There are 195 countries in the world: the 193 members of the United Nations plus two observer states, Vatican City and Palestine. By continent there are 54 in Africa, 48 in Asia, 44 in Europe, 23 in North America, 14 in Oceania and 12 in South America. They range from Russia, at 17.1 million km², to Vatican City, at 0.44 km², and from India, with more than 1.4 billion people, to Tuvalu, with about 11,000. This guide covers what sets the countries of each continent apart. For every country listed by name, see our complete list of the 195 countries.
What Makes a Place a Country
The usual legal test comes from the Montevideo Convention of 1933: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Meeting those four is not enough in practice. Taiwan meets all of them and is recognised by only about a dozen states. Recognition by other countries, and above all membership of the UN, is what puts a place on the standard list of 195. Places that fall in between, such as Kosovo, Western Sahara and Somaliland, are the reason different atlases give slightly different totals.
Africa: The Most Countries
Africa has more countries than any other continent, largely because the European colonial powers divided it into many separate territories, most of which became independent separately between 1956 and 1990. The borders reflect that history. About 44 per cent of Africa's international boundaries are straight lines, drawn along lines of latitude and longitude or between surveyed points rather than following rivers or mountains. Algeria is the largest country, at about 2.38 million km², and Seychelles the smallest. Nigeria has the largest population, over 220 million, Ethiopia, the second most populous, and Liberia are usually described as the two African countries never colonised, though Italy occupied Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941. South Sudan, independent since 2011, is the newest country in the world.
Asia: The Most People
Asia's 48 countries hold about 60 per cent of the world's population. India and China alone account for more than a third of humanity. The continent has both the world's highest and lowest land: Mount Everest on the China–Nepal border at 8,849 m, and the Dead Sea shore on the border of Israel, Jordan and the West Bank at about 430 m below sea level. It also has some of the most crowded and emptiest countries side by side. Singapore packs more than 8,000 people into each square kilometre, while Mongolia, the most sparsely populated country in the world, has about two.
Europe: Small Countries, Close Together
Europe's 44 countries share a small continent, and four of the world's six smallest countries are European microstates: Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino and Liechtenstein. Andorra is a fifth, only a little larger. Russia is counted in Europe although three-quarters of its territory lies in Asia, making it both Europe's largest country and the world's. Twenty-seven European countries belong to the European Union, 21 of them using the euro since Bulgaria adopted it on 1 January 2026. The Schengen Area has removed routine border checks between 29 countries, so a driver can go from Portugal to Finland without showing a passport.
North America: Three Giants and Many Islands
North America's 23 countries include three of the largest in the world, Canada, the United States and Mexico, and many of the smallest. Thirteen are Caribbean island states and seven are on the Central American isthmus. Canada and the United States share the world's longest international border, about 8,891 km including Alaska. Saint Kitts and Nevis, at 261 km², is the smallest country in the Americas.
South America: Twelve Countries and One Giant
Brazil covers almost half of South America and borders every other country on the continent except Chile and Ecuador. The Andes run the length of the west coast for about 7,000 km, the longest continental mountain range on Earth, and give Bolivia the highest administrative capital of any country, La Paz, at about 3,600 m. Bolivia and Paraguay are the continent's two landlocked countries. Spanish is spoken in nine of the twelve, Portuguese in Brazil, English in Guyana and Dutch in Suriname.
Oceania: Countries Made of Ocean
Oceania's 14 countries are Australia, the only country that covers an entire continent, together with New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and eleven Pacific island states. Their land is small but their sea areas are huge. Kiribati has only about 811 km² of land, yet its 33 atolls are spread across more than 3.4 million km² of ocean and all four hemispheres. Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country on Earth, with more than 800 languages among about 10 million people.
The Languages Countries Share
Colonial history left a handful of languages official across much of the world. English is an official or main language in about 60 countries, French in 29, and Arabic in the 22 members of the Arab League. Spanish is official in 20 countries, the 18 Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas plus Spain and Equatorial Guinea. Portuguese is spoken officially in nine, from Brazil and Portugal to Angola, Mozambique and Timor-Leste.
Many countries recognise several official languages. India's constitution lists 22 scheduled languages, with Hindi and English used by the central government. Zimbabwe's constitution names 16 official languages, and Bolivia's recognises Spanish and 36 Indigenous languages. Switzerland has four national languages in a country less than half the size of Portugal, and South Africa has twelve, including South African Sign Language since 2023.
How Countries Are Governed
Most of the world's countries are republics, with an elected or appointed president as head of state. Forty-three are monarchies, fifteen of them sharing King Charles III, as our list of the world's monarchies sets out. Five are governed by a single communist party: China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and North Korea. Two are religious states in different senses: Vatican City, where the pope is the absolute sovereign, and Iran, an Islamic republic where the Supreme Leader outranks the elected president.
About 25 countries are federations, in which power is constitutionally divided between a central government and states or provinces. They include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Australia. Because so many of the largest countries are federal, those 25 or so countries hold roughly 40 per cent of the world's population.
Names That Have Changed
Country names change more often than people expect, and many standard references are out of date. In recent years:
- Türkiye asked the UN in 2022 to use that spelling in place of "Turkey".
- North Macedonia took its name in 2019, settling a long dispute with Greece.
- Eswatini replaced "Swaziland" in 2018.
- Czechia was registered as the Czech Republic's short name in 2016.
- Cabo Verde asked in 2013 to be known by its Portuguese name rather than "Cape Verde".
- The Netherlands stopped using "Holland" in official promotion in 2020, because Holland is only two of its twelve provinces.
Some names are misunderstood rather than changed. The Republic of Ireland's constitutional name is simply Ireland, and "Republic of Ireland" is its official description under a 1948 law. Older changes are still easy to trip over. Myanmar was renamed from Burma in 1989, and Côte d'Ivoire asks to be called that in every language rather than "Ivory Coast".
Borders and Neighbours
Most countries have only a few land neighbours, but China and Russia each border 14, the most of any country. Brazil has 10. Germany, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania, for example, each have eight or nine. At the other extreme, more than 40 countries have no land border at all, among them Australia, Japan, Iceland and Madagascar. Forty-four countries have no coastline. Two of them, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan, are doubly landlocked, surrounded only by other landlocked countries. Our ranking of the countries with the most land borders lists every country with eight or more.
Clocks and Time Zones
Countries also divide time in unexpected ways. France uses twelve time zones, more than any other country, because its overseas territories stretch from French Polynesia in the Pacific to Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Russia uses eleven across its mainland. China, which spans about five time zones of longitude, uses a single one, Beijing time, so in far-western Xinjiang the sun can rise after 9 a.m. in winter. India also uses one zone, set half an hour off the usual hourly pattern at UTC+5:30, and Nepal goes further, at UTC+5:45.
How Countries Differ in Size and People
The range is enormous. The largest ten countries by area cover about half the world's land, while the smallest fifty together cover less than 1 per cent of it. By population, sixteen countries each have more than 100 million people, from India and China down to Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Together they hold about two-thirds of humanity. Most of the world's countries are small in population as well: more than a third have fewer than five million people. Every one of them, however, has the same single vote in the UN General Assembly.