Asia has 48 countries by the most widely used count: the 47 United Nations member states that the UN Statistics Division places in Asia, plus the State of Palestine, a UN non-member observer state. Two other totals are common and both are defensible. Count Russia and Egypt, which have most or part of their land in Asia but are usually filed under Europe and Africa, and you get 49 UN members with substantial Asian territory. Add Palestine and Taiwan, which governs itself but has not held a UN seat since 1971, to those 49 and you reach 51. The continent covers more than 44 million km², about 30% of Earth’s land, and holds roughly 4.7 billion people. The total was built up over time: only nine of today’s Asian UN members existed as independent states when the UN was founded in 1945, and the rest arrived through partition, decolonisation, mergers and the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Why the Answer Can Be 47, 48, 49 or 51
There is no treaty that defines Asia. The UN’s own regional scheme, known as M49, was drawn up “for statistical convenience”, and it makes several choices that other bodies do not. It puts Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey in Western Asia, even though UNESCO and the UN Industrial Development Organization file Cyprus and Georgia under Europe. It puts all of Russia in Eastern Europe, although most of its land lies east of the Urals in Siberia. It puts Egypt in Northern Africa, although the Sinai Peninsula lies east of the Suez Canal and is therefore geographically Asian.
Those choices produce the core figure of 47 UN members. The State of Palestine, recognised as a UN non-member observer state on 29 November 2012, takes the total to 48. Wikipedia’s list of sovereign states in Asia counts 49 UN members because it includes Russia and Egypt as states with substantial Asian territory. Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, controls its own territory but lost the China seat at the UN in 1971, so it sits outside every UN-based count. Kazakhstan and Turkey are transcontinental too, but because most of their people and land are in Asia, nobody leaves them out. For the full picture of states that straddle two continents, see our list of transcontinental countries.
24 October 1945: Nine Asian Founders
When the UN Charter came into force on 24 October 1945, Asia was still largely a map of colonies. The Asian founders were China (then represented by the Republic of China government), Iran, Lebanon, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, all admitted that day, followed by India on 30 October and Iraq on 21 December. India joined as British India, two years before independence, and the Philippines joined while still under US rule; its independence was recognised by the Treaty of Manila on 4 July 1946.
The rest of the continent was divided among the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese empires, or was occupied territory after the Second World War. Korea had been under Japanese rule until 1945, and Japan itself was under Allied occupation. Indonesia had proclaimed independence on 17 August 1945, but the Netherlands did not transfer sovereignty until 27 December 1949.
1946 to 1957: Partition, Bandung and the First Wave
Afghanistan and Thailand, both independent states before the war, joined in November and December 1946. The partition of British India produced two new states at midnight on 14–15 August 1947, and Pakistan was admitted to the UN on 30 September 1947, the same day as Yemen (the northern Yemen Arab Republic). Burma, now Myanmar, became independent on 4 January 1948 and joined in April. Israel was admitted on 11 May 1949, and Indonesia on 28 September 1950.
Then the list stalled. The Cold War froze admissions: the Soviet Union vetoed Jordan and Ceylon on the grounds that they were not independent enough from Britain, and from 1949 it also blocked Nepal. The deadlock broke with the “package deal” of 14 December 1955, when 16 states were admitted at once. Five of them were Asian: Cambodia, Jordan, Laos, Nepal and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Japan followed on 18 December 1956, having been left out of the 1955 deal after the Republic of China vetoed Mongolia and the Soviet Union insisted that Japan be dropped as well, and the Federation of Malaya, independent on 31 August 1957, joined on 17 September 1957.
The new states were also building their own forum. From 18 to 24 April 1955, Indonesia hosted the Asian–African Conference in Bandung, organised with Burma, India, Ceylon and Pakistan. The 29 participating countries represented about 1.5 billion people, 54% of the world’s population at the time, and the meeting became a step towards the Non-Aligned Movement.
1960 to 1984: Cyprus, Singapore, the Gulf and Bangladesh
Cyprus joined on 20 September 1960. Mongolia, long blocked by the Republic of China’s veto, was admitted on 27 October 1961, and Kuwait on 14 May 1963. The most unusual entry of the decade came from Malaysia. On 16 September 1963 the Federation of Malaya merged with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo (Sabah) to form Malaysia. Less than two years later, on 9 August 1965, Singapore separated and became a sovereign state, joining the UN on 21 September 1965, the same day as the Maldives.
The UN itself nearly lost an Asian member in this period. In January 1965, angered by Malaysia’s election to the Security Council during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, Indonesia announced it was withdrawing from the UN. It is the only member ever to have tried. After Sukarno’s fall, Indonesia notified the Secretary-General in September 1966 that it would resume full cooperation, and it returned to its seat.
