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Have you ever wondered how many countries there are in the world?
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While it may seem like a fairly straightforward question, it's actually quite complicated.
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The problem is - it depends on who you ask as to what answer you get and
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there is no one generally accepted answer. Also, the word 'country' has no official meaning.
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A good place to start might be an organisation that knows what they're talking about - the United Nations.
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There are currently 193 members of the UN.
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This is why this is the lowest number you'll ever hear to how many countries there are.
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Along with the 193 members, the UN also has two permanent non-member observer states -
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the Holy See (representing the Vatican City State), and the State of Palestine.
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Despite not being a member, the Vatican City is a country and is recognised by everyone as such.
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Despite being a country within a city within a country and small not only by country or
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city standards but more comparable in size to that of a small village with a population of around 800
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and a land area of less than half a square kilometre. It is officially the smallest country in the world
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and compared to the largest country, it is 38 million times smaller than Russia.
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But size doesn't matter and the fact of the matter is the Vatican City is a country.
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So... logic would dictate that the State of Palestine is also a country then, right?
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Well... no. Not yet anyway.
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The State of Palestine wants to be a full member of the UN and submitted an application is November of 2011.
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However, the only reason the Holy See isn't a full simply because...
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it doesn't want to be. Possibly because it wants to remain neutral.
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It seems unlikely that Palestine will gain full membership for one reason -
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the United States of America. If you're unaware of the situation in the Middle East,
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the Palestinians and the Israelis have waging war on and off for decades.
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And with Israel being of close ally of the United States, who often provide financial
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and military assistance to Israel, the US has always voted against Palestine.
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This is despite president Obama saying he does want a sovereign Palestinian state.
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The US didn't want Palestine to even become an observer state, but they still won an overwhelming majority.
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However, in order to gain full membership, the decision lies with the UN Security Council.
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The Security Council is made of 15 members - 5 permanent members (also known as The Big Five),
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and 10 non-permanent members who serve for 2 years.
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To become a full member of the UN a country must obtain a two-thirds majority vote.
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The Big Five consists of - China, Russia, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom,
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all of whom has what's known as 'veto power' in which they can veto any UN resolution
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and it won't get passed, even if all other 14 members are in favour of it. Therefore,
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the US can veto any membership application made by the State of Palestine.
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The UN aside, there are others reasons why you might hesitate to call Palestine a country.
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First of all, they don't actually have any legally defined borders and
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the lines used to outline their claimed territories of the West Bank and the Gaza strip
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are actually lines created in 1949 as part of an armistice agreement to end of the violence of the Arab-Israeli
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war and were never intended to be used as internal borders.
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On top of this, the Israeli army control huge parts of their land,
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although this is widely considered by the entire international community as a breach of international law.
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Moving on, the US Department of State list 195 independent countries, and these are...
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the 193 members of the UN, the previously discussed Vatican City, as well as...
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the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo is a partially recognised country in
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Eastern Europe that declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.
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However, Serbia rejects their independence and claims that Kosovo is a province of Serbia.
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Currently, 100 out of the 193 UN members recognise Kosovo as a country according to kosovothanksyou.com,
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a website that thanks every country for recognising them in their native language.
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Kosovo hasn't made an application for UN membership. This is because the UN Security Council is
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split on the issue of Kosovo independence. While the UK, the US and France all recogsnise Kosovo
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and have diplomatic relations with them, Russia and China do not.
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If all five were asked 'is Kosovo a country?', you would get a variety of different responses
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but suffice to say the resolution would not get passed. Now, according to a website I use quite a lot,
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about.com, there are 196 countries. They list the same 195 as the US Department of State,
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plus one more - Taiwan. The situation with Taiwan is an incredibly complex one
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that basically boils down to whether Taiwan is its own country, or part of China.
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While it is officially considered part of China by the UN,
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it effectively operates as its own country and China have no jurisdiction on Taiwan.
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Taiwan's official name, by the way, is the Republic of China,
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not to be confused with the PEOPLE'S Republic of China, or as they're more commonly know, well... China.
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To fully understand the situation we need to go all the way back to 1895
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when the Japanese Empire took control of the island of Taiwan from Qing Dynasty.
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After the fall of the Dynasty in the early 20th century, the Republic of China was established in 1912
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and the Nationalist Party were elected government.
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In 1921, the Communist Party of China was founded with very different ideological views,
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and in 1927 the Chinese Civil War began between the Nationalists and the Communists.
