How Many Countries are in the World?

I’ll admit it, I like setting some odd personal goals and can get pretty competitive. Combined with my love of travel, this has turned me into an avid country collector. I am always trying to add visits to new countries to my list. It is not as simple as checking off boxes, though. Each country collector must set their own baseline for what defines a visit and what qualifies as a country. I discuss my qualifications for counting a “visit” in a separate post. In this post I’ll discuss why deciding what should count as a country may be more complicated than it first appears.

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