The Rules of Counting Countries

This is Part One of our Series on answering the question: “How many countries have you been to?”

Once you start traveling, it doesn’t take long for the first person to ask you a question you are going to get asked over and over and over again.

How many countries have you been to?

The question is deceptively simple, and for the uninitiated, deliciously full of peril. 

When we leave home for the first time and land on foreign soil, we gleefully acknowledge our country count has doubled, going from one to two. This is where many travelers start, and innocently we assume it will always be this straightforward. 

But the question makes a very, very big assumption that the world is a neat and orderly place, where everything happens according to some tidy rule of country counting. 

Spoiler alert: the world is anything but tidy. 

Spoiler alert #2: there is no International Law of How You Have To Count Your Countries. It’s just a big free-for-all, and like so many other things travel-related, we’re left to figure it out on our own.

Since this falls into the topic of crucially important skills for the traveler, we thought we would attempt to answer the two basic questions at the heart of the matter.

Part 1: HOW MANY COUNTRIES? – How do you define a “country” and set up your list of contenders? (this is what you are reading now)

Part 2: HAVE YOU BEEN TO? – What needs to happen in order for you to say you’ve been there? (to read Part 2, CLICK HERE)

There are many schools of thought on both what to count and how to count it. We have set up our system after decades of traveling the globe conferring and listening to other travelers. In an effort to continue this critical conversation (at least it is to us), we here at Ten Degrees Warmer are setting down this manifesto with our official rules for both of these points. 

The wrong way to count countries

Counting countries is a data point, requiring some knowledge of geography, history, and politics. If you are a budding data nerd like me, then this conversation and all of its possibilities is educational and a lot of fun.

Please don’t be the person that reads this article as a blueprint on how to position yourself as superior to other travelers, or even to other non-travelers.

If Traveler A has been to 100 countries, and Traveler B has been to 3, does that automatically mean Traveler A is “better”? What if you find out Traveler A hit those 100 countries in a year rushing from airport layover to airport layover and only staying in tourist hotels, while Traveler B lived in three countries for two years each, interacting with locals, learning the language, and making deep and lasting connections?

The country count is simply a data point, and does not infer anything about quality.

Having a higher count doesn’t make you look cool. You’re a traveler, you are already cool as soon as you declare your intent to travel. Counting is just a fun way to quantify it. Which, of course, gives you a starting point for some fun conversations. 

On that same note, counting is FOR FUN. None of the following choices or classifications should be inferred as any kind of political support or message for any particular country or issue. We are just trying to count where we’ve been! 

Also, and this is important, while we thought it would be FUN to share the rules we follow, we fully recognize that there are plenty of people who will make different choices for a variety of reasons. And that is ok! We do not claim to be the arbiters of which rules are the “right” rules. We fully support you in choosing the rules/methods that make sense to you, without shame or judgment. We respectfully request you consider returning the favor, even (especially) if you disagree with us. 

If you do things different, I hope you will let us know how. While I’m pretty comfortable with taking this stand, considering the evolution I’ve already had on this topic, I’d be a fool to say I’d never change my mind. Good arguments will always be appreciated and considered. 

What counts as a country?

The first steps of putting together a list of countries almost always starts with the United Nations. They maintain their list of 193 officially recognized member countries. But in a preview of what is to come, even they admit it isn’t just that simple by also including two additional non-member states, Palestine and Vatican City, making the total 195. 

When you hear of people who are trying to visit every country in the world, this is usually the master list they go by. Simple and straightforward(ish), and as short as possible. 

But very quickly you start to see its limitations.

Let’s say you plan a trip to the Virgin Islands, or to Tahiti, or to Greenland. When you look at the UN list of countries, you’ll notice none of them are countries.

Now the traveler is faced with an impossible decision. Either their visit to Greenland doesn’t count at all, or it counts as visiting Denmark, Greenland’s mother country. Either choice seems wholly unsatisfactory.   

Instead, we naturally start to play fast and loose with the word “country”.

Territories and Dependencies

Territories and Dependencies are places like the Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and another 100 or so destinations across the globe. Most frequently they are islands claimed by a mother country, though not always (looking at you French Guiana and Gibraltar!)

So we have to decide – does visiting the British Virgin Islands mean we can cross England off of our list? Or do we want to add it to our master list as a separate and worthy destination on its own, and keep England in play for a future visit?

In my experience, most travelers are comfortable adding Territories to their country count. Technically this now makes your list a “Country and Territory and Dependency Count”. But for convenience (this is already long enough, don’t make me use more words!) we will continue to just call it the Country Count. 

Also, let’s get the United Kingdom out of the way. To me this is a no-brainer. Yes, the U.K. is a single country. But England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland all count as separate countries for the purpose of a count. 

Will you stop here? Many do.

Technically speaking, there is nothing to stop you from just ending things here. Counting just official countries and territories will get you to a little under 300 destinations to shoot for, which is a very respectable goal.

Stopping here will also save you some brainache, and is definitely going to be much easier to explain to others. 