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Japan took the civil war as an opportunity to invade China in 1931.
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For years the civil war continued until 1937 when Japan began a full-scale invasion of China and took control of the city of Beijing.
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The civil war were temporarily put on hold so China could defend its land from the Japanese.
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In 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor,
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causing immediate declaration of war on Japan by the United States
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and began their involvement in World War II. In August 1945, the United States dropped
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atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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The Allied Forces then issued Japan a surrender ultimatum: the Potsdam Declaration.
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The agreement stated, among other things, that Japan must relinquish control of land that they had acquired via force,
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and this included the island of Taiwan obtained 50 years previously from the Qing Dynasty.
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The Allies gave two choices to Japan - an
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unconditional surrender, or face (and I quote) "prompt and utter destruction".
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On September 2nd 1945 Japan signed the agreement which put an ended to the 2nd World War.
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Sovereignty of Taiwan was therefore handed over to the Republic of China.
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Later that year, the United Nations was founded with the Republic of China as one its founding
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members and one of the permanent members of the Security Council.
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The original Big Five were effectively the same as today, except with the Republic of
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China and the Soviet Union instead of the People's Republic of China and the Russian
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Federation respectively. So... one year later and Chinese Civil War
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started up again. This time around, the Communist forces completely overwhelmed the Nationalist forces
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and in 1949, the Communist Part had total control of the mainland,
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forcing the Nationalists to retreat to the island of Taiwan. This effectively ended the civil war
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and lead to the creation of the People's Republic of China, by the Communist Party.
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This then created an incredibly complicated situation in which there were effectively two Chinas,
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both claiming the exact same land: the whole of China.
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The People's Republic of China controlled the mainland, while the Republic of China controlled Taiwan,
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but both claimed each others land. Things remained like this for two decades
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while the Republic of China continued to represent China at the UN.
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This was until 1971 when the UN General Assembly voted to replace the Republic of China with
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the People's Republic of China as China's sole representative, including Taiwan,
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despite them never having any jurisdiction on the island in their history.
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In 1991, the Republic of China opted for a different approach and applied for UN membership
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under the name 'the Republic of Taiwan'. Taiwan repeatedly re-applied but with China's veto
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power, realistically, it was never going to happen.
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The current president of Taiwan, however, does not want independence,
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and said in his inaugural address - "no reunification, no independence, no war". However has since said
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that actually he DOES want unification with China.
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Relations between the Chinese and Taiwanese presidents is good, they both agree Taiwan
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should not be an independent country, they both adhere to the one-China policy, unfortunately,
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they still can't agree on who actually has sovereignty over China.
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Still, Taiwan is pretty much like any country - they have their own passports, their own president,
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their own government, their own military, they even take part in sporting events
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such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup,
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albeit under the pseudonym 'Chinese Taipei', to keep China happy.
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So while very few countries officially recognise Taiwan as a country or
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the Republic of China as the legitimate government of all of China, most countries do recognise Taiwan unofficially
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and have Taiwan Embassies in their country. Countries tend to avoid officially recognising
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Taiwan as a country as it pisses off China. This is the reason why the US Department of State
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list 195 countries and excluded Taiwan, because the United States really wouldn't want to piss of China,
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for uh... let's just say political reasons....
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So... everyone clear on the situation with Taiwan? No? Well, no-one really is but let's
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move on... To the place where I live: the United Kingdom.
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More specifically Scotland but it's the United Kingdom I want to talk about.
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The United Kingdom is generally referred to as a "country of countries" consisting of: Scotland, England,
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Wales, and Northern Ireland. So... is the United Kingdom one country...
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or four countries? Well, first of all, it's actually a misconception
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that there are four countries in the UK. There's actually only three.
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See, while Scotland and England both have a history of being independent countries,
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and Wales is a little more complicated as it was previously considered a principality,
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but is now a country, Northern Ireland is not, nor has it ever been, a country.
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Northern Ireland is technically considered a province of the United Kingdom.
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This newsletter from the International Organisation for Standardisation clearly lists Northern Ireland as a province,
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as well as the status of Wales being upgraded from principality to country.
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Although it could be argued the principality of Wales ended in 1542 and that
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Wales has been a country for centuries. A very brief British history lesson...
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In 1707, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) joined to
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create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland joined to create the
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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Then, in 1922, after the Irish War of Independence
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Ireland succeeded from Britain and formed the Republic of Ireland.
