The marked territories on this global map are mostly of countries which are sovereign states with full international recognition (brackets denote the country of a marked territory that is not a sovereign state). Some territories are countries in their own right but are not recognized as such (e.g. Taiwan), and some few marked territories are disputed about which country they belong to (e.g. Kashmir) or if they are countries in their own right (e.g. Western Sahara (territory) or the state known by the same name).
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, states with limited recognition, constituent country, or a dependent territory. Most sovereign states, but not all countries, are members of the United Nations. There is no universal agreement on the number of "countries" in the world since several states have disputed sovereignty status, limited recognition and a number of non-sovereign entities are commonly considered countries.
The definition and usage of the word "country" are flexible and have changed over time. The Economist wrote in 2010 that "any attempt to find a clear definition of a country soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies."
Areas much smaller than a political entity may be referred to as a "country", such as the West Country in England, "big sky country" (used in various contexts of the American West), "coal country" (used to describe coal-mining regions), or simply "the country" (used to describe a rural area). The term "country" is also used as a qualifier descriptively, such as country music or country living. (Full article...)
A national flag is a flag that represents and symbolizes a given sovereign state. It is flown by the government of that nation, but can also be flown by its citizens. A national flag is typically designed with specific meanings for its colours and symbols, which may also be used separately from the flag as a symbol of the nation. The design of a national flag is sometimes altered after the occurrence of important historical events. (Full article...)
Image 12A formation of human chain at India Gate by the women from different walks of life at the launch of a National Campaign on prevention of violence against women, in New Delhi on 2 October 2009 (from Developing country)
Image 13Conventions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The red line shows the most common modern convention, in use since c. 1850.
Image 14Percentage of women older than 14 who have experienced violence by an intimate partner (from Developing country)
Image 15Comparison map: Greenland, the Faroe Islands (enlarged) and Denmark differ significantly in size. The Danish Realm is spread across the North Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. (from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 16World map representing Human Development Index categories (based on 2022 data, published in 2024)
Remaining countries not listed in the Recognized articles section at left are displayed here.
Tonga (/ˈtɒŋə/TONG-ə, /ˈtɒŋɡə/ⓘTONG-gə; Tongan:[ˈtoŋa]), officially the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about 750 km2 (290 sq mi), scattered over 700,000 km2 (270,000 sq mi) in the southern Pacific Ocean. As of 2021,[update] according to Johnson's Tribune, Tonga has a population of 104,494,0 70% of whom reside on the main island, Tongatapu. The country stretches approximately 800 km (500 mi; 430 nmi) north-south. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west, Niue (the nearest foreign territory) to the east and Kermadec (New Zealand) to the southwest. Tonga is about 1,800 km (1,100 mi; 970 nmi) from New Zealand's North Island.
Tonga was first inhabited roughly 2,500 years ago by the Lapita civilization, Polynesian settlers who gradually evolved a distinct and strong ethnic identity, language, and culture as the Tongan people. They quickly established a powerful footing across the South Pacific, and this period of Tongan expansionism and colonization is known as the Tuʻi Tonga Empire. From the rule of the first Tongan king, ʻAhoʻeitu, Tonga grew into a regional power. It was a thalassocracy that conquered and controlled unprecedented swathes of the Pacific, from parts of the Solomon Islands and the whole of New Caledonia and Fiji in the west to Samoa and Niue and even as far as parts of modern-day French Polynesia in the east. Tuʻi Tonga became renowned for its economic, ethnic, and cultural influence over the Pacific, which remained strong even after the Samoan revolution of the 13th century and Europeans' discovery of the islands in 1616. (Full article...)
Though a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with the European kingdoms of Norway and Denmark for more than a millennium, beginning in 986. Greenland has been inhabited at intervals over at least the last 4,500 years by circumpolar peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada. Norsemen from Norway settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century (having previously settled Iceland), and their descendants lived in Greenland for 400 years until disappearing in the late 15th century. The 13th century saw the arrival of Inuit.
Since the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese had been trying to discover the northern passage to Asia, culminating in the oldest cartographic representation of its coast. Later in the early 17th century, Dano-Norwegian explorers reached Greenland again, finding their earlier settlement extinct and reestablishing a permanent Scandinavian presence on the island. When Denmark and Norway separated in 1814, Greenland was transferred from the Norwegian to the Danish crown. Since the 19th century, Greenland was seen by the Danish kingdom as one of its ancestral lands and part of its national identity, linked to a thousand-year-old Nordic history, unlike its Caribbean and Asian overseas colonies. The 1953 Constitution of Denmark integrated Greenland fully into the Danish state, ended its status as a colony and made the people in Greenland citizens of Denmark. As Danish citizens, Greenlanders can live, study and work in Denmark and the European Economic Area. In the 1979 Greenlandic home rule referendum, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland; in the 2008 Greenlandic self-government referendum, Greenlanders voted for the Self-Government Act, which transferred more power from the Danish government to the local Naalakkersuisut (Greenlandic government). Under this structure, Greenland gradually assumed responsibility for a number of governmental services and areas of competence. Under the 1978 Home Rule Act, Naalakkersuisut has assumed responsibility of 17 out of 17 areas, including tax policies, policies of the Greenlandic church, fishery, the education system, social policies, and the health care system. Under the 2009 Self-Government Act, Naalakkersuisut has assumed responsibility of 3 out of 33 areas, these are timezone policies, policies regarding raw materials, and working conditions for off-shore work. Due to the Constitution, the Danish government retains control of citizenship, monetary policy, Supreme Court, security policies (including military affairs), and foreign affairs. Most residents of Greenland are Inuit. With the melting of the ice due to global warming, its abundance of mineral wealth and its strategic position between Europe, North America and the Arctic zone, Greenland is of interest to great powers. Denmark was a founding member of NATO in 1949, and Greenland thus became part of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. The United States has a NATO military base on the island (Pituffik Space Base) under the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement with the Danish government. The United States recognized Danish sovereignty over all of Greenland for eternity by a 1917 treaty. (Full article...)
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the market value of all final goods and services from a nation in a given year. Countries are sorted by nominal GDP estimates from financial and statistical institutions, which are calculated at market or government official exchange rates. Nominal GDP does not take into account differences in the cost of living in different countries, and the results can vary greatly from one year to another based on fluctuations in the exchange rates of the country's currency. Such fluctuations may change a country's ranking from one year to the next, even though they often make little or no difference in the standard of living of its population.
Comparisons of national wealth are also frequently made based on purchasing power parity (PPP), to adjust for differences in the cost of living in different countries. Other metrics, nominal GDP per capita and a corresponding GDP (PPP) per capita are used for comparing national standard of living. On the whole, PPP per capita figures are less spread than nominal GDP per capita figures.
The name "Syria" historically referred to a wider region, broadly synonymous with the Levant and known in Arabic as ash-Sham. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Damascus and Aleppo are cities of great cultural significance. Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital for the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. The state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces. It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the First Syrian Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the French Mandate. French troops withdrew in April 1946, granting the nation de facto independence.