This is a list of sovereign states giving an overview of states around the world with information on the status and recognition of their sovereignty.
The list contains 206 entries. The states are divided using two distinct methods:
- The membership within the United Nations system column divides the states into two categories: 193 member states and one observer state in the United Nations, and 12 other states.
- The sovereignty disputes column divides the states into two categories: 16 states whose sovereignty is disputed and 190 other states.
Compiling a list such as this can be a difficult and controversial process, as there is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations concerning the criteria for statehood. For more information on the criteria used to determine the contents of this list, please see the criteria for inclusion section below.
Read more about List Of Sovereign States: List of States, Criteria For Inclusion
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, sovereign and/or states:
“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“If a Sovereign should, by great accident, deviate into moderation, justice, and clemency, what a contemptible figure would he make in the catalogue of Princes!”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)