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Believe it or not, very briefly, the whole island of Ireland succeeded from Britain,
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but Northern Ireland quickly and expectedly re-joined to create the United Kingdom of
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Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Which is what it's known as today.
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So, Northern Ireland was part of Ireland and is now part of the UK, but has been a country
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in its own right. Northern Ireland doesn't even have its own official flag!
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The St. Patrick's solitaire is sometimes used unofficially to distinguish Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
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The Ulster Banner is also used for sporting events and is the flag that FIFA use
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to represent their national football team. But the one and only flag that is used officially
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is... the Union Jack. So, the UK is made up of three countries and one province.
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And while the three countries are not independent countries or sovereign states,
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they are still countries. The term for a country within a country is
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a "constituent country" and is not unique to the UK.
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The Netherlands is constituent country with the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
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which contains three other countries: Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maartin.
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The Netherlands is in Europe, while the other three are island countries in the Caribbean
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some 5000 miles away. To further complicate matters,
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the Netherlands is made up of 12 provinces in Europe, as well as three special municipalities - also in
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the Caribbean. These are: Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba, collectively referred to as the Caribbean Netherlands.
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And the term Dutch Caribbean is used to refer to all of the
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Caribbean islands within the kingdom of the Netherlands. All 4 countries within the Kingdom are considered equal,
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but in reality, 98% of both the population and the land area of the within the 12 European provinces.
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Another example would be the Kingdom of Denmark,
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which holds sovereignty of the two autonomous countries of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
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Greenland being the world's largest island that's not a continent and
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the Faroe Islands are a small archipelago north of Scotland. But despite Greenland being over 1500 times
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the size of the Faroe Islands, they both have similar populations of around 50,000.
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There's also French Polynesia, which is an overseas country of the French Republic,
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made up of several islands in the South Pacific, most notable of which is the island of Tahiti.
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Then we come to a slightly more complicated situation with New Zealand and the countries
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of Niue and the Cook Islands who are in a agreement known as free association.
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There are only three other countries in the world under free association, and they are:
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the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. All in free association with the United States.
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The major difference is that all three of
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these countries are members of the UN while Niue and the Cook Islands are not.
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Freely associated states can either be thought of as independent or not, or even... both?
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It's kind of like a Schrodinger's cat situation in which the cat can be thought of as both dead and alive simultaneously.
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Niue and the Cook Islands can be considered independent or not simultaneously,
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so we can call these two.... Schrodinger's countries.
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And finally, we come to a category of countries (and I use the term loosely),
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that have received little or no recognition. One example would be Somaliland, part of Somalia that
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has declared itself an independent country but thus far received absolutely no recognition whatever
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ever... from any country, UN member or otherwise. Of course there are other examples,
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all of whom have received at least some recognition, albeit extremely limited, and in some cases,
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not by any UN members. External recognition is a key attribute to considered a country
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and therefore it would be a bit of a stretch to call any of them countries at the moment.
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So... how many countries are there in the world?
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Well, there really are no right or answers. Well, I mean, there are wrong answers...
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five... for example, is a wrong answer. But because of the ambiguity of the word 'country',
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there isn't one generally accepted answer. Hopefully you understand that the point of
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this video is that I provided you with the necessary information, so that you could apply your
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own judgement to get the answer. But if you really want some numbers,
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some possible answers would be... Just the members of the UN, counting the Vatican City
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since it's also a country, counting Kosovo - the most recognised country not in the UN,
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counting Taiwan - the unofficial country, counting the State of Palestine - the UN observer state,
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then we could count the unrecognised countries, the constituent countries, and
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Niue and the Cook Islands. Then things could get a bit out of hand and we could start calling everything a country.
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For example: Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. None of which are countries but given the dictionary
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definition it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to call them countries.
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Then we could come up with a near infinite number of answers depending on how you apply
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the use of the word 'country'. But it seems that the most widely accepted answer is 196.
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But it's important that you understand the answer of 196 so that if something changes
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you can adjust the number accordingly, or not.
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For example, if Kosovo hypothetically became the 194th member of the UN, there would still be 196 countries,
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but if you used 194 as your answer then you would need to add one.
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An important note to is that everything in this video is correct at the time it was uploaded in late June of 2013,
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and things may have changed depending on when you're watching this.
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Well, thank you very much for watching my very first YouTube video, and be sure to subscribe
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as I've got dozens more ideas for videos that I can't wait to start making. Thanks again!