How many countries are there in the world?
How many countries are there in the world?
195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
FIFA has 16 more members than the United Nations, which is why the World Cup includes teams from places without a UN seat.
The usual answer is 195: the 193 United Nations member states plus two non-member observer states, the Holy See and Palestine. It is a definitional answer, not a factual one. The International Olympic Committee recognises 206 national committees, FIFA has 211 member associations, and the ISO 3166 country-code standard lists 249 entries because it includes dependent territories such as Greenland and Puerto Rico. Kosovo, Taiwan and Western Sahara land differently on each list.
How the figure is arrived at
Nothing is measured; a list is chosen. The practical rule is to name your list first — "195 UN member and observer states" is a defensible sentence, "195 countries" is a claim that quietly picks a side on several territorial disputes.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 193
- High estimate
- 249
- Spread
- 1.3× between the bounds
Other things people built counts
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many nuclear weapons are there? about 12,200 warheads
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many books have ever been published? about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now
- How many airports are there in the world? about 45,000 with runways — but only around 4,000 with scheduled airline service
- How many ATMs are there in the world? about 3 million
- How many cities are there in the world? about 10,000 with over 50,000 people; 33 megacities over 10 million
- How many buildings are there in the world? somewhere between 1.5 and 4 billion
- How many computers are there in the world? roughly 2 billion personal computers in use
- How many miles of road are there in the world? about 64 million km — roughly 40 million miles
Common questions
- How many countries are there in the world?
- 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How is that estimated?
- Nothing is measured; a list is chosen. The practical rule is to name your list first — "195 UN member and observer states" is a defensible sentence, "195 countries" is a claim that quietly picks a side on several territorial disputes.
Related pages
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many nuclear weapons are there? about 12,200 warheads
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many books have ever been published? about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now
- How many people are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many stars are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many bones are in the human body? The human body
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? Living things and the natural world
- How many ants are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many trees are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
Sources
- The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (Public domain (US Government))