Travel Tips

The problem of defining 'what is a country' is quite a complex one really because there is no standard definition of what constitutes a country. Is it control of borders? Foreign policy? Recognition by some or all other countries? Whatever the standard, the answer will be different...
The 'easiest' way to solve the problem would be to take the standard of the United Nations. As of today, there are 192 members in the UN plus the Vatican, which is recognised as an associate member, so that makes a total of 193. However, the weakness of this standard can be seen historically in that some recognised countries like Switzerland were not UN members until very recently. And what about Taiwan, for instance? Is it a country? Well, the UN say no.

If you type 'list of countries' in wikipedia, you will come up with a list more extensive that the UN list. This includes not only the standard UN members, but also self-governing territories like French Caledonia, Gibraltar, Falklands, Greenland etc, as well as de facto independent countries, which may have not been recognised generally, but behave as if they were independent. This is quite a good measure really, but there are some weaknesses here too. Guadeloupe and Martinique, for example, are not considered as they are provinces of France...but aren't these different enough to warrant a 'country' listing? And this standard also mentions Akrotiri and Dekelia on Cyprus as separate by virtue of them being British land, even though they only house army bases...is this good enough?

The Travel Century Club is a group of those who have been to more than 100 countries - as defined by the TCC. Their list includes 317 countries with a lot of emphasis on islands as separate territories. For example, their list includes Sardinia and Corsica as separate, yet does not include Abhkazia or Nagorno-Karabakh which wikipedia does, as they are not 'independent'. A double standard, I dare say. Plus, the TCC list gives a lot of emphasis on the different bases of Antarctica, even though they only house a few scientists and have no culture so to speak of...so, can these be defined as countries?

Charles Veley has come up with his own website: www.mosttraveledpeople.com which is fun and informative, and basically has 673 'countries'. I am at present 77th on their list of most travelled people based on their criteria, but the problem is that as a country you find, among other things, abandoned rocks and the most insane of enclaves. Why do the US, Brazil, Mexico, India and China get divided into territories while, for example, France doesn't? If we begin with a standard this detailed, maybe everything is a country...every village!

I like Jeff Shea, he has class and an attitude. He has come up with what he calls an ISO 3166-2 list that has 3978 provinces. He is careful not to name these countries, nor does he open a competition for going there. Nor am I clear exactly what is included in the list, but it seems that he takes into account all national provinces too. So do you think we should go with this? Almost 4000 bits of the world to see? Could be reasonable, but again sounds a bit too exaggerated both culturally and practically. Provinces are often marked for administrative reasons, and that is their only use sometimes within a country. I don't know if a global traveller should be aiming at all of these...

a. Does a country have its own flag? This, nevertheless, is not an adequate standard. Many of the French colonies have the same flag as France. Shouldn't they be considered separately?
b. Does a country have its own phone code? Yet, US and Canada both have the prefix +1 while Kosovo uses Monaco's prefix +377....
c. Does a country issue its own stamps? But here we must consider that stamp issuing is not necessarily a government activity.
d. Does a country have its own currency? With currencies like the euro or the African CFA, clearly this is not an adequate standard...
e. Does a country have or did it ever have control of its own borders? This may be the closest we can get to the definition of a country...but again zones like Schengen will blur this standard in the future...