be a pretty easy thing to find out. Go to a map, count the countries, and voila, you have your answer. However, it isn't even remotely close to being that simple. Defining what a country is is extremely difficult and has been the point of contention in many wars and conflicts. Find out the problem of determining how many countries there are in the world in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode of Everything Everywhere Daily is brought to you by G Adventures. Gadventures is the world's premier small group tour operator, offering tours in over 100 countries and on all seven continents. In addition, Gadventures has been a leader in the area of responsible tourism helping to establish social enterprises around the world. When you travel with G, you not only get to explore the world, you also get to help the people in the communities you visit. And I speak from firsthand experience. I've personally visited over 40 countries on all seven continents

with G. Adventures. And I can attest to their high standards and the quality of their tours. To learn more about Gadventures and to find a tour that's right for you, click on the link in the show notes. Now, before I start, let me make the following disclaimer. With the following places I'm about to list, I am not claiming that any of them are independent or sovereign. My goal is to simply explain their disputed status and the controversy surrounding them. I am not picking sides, so if you happen to live in one of these places or are in a neighboring country, please don't send me any emails. Now that being said, if we wanted a starting point for this discussion, the best place to start is in the United Nations. The UN is the club for countries. And if you wanted to find out how many countries it were, the easiest thing to do would just be to ask the UN.

As of the time I am recording this, there are currently 193 countries in the United Nations. And we'll use this number as our starting point. If you're a country, you're in the United Nations, then it's safe to say you are in fact a country. The problem is that the opposite is not true. If you're not in the United Nations, it doesn't mean that you're not a country. The best example of this was probably Switzerland, which didn't become a member of the United Nations until 2002. But it doesn't mean that they weren't a country before 2002. Once you get beyond the 193 countries, things start to get messy because you're dealing with overlapping claims of sovereignty. Countries are often recognized based on mutual recognition by other countries.

Based on international recognition, there are currently three territories that are recognized by over 100 different UN member states but are not members of the United Nations themselves. They are Vatican City, Palestine, and Kosovo. The reason why these three countries are not in the United Nations has to do with the unique setup of the UN. In the United Nations Security Council, any permanent member has the right to veto any UN resolution, including adding new members. In the case of Palestine, membership would be vetoed by the United States. In the case of Kosovo, it would be vetoed by Russia. The Vatican has never really tried to join, but it almost certainly would be vetoed by China, which is one of the few countries in the world with which it has no diplomatic relations,

and it is one of the few countries which actually recognizes Taiwan. Both the Vatican and Palestine are observer members in the United Nations, which means they can attend the parties, but they can't actually vote. Side note, I am not going to go into detail explaining the difference between the Holy See, which is officially what has diplomatic recognition and Vatican City. I'll save that for another episode as it is beyond the scope of this show. So if we take the UN countries plus these three, that puts us at 196. However, we aren't even close to really answering the question yet.

From here, things start to get really murky and confusing. There are several places which may be considered countries insofar as they control their own borders, have their own governments, military, and currency, yet few or no other countries. recognize them. First, we need to address the issue of Taiwan. Unlike other places in this category, Taiwan doesn't claim to be an independent country. It claims to be China, like all of China. Taiwan claims to represent all of China. The case of Taiwan is special because they actually have a competing claim with the People's Republic of China as to actually who is China. When the UN was formed in 1945, the Republic of China was one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

The Republic of China is what Taiwan calls itself, and it dates back to the Chinese Civil War, which they lost. The problem was, of course, they weren't really China or representing the vast majority of the Chinese people. The People's Republic of China had over a billion people and full control of the country on the ground. Taiwan was only an island with a few million people. They might have claimed to represent all of China, but they really didn't. In 1971, the UN recognized the People's Republic of China as the Chinese representative, and the Republic of China, aka Taiwan, went from being a permanent member of the Security Council to being left out of the United Nations entirely. Nonetheless, even though Taiwan isn't in the

