How many countries are in the world? 195, mostly
The usual answer is 195: the 193 UN members plus the Vatican and Palestine. But Taiwan, Kosovo and Western Sahara all complicate the count. Here is where the number comes from, a table by continent, and how to learn them.
The most common answer is 195. That is the 193 member states of the United Nations plus the two states that hold UN observer status: the Holy See (Vatican City) and the State of Palestine.
It is a sensible answer, and it is the one most schools and quiz books use. It is also a convention rather than a fact of nature. There is no single official world list of countries, and depending on whose list you use you can land anywhere from 193 to over 200.
Where 193 comes from
The UN is the closest thing the world has to a membership list for countries. It has had 193 members since 14 July 2011, when South Sudan joined after voting for independence from Sudan earlier that year. No country has joined since, so the number is still 193 in 2026.
Joining the UN is not simple. A state needs a recommendation from the Security Council, where any of the five permanent members can veto it, and then a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly. That veto is the main reason some places that act like countries are not on the list.
The two observers: Vatican City and Palestine
The UN has two non-member observer states. They take part in the General Assembly’s work but cannot vote there.
The Holy See
The Holy See is an observer by its own choice. It says it stays out to remain neutral in political disputes, and it turned down the chance of full membership in 2004. Strictly, the observer seat belongs to the Holy See, and Vatican City is its territory. Almost nobody disputes that Vatican City is a country.
Palestine
Palestine has been a non-member observer state since November 2012. It is recognised by more than 150 of the 193 UN members, and the count has grown since 2024 as several European states added their recognition. Its bid for full membership has been blocked by a US veto in the Security Council. In May 2024 the General Assembly gave it extra rights, including the right to speak in debates, while stopping short of membership.
Add those two to 193 and you get 195.
Why other lists give other numbers
A few places are counted by some lists and left out by others.
Taiwan
Taiwan has its own government, military, currency and passport, and it has run its own affairs since 1949. It lost the UN seat for “China” to the People’s Republic in 1971. Today only 12 governments recognise it diplomatically, one of them the Holy See. Some lists count it as a country; the UN-based list does not.
Kosovo
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. More than 100 UN members recognise it, although the exact total is disputed, and Serbia and Russia oppose its membership. It is not in the UN.
Western Sahara
Western Sahara is a territory where Morocco controls most of the land, while the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic claims the whole of it and controls a strip in the east. The SADR is a full member of the African Union, but not of the UN.
There are other edge cases too. The Cook Islands and Niue run their own affairs in free association with New Zealand. Somaliland has governed itself since 1991 with very little formal recognition. And sport has its own rules: FIFA has 211 member associations, partly because England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each field their own team.
So if you see 197 (UN plus observers plus Taiwan and Kosovo) or 196 (a common figure for flag sets), check which places the list includes. Each count follows its own rule.
Our own flags of the world reference covers 196: the 193 UN members plus Vatican City, Kosovo and Taiwan. We chose that set because people run into those flags and want to identify them. It means Palestine, which is in the 195, is not in that flag set.
Countries by continent
Continents are another convention. Is Russia European or Asian? What about Turkey, Egypt or Panama? For this table we count the 195 UN members and observer states, and we place each country on the continent where most of its population lives, with a few conventional choices:
- Russia and Cyprus count as Europe.
- Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan count as Asia.
- Egypt counts as Africa.
- Central America and the Caribbean count as North America.
- Palestine counts as Asia, and Vatican City as Europe.
| Continent | Countries |
|---|---|
| Africa | 54 |
| Asia | 47 |
| Europe | 45 |
| North America | 23 |
| Oceania | 14 |
| South America | 12 |
| Antarctica | 0 |
| Total | 195 |
Africa has the most countries, and every one of its 54 is a UN member. If you move the transcontinental countries around, Europe and Asia can each shift by several countries, which is why you will see slightly different tables elsewhere. Antarctica has no countries at all. Several nations claim parts of it, but the Antarctic Treaty freezes those claims.
How to learn them all
195 countries sounds like a lot. Broken into continents it becomes six lists of 12 to 54, which is a lot less daunting.
A method that works for us:
- Take one continent at a time. We like South America as a start: 12 countries and fairly few look-alike flags. Africa, with 54, is the big one. Leave it for later, but don’t skip it.
- Learn where each country sits before worrying about the names. Knowing its neighbours gives your memory something to attach the name to.
- Add flags and capitals on a second pass. Our guide on how to learn all the flags of the world goes through the look-alike pairs that cause most mistakes.
- Test yourself instead of re-reading. Trying to recall an answer builds memory. Staring at a list mostly builds a feeling of familiarity.
A few free places to practise on this site:
- The flags quiz gives you ten flags and scores you instantly, with no sign-up.
- The flags of the world pages show each flag with its colours, capital and closest look-alikes.
For the full set on your phone, our Android app Geography Quiz: Maps & Flags (GeoSpark) has a tap-the-map mode on a hand-drawn world map, flags and capitals quizzes, continent expeditions that open up as you learn, and a daily challenge. It uses spaced repetition, so the countries you keep getting wrong come back until they don’t. It works offline and needs no account.
The short answer
195 is the number to give if someone asks: 193 UN members, plus Vatican City and Palestine. If Taiwan or Kosovo comes up, ask which rule the list uses.