Which Countries Have the Most Borders? China and Russia Lead With 14 Neighbours

China and Russia border more countries than any other nation, with 14 land neighbours each, according to Wikipedia’s list of countries by number of land borders (as it stood in 2026, drawing largely on the CIA World Factbook). Third is France with 11, but only if French Guiana in South America and Saint Martin in the Caribbean are counted; on the mainland of Europe it has 8. Brazil comes next with 10, then Germany and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 9 each. Six countries share the next place with 8. These counts only include land borders, including borders along rivers and lakes; neighbours across the sea are left out, and so are countries joined only by a bridge or tunnel.

The Land-Neighbour Table, 2026

The table includes every country with eight or more land neighbours. Ties mean that the top ten is actually twelve countries. The last column gives each country’s total land-border length from the same list.

Eight Neighbours: Zambia, Tanzania, Turkey, Serbia, Austria and Saudi Arabia

Zambia is landlocked in south-central Africa. Its neighbours are Angola, Botswana, the DR Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Its border with the DR Congo is the longest, at 1,930 km. The border with Botswana is only about 150 m long, a short line between two tripoints where the Chobe meets the Zambezi near Kazungula. Tanzania also has eight neighbours: Burundi, the DR Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. Its 459 km border with the DR Congo runs through Lake Tanganyika, which still counts because the line follows inland water.

Turkey’s eight are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The Syrian border is the longest at 822 km, and the Azerbaijani one is just 9 km, touching only the Nakhchivan exclave. Austria, at the centre of the Alps, borders the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Its border with Germany is the longest at 817 km.

Two of the eights come with conditions. Serbia reaches eight only because the list counts Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. Serbia does not recognise that independence, so Serbian official sources would count its neighbours differently. Saudi Arabia’s eighth neighbour is Bahrain. The two meet only on Passport Island, an artificial island in the middle of the King Fahd Causeway, where the border is just 196 m long. Without it, the kingdom has seven neighbours: Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Its longest border, with Yemen, is 1,458 km.

Germany and the DR Congo, Nine Each

Germany has more neighbours than any other country entirely within Europe: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland. Its total land border is only 3,621 km, because the neighbours are crowded together. The longest sections are with Austria (817 km) and the Czech Republic (815 km). The border with Denmark, across the neck of Jutland, is only 68 km. Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet at a single marker on the Vaalserberg, near the Dutch town of Vaals.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo also has nine neighbours, but its borders are about three times longer, at 10,730 km. The neighbours are Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Angola is counted twice in the distinct-border tally because the DRC also borders Angola’s Cabinda exclave, north of the Congo River mouth. Its longest borders are with Angola (2,511 km) and the Republic of the Congo (2,410 km).

Brazil’s Ten: All of South America but Chile and Ecuador

Brazil borders every South American country except Chile and Ecuador: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela and France, through French Guiana. Its total land border is 14,691 km, the third-longest in the world. The longest section is the 3,400 km border with Bolivia, followed by Peru (2,995 km) and Venezuela (2,200 km). Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet where the Iguazu River flows into the Paraná at Foz do Iguaçu. See our guide to Brazil’s neighbouring countries for each border in turn.

France’s Eleven, Counting French Guiana and Saint Martin

France needs more explaining than the rest. In Europe it borders Andorra, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Spain and Switzerland. French Guiana, an overseas department and an integral part of the French Republic, adds Brazil (673 km) and Suriname (510 km). On the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, the French north meets Dutch Sint Maarten along a 10.2 km line, which adds Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. That makes 11, and it means France’s longest land border is with Brazil, not with Spain (623 km) or Belgium (620 km).

China and Russia, Tied at Fourteen

China’s 14 neighbours are Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Vietnam. They range from the 76 km Wakhan border with Afghanistan to 4,677 km with Mongolia. The list gives 3,488 km for the boundary with India, which is disputed in several sectors; in practice the two sides manage it along the Line of Actual Control.

Russia’s 14 are Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland and Ukraine. Two of them, Lithuania and Poland, touch only the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic. The border with North Korea is just 19 km long, along the lower Tumen River. Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, 6,846 km on the list and 7,644 km in its own Wikipedia article, is the longest continuous international border in the world. China and Russia meet each other twice, east and west of Mongolia, and near the mouth of the Tumen, China, Russia and North Korea meet at a single tripoint.

That tripoint shows how tightly these borders fit together. The Chinese village of Fangchuan, part of Hunchun city in Jilin province, sits on the Tumen River beside it. North Korea’s Tumangang and Russia’s Khasan are the nearest settlements across the water. The Sea of Japan is only about 15 km downstream, but China has no access to it here, because the last stretch of the river forms the border between North Korea and Russia. The observation deck at Fangchuan has a monument carrying the three national flags, which overlooks the river where the three countries meet.

Both countries got this many neighbours the same way: they are very large, they stretch across the interior of Eurasia, and they were built by expanding empires. Russia is the largest country in the world and spans eleven time zones. China covers about 9.6 million km² and has more land border than coastline, which is about 14,500 km long. Russia’s borders with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan became international borders when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. Our guide to Russia’s neighbouring countries follows them from Norway to North Korea.

Kosovo, Abkhazia and Other Counting Problems

Any count of neighbours depends on who you treat as a country. The same list notes that China would have 16 neighbours if Hong Kong and Macau were counted separately. Both are special administrative regions of China. Russia would also have 16 if Abkhazia and South Ossetia were counted. Russia recognises both as independent, but most countries regard them as part of Georgia; Abkhazia is recognised by only four UN member states. Serbia’s figure changes depending on whether Kosovo is counted. Algeria’s seven neighbours include Western Sahara, a territory whose status is disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic.

The list also separates neighbours from distinct borders. China has 14 neighbours but 17 separate border sections, because its border with India is broken into three parts by Nepal and Bhutan and its border with Russia into two by Mongolia. The record for sections between two countries belongs to Belgium and the Netherlands, which share 31, most of them around the enclaves of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau.

Other choices change the totals too. Counting only the main body of a country leaves France with 8 neighbours. Counting borders across the sea gives the islands a long list of neighbours of their own. Ignoring artificial islands removes Bahrain from Saudi Arabia’s list. That is why rankings you find elsewhere do not always agree. China and Russia stay at the top under every one of these rules.

China’s 22,147 km and the Longest Land Borders

Most neighbours and longest total border are different measures, but the same two countries lead both. On the same list, China’s land borders total 22,147 km (China’s own Wikipedia article gives 22,117 km), followed by Russia (20,017 km), Brazil (14,691 km), India (14,209 km), the United States (12,034 km) and Kazakhstan (12,012 km). The longest border between two countries is the 8,891 km Canada–United States border, which runs in two main parts, one along the contiguous states and one along Alaska. Canada has only two neighbours on the list, the United States and Denmark through Greenland, which it meets on Hans Island along a 1.2 km line agreed in 2022, yet it still has the ninth-longest total border, at 8,894 km. For the full ranking by length, see the countries with the longest borders, and for the places where three of these lines meet, our guide to tripoints where three countries meet.