UN, nor does it have observer status, it has never declared itself to be independent, but it does have some international recognition by 18 small countries. It also has de facto control of its borders, its own currency, military, and its own elective government. And it's also allowed to compete in the Olympics and international football competitions as Chinese Taipei. So if we recognize its de facto control of its own territory, that puts set 197. But if we were to include Taiwan, why wouldn't we include other countries which have de facto control over their territory as well? There are several places which are countries insofar as they control their own borders, have their own government, military, and currency, yet almost

no other countries recognize them. These include South Osteadya. This is a breakaway part of the Republic of Georgia, which borders Russia. It's recognized by five UN member states, one of which is Russia. Abkhazia, another breakaway part of the Republic of Georgia, which also borders Russia. It's recognized by five UN member states, one of which is also Russia. Transnistria, a tiny sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine on the eastern side of the Nistre River, not recognized by any UN member states, and everyone recognizes it as being a part of Moldova. Artsash, also known as Nagoro Karabath, an Armenian populated region, which was part of Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union fell, not recognized by any UN member state, including Armenia.

Somaliland, this is the northern part of Somalia. They have total autonomy, their own currency, they've even had elections with peaceful transitions of government. nonetheless, no other country recognizes them. Western Sahara, formerly the Spanish Sahara, the Spanish left in 1975, without transitioning the region to independence. Morocco controls most of the territory, although no other country recognizes its sovereignty over it. North Cyprus, the northern Turkish part of the island, which broke away after an invasion of Cyprus in 1974. It is only recognized by Turkey. The stories behind every one of the places I just listed could be an episode unto its

and maybe someday it will. Suffice it to say they're all de facto independent, but almost no other country recognizes them as such. If we included all these places as countries, we're now at 204. However, we are not done yet. New Zealand has two territories which are all but independent. The island of Nui and the Cook Islands are both small territories that totally control their own fate. They are independent members of international organizations such as UNESCO and the World Health Organization, they can sign their own treaties. They have diplomatic ties with about two dozen UN member states and the EU. Basically, they can do whatever they want, including entering treaties with foreign powers, and New Zealand has publicly stated that they would not stop them if they wish to declare independence and join the United

Nations. But they have stopped short of doing so because all of their citizens currently are also considered citizens of New Zealand. That plus other financial benefits would be lost if they were to fully declare their independence. With Newey and the Cook-O-Eau, islands, that puts us at 206 countries, which is certainly all of them, right? Ha ha, no, we're just getting warmed up. Now we have to delve into autonomous territories. Autonomous territories are places that exist in a quantum state of being a country and not being a country. The best known example would probably be Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. It's a part of the U.S., but it also isn't part of the U.S. The people who live there are

U.S. citizens, but Puerto Rico doesn't have representation in the federal government, so it's not quite a part of the U.S. in the same way that Florida is. The same is true for Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, also which I might add have separate Olympic teams. American Samoa is very similar with the only difference being that the people there are not U.S. citizens, but are considered U.S. nationals. That means they can freely travel and work in the United States, but if they wish to vote while living in the U.S., they would have to become natural citizens. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but are considered autonomous countries within the realm of Denmark. By the same token, Aruba, Curacao, and St. Martin

are countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the Caribbean islands of Bonnare, Saba and St. Eustaceous are considered part of the country of Netherlands, that flat place that's in Europe. Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions of China, with their own currency passport and also Olympic teams. Britain has territories with varying degrees of independence in Anguilla, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, the British Indian Ocean Territian Ocean, Ascension Island, Tristan Acuna, St. Helena, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the middle of the

Pacific Ocean. Some of those territories have their own Olympic teams, and some don't. And I haven't even mentioned the three crown dependencies, which are Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, none of which are part of the United Kingdom, nor a territory of the United Kingdom, yet are tied to the UK via a direct union with the crown, aka the Queen. And atop it all off, the country of the United Kingdom itself is made up of four different countries, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, all of whom get separate teams in the World Cup. It's countries and countries. The UK has achieved country inception. So as you can see, The question of how many countries are there is a lot more complicated than just looking at who has a seat in the United Nations, and there really is no right answer.

The base number that most people use is 193, but it's also pretty obvious there are more than 193. The question is, how many do you think should be considered countries? And that'll remain an open question subject to debate. This is a brand new podcast, and as such, it can really use your support. If you know someone who is curious and you think would like the show, please share it with them. And if you've enjoyed this show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, where you'll get new content for curious people every day in your podcast player. And leave a five-star review. More reviews can help the show be discovered by more people.

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