Country list

I get around, and I like it. But I have no plans to visit every country in the world by a set time. If I had, I wouldn’t have gone back to the same places twice, or even more than 50 times in some cases.

But what constitutes a country?

UN member states is one country list to go by. However, it’s not without ‘flaws’. Switzerland joined the UN in 2002, yet no one would claim Switzerland wasn’t a country before 2002.

Then there’s the Travelers’ Century Club. TCC counts 324 countries, or as they call it: countries and territories that are politically, ethnologically or geographically different. In some cases, I can’t understand their reasoning. They include Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, but not Llivia, the Spanish enclave in France. They include the Balearics as a separate country, but not Catalunya or Euskadi (Basque country). They count Abkhazia, but not Chechnya. They count Prince Edward Island, but not Quebec. That said, the TCC-list has inspired me to visit a few places I might not have bothered with otherwise, like the strangely fascinating Transdniestr and the Republika Srpska. Or Prince Edward Island and the Faroe Islands, two of our favourite places. Of the 324 countries listed, I’ve been to 154; all good fun, not to be taken too seriously.

In the end, though, I’ll stick with the 193 UN member countries, and add a few that are not members of the UN because one of the mighty countries of the Security Council is blocking their membership. Specifically, that means Palestine, Kosovo and Taiwan. I’ll also add Vatican City and the contested Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara). A few more might belong here, but this is it for now. Sophie’s World, then, has 198 countries. My daughters, Alexandra and Catarina, have been around, too. Alex has had more travelling years and has, of course, been around more.

AFRICA (17/55)