Disputed territories and counting the world’s countries
Every geography game has to settle a political question: what counts as a country? Here is the rule we use, and what it leaves out.
A geography quiz cannot be neutral by omission: including or excluding Kosovo is a choice, in either direction. Better to explain it.
The rule we use
GeoG keeps the 195 states recognised by the United Nations: its 193 members, plus its two permanent observers — the Holy See and Palestine. It is the count most atlases and textbooks use, and above all the only one that is verifiable: it does not depend on our judgement but on a public list kept by a third party.
The full reasoning is set out in our guide “how many countries are there in the world?”
What that rule excludes
Taiwan
The Republic of China governs 23 million people, mints its own currency, issues its own passports and produces most of the planet's advanced semiconductors. It lost its UN seat in 1971 to Beijing, and is officially recognised by only about a dozen states. The UN criterion therefore leaves it out — it is the most debatable exclusion on the list, and it is owned as such.
Kosovo
Unilaterally independent since 2008, recognised by around a hundred states including France and the United States, but not by Serbia, Russia or China — which blocks UN membership. Kosovo is absent from the game, including from the border calculations: it is one of the reasons the neighbour count for Serbia or Montenegro can differ from other sources.
Western Sahara
A non-self-governing territory in UN terms, claimed by Morocco and by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. It does not appear separately, and its borders create no link in Borders mode.
Somaliland
De facto independent since 1991, with its own government, currency and elections — but recognised by no UN member state. Absent, therefore.
The unrecognised post-Soviet states
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh: controlled in fact, recognised by a handful of states or none. All absent.
What the rule includes, and surprises people
Palestine is in the game, because it has been a UN non-member observer state since 2012 — on the same footing as the Holy See. That is a direct consequence of the criterion, not a position.
Vatican City, for the same reason, is among the 195 — which gives us the smallest country in the world, at under half a square kilometre.
And non-sovereign territories?
Territories attached to a state — Greenland, New Caledonia, Puerto Rico, French Guiana, Hong Kong, Gibraltar — are not countries and do not appear on the list. That has one visible consequence: the game keeps metropolitan France, without French Guiana, and therefore without a border with Brazil or Suriname.
None of these rules is a value judgement. They are conventions, chosen to be stable and verifiable — and stated here so that nobody has to guess them.
Frequently asked
Why is Taiwan not in the game?
Why is Palestine in it?
Does Kosovo count as a neighbour of Serbia?
Is French Guiana part of France in the game?
Put it into practice
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