The year 1971 added five Asian members as Britain withdrew from the Gulf and Bhutan stepped out of isolation: Bahrain, Bhutan and Qatar on 21 September, Oman on 7 October and the United Arab Emirates on 9 December. The same year the Bangladesh Liberation War split East Pakistan from Pakistan; Bangladesh joined the UN on 17 September 1974. Brunei became fully sovereign on 1 January 1984, when the British protectorate ended, and joined on 21 September 1984.
Mergers and Seat Changes: Vietnam, Yemen and China
The list has also shrunk. South Yemen was admitted on 14 December 1967 as the People’s Republic of South Yemen. On 22 May 1990 it merged with the Yemen Arab Republic, a member since 1947, and the united Republic of Yemen kept a single seat. Vietnam went the other way round: after North Vietnamese forces took Saigon on 30 April 1975, the National Assembly voted for reunification on 2 July 1976, and the single Socialist Republic of Vietnam joined the UN on 20 September 1977. Neither North nor South Vietnam had ever been a member.
The China seat changed hands without changing the count. The Republic of China held it from 1945, but after 1949 its government controlled only Taiwan and a few smaller islands. On 25 October 1971, General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognised the People’s Republic of China as the only lawful representative of China at the UN, and the Republic of China’s delegation was expelled. That is why Taiwan appears in no UN-based count, while the People’s Republic of China does. Beijing claims Taiwan as a province; Taipei governs it as a separate state.
1991 to 2002: The Soviet Break-up, the Koreas and Timor-Leste
The biggest single jump since 1955 came at the end of the Cold War. North Korea and South Korea, both kept out for four decades, were admitted together on 17 September 1991. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved on 26 December 1991, and on 2 March 1992 eight former Soviet republics joined the UN on the same day. Seven of them are counted in Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The eighth, Moldova, is European. Georgia followed on 31 July 1992. Our guide to the dissolution of the Soviet Union follows that break-up republic by republic.
The latest addition is Timor-Leste. A Portuguese colony until 1975, it was invaded and annexed by Indonesia, voted for independence in a UN-sponsored ballot in 1999, and became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on 20 May 2002. It joined the UN on 27 September 2002. No Asian state has been admitted since, though Palestine’s observer-state status from 2012 is why many counts now say 48 rather than 47.
The 48 Countries of Asia Today, by UN Subregion
Here is the current list as the UN Statistics Division groups it, with the year each state joined the UN in brackets.
- Central Asia (5): Kazakhstan (1992), Kyrgyzstan (1992), Tajikistan (1992), Turkmenistan (1992), Uzbekistan (1992). Kazakhstan, which reaches west of the Ural River into Europe, is the largest.
- Eastern Asia (5): China (1945; seat held by the People’s Republic since 1971), Japan (1956), Mongolia (1961), North Korea (1991), South Korea (1991). China, at about 9.6 million km², is the largest country lying wholly in Asia.
- South-eastern Asia (11): Brunei (1984), Cambodia (1955), Indonesia (1950), Laos (1955), Malaysia (1957), Myanmar (1948), Philippines (1945), Singapore (1965), Thailand (1946), Timor-Leste (2002), Vietnam (1977).
- Southern Asia (9): Afghanistan (1946), Bangladesh (1974), Bhutan (1971), India (1945), Iran (1945), Maldives (1965), Nepal (1955), Pakistan (1947), Sri Lanka (1955). India is the world’s most populous country, and the Maldives, at 298 km², is the smallest country in Asia.
- Western Asia (17 plus Palestine): Armenia (1992), Azerbaijan (1992), Bahrain (1971), Cyprus (1960), Georgia (1992), Iraq (1945), Israel (1949), Jordan (1955), Kuwait (1963), Lebanon (1945), Oman (1971), Qatar (1971), Saudi Arabia (1945), Syria (1945), Turkey (1945), United Arab Emirates (1971), Yemen (1947), and the State of Palestine (observer state since 2012).
Outside those 48 sit Russia and Egypt, both founding UN members in 1945 whose territory crosses into Asia, and Taiwan. The UN M49 scheme has no Northern Asia entry at all, because the only state there, Russia, is assigned to Eastern Europe as a whole.
Seen as a timeline, the count rose from nine Asian founders to 47 members over 57 years, in bursts tied to specific events: the end of the British Raj in 1947, the package deal of 1955, Britain’s exit from the Gulf in 1971 and the Soviet collapse of 1991–1992. Any future change would most likely come from a decision on Palestine’s full membership, which has been pending since its 2011 application, rather than from a new partition, and the most recent arrivals anywhere are tracked in our round-up of the newest countries in the world.