The concept of a country is fairly simple but if I asked you for a perfect definition you would struggle. I guarantee it. I’ve spent a while trying to think of a good one but unfortunately I can’t so I’m going to show you the current definition. It is, according to www.oxforddictionaries.com it is
“A nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory”
It talks about a nation. So what is the definition of nation?
“A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory”
OK so we have these definitions but there are several places that fit them but aren’t considered countries. Lets keep looking.
What about International Recognition?
Surely international recognition helps somewhere that technically should be a country to actually become one, right? Well yes and no. Unhelpful I know but allow me to elaborate. Kosovo is a great example of this. As of writing this 108 UN member countries recognise Kosovo as independent, the other 82 don’t. This can be problematic in all sorts of ways from trade to travel and many other areas.
Another example of where international recognition is a problem is with Taiwan, or as China likes you to call it “Chinese Taipei” because according to China Taiwan is not an independent country although to everyone else it is but every country plays along with China to make sure China don’t get annoyed with them.
A third example is from the more recent past. As of writing this Libya has 2 governments competing for control of the same country, one in Benghazi (the internationally recognised government) and one in Tripoli (the internationally unrecognised government). Or are they two separate countries that formed after the downfall of Gaddafi that are at war with each other fighting to reunify Libya under their control? They technically could be, they both have their own government and both are a large body of people united by common history (i.e. the toppling of Gaddafi) but then again if Libya were to somehow peacefully merge all of Libya would be united by common history (again the toppling of Gaddafi) but with only one government.
OK so that may not have helped much so lets change our focus from international recognition to culture, something that every society has, its way of life and usually the bedrock of local nationalist movements. This happened in Catalonia, they had a referendum as did Scotland, the only difference being the Scottish one was recognised by the government. The bedrock of the two regions push for independence is the slight but present differences in their cultures including language and cuisine. (as well as the economic and political stuff). But even though they had a referendum nothing changed, Scotland is still part of the UK (but the vote was close) and Catalonia is, and constitutionally always will be, part of Spain even though 80% of the people who voted wanted independence for Catalonia. OK so this hasn’t helped either has it?
Let’s move on again then, this time to history. Again Scotland could be used as an example here but instead I’m going to use Somaliland as an example. Somaliland is a former British colony in the far north of the former Italian colony of Somalia. Up until the end of the second world war both of these places were separate but became joined when Somalia became an independent country. Somaliland is completely different to Somalia, very little violence takes place here (unlike the rest of Somalia where al Shabab and pirates screw up things). I truly hope that Somaliland’s pleas for recognition for its declaration of independence are favourably answered because the rest of Somalia and its many problems are holding it back and without them they would be able to develop and be a more comfortable place to live. But we’ll just have to see. But again as of yet we still don’t know how many countries there are.
What about semi autonomous regions? They’re sort of countries right? Well kinda, they have their own government but it’s not fully independent and they have a large body of commonly united people but are not technically countries. An example of this is the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, what many believe will be the closest thing we will ever come to a Kurdish State despite the number of Kurds living in Turkey and Iran. Another example is Hong Kong, another former British colony but this one became part of China, China control everything but somehow not like the mainland of China, it’s politically different, most likely due to the level of westernisation and general cultural differences to China. But to China differences like this don’t matter so Hong Kong is still part of China despite being known as the most country like country that isn’t actually a country.
OK so it’s clear that my debate with myself is getting no where so lets ask the UN, easy right? No because here is the answer.
195 states.
6 partially recognised states.
3 unrecognised de facto states.
The problem with asking the UN comes down to the 195 member states can’t agree on whether or not the other countries should be called countries.
OK let’s ask something beyond politics, the Olympics. Well they say there is 205. And the US State Department say 195 and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office say 225.
Oh for crying out loud. So we still have no idea how many there are. Lets just forget trying to come up with a number for now and look at the implications of this on travel.
How can someone say that they’ve been to every country in the world if we don’t really know how many there are? Must they have been to every region where independence has been considered or did they use one particular organisations list and say screw you to any country that isn’t on the list they happen to be using?
To wrap this up (because it’s just too long to continue) no one really knows how many countries there are, not even Google who gave me a list of 7 numbers and said it should be one of them. So for the sake of ease the answer is about 200 because to give an exact number is to say there is more agreement that there actually is. The problem is the definition and the difficulty with grouping people by culture and history and that’s only going to get more difficult due to globalisation.
I upvoted you.
Very interesting and even if there were an exact number, that would likely change before you could finish the task. I have a photograph friend who is beyond 135 so far and counting... talk about dedication.
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