For me though, I didn’t become a traveler because I like taking the easy answer. I like exploring the details and the unusual situations. Heck, most of my favorite travel stories involve unusual situations. 

And also, the above rules aren’t going to cover you when you find out about the patch of land in the world that is not claimed by any country. Or have you heard about the country that exists despite having no land? Yes, these are both real.

So, if you dare, traveler, let’s dig in a little deeper.

The conversation is already well underway

There are many different approaches to the next steps. Various travelers, bloggers, and organizations have all set forth their approaches and suggestions. Over the years we’ve been exposed to many different ideas from reputable and haphazard sources. 

One well-known example is the Travelers’ Century Club, which is a social club you can pay to join to fraternize with other well-traveled folk. Their total list currently stands at 330 destinations, and they acknowledge one of my biggest peeves with some lists, which starts with an H and rhymes with Bawai’i. I’m unfamiliar with their organization, but their rules mostly make sense to me. Mostly. 

The Most Traveled People (MTP) is another website to check out if you really want to go granular. They go for broke and have split the world into a staggering 1500 destinations. They also track hotels and restaurants and beaches. I applaud the thoroughness of it all, but it can be more than a bit overwhelming to get started with. (Quick, how many regions did you go to when you took that bus across Poland? I had to get out a map and cross reference highways.) They also require proof that you’ve been where you’ve said you’ve been, which is a key component of their rules. And if someone outside of that group ever asked me “How many countries have you been to” and I answered “632!”, I’m guessing there would be some confusion. 

So while I don’t follow either of these examples exactly, I definitely borrow from their (and others) philosophies. ::respectful bow::

Geographic Separation

This next category is one that has spawned countless debates. How do you count an area that is part of a mother country, but is geographically separated? It is a reasonable question, but each decision brings another example with different circumstances that require individual attention. 

A prime example is Sicily. Technically Sicily isn’t far from mainland Italy, but politically it is considered an autonomous region. Many would argue that due to its size and historical and political separation from Italy, it should be considered as a separate destination. 

Or take Kaliningrad, a Russian city in Europe that was cut off from mainland Russia when Latvia and Lithuania declared their independence from Russia in the 1990s. Shouldn’t that be counted differently than a visit to Moscow?

For Americans, all eyes are on Hawaii and Alaska. These are full states in the Union, but besides requiring significant travel to get to, each offers a significantly different experience than one would have visiting the mainland US. Counting them as a separate destination doesn’t seem totally inappropriate. I mean isn’t the person who has only been to New York and Hawaii more traveled than the person who has only been to New York and New Jersey?

And then there is Canada, with Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. 

The aforementioned Travelers’ Century Club includes all of the examples above as separate destinations, with one exception. Prince Edward Island is included as a separate destination since it is an island and is it’s own Province. Newfoundland however is not, as politically it is part of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Labrador is connected to the mainland. 

Is your head hurting yet?

Islands are definitely given special treatment here, since they are so easy to identify as separate destinations. However, including every island as a unique destination would be a daunting task when a quick google search shows that there are over 670,000 islands in the world.

After much deliberation, we came up with a formula based on the following four items, and so far we’ve been satisfied with the results. 

The formula behind the rules

1. Is the destination geographically separated from the mother country? (Generally speaking, at least 100 miles or more)
2. Is there significant historic, political, or religious precedent of separation?
3. Is the destination of significant size or population?
4. Is the destination of significant touristic interest separate from the mother country?

Meeting just one or two of these factors wouldn’t be enough to warrant separate counting status. But if they could demonstrate 3 or 4, that is when we added them to our list. 

Like the TCC, we include all of the above examples as separate destinations but differ when it comes to Canada. We do include Newfoundland as a separate destination as it is over 100 miles away from the rest of Canada so requires deliberate planning to visit. Prince Edward Island, on the other hand, is connected to the mainland by a bridge. While we definitely encourage a visit (who doesn’t want to go to the Anne of Green Gables house and try on red braids in the gift shop??), for us it just didn’t seem like a separate place from the rest of Canada. We similarly discounted American islands such as Martha’s Vineyard or Catalina, or Italian islands such as Capri, or Croatian islands such as Hvar, as they are close to shore and are easily accessible. 

Eventually you have to roll up your sleeves and look at Indonesia. An island nation made up of an estimated 18,000+ islands, it wouldn’t make sense to include them all separately, not even just the inhabited ones. But using the above criteria, we can make some generalizations. Culturally, you can point to some distinct religious separation within the country, with the predominantly Muslim nation in the West, the Hindu enclave of Bali in the center, and a growing Christian population in the far east. 

Bali is also far and away the largest tourist draw in the country. 

So we broke Indonesia up into three destinations by archipelago, further separating Bali into a fourth destination on its own.

We thought the Philippines might require similar treatment, but we realized the country is much more compact than Indonesia. With a lower level of physical separation, and with multiple islands drawing tourists’ attention, we decided to keep the Philippines intact as a single destination. 

Greece was another challenge. The mainland has significant historical and tourist draws, but so do many of their islands like Santorini, although for very different reasons (i.e. visiting the Parthenon vs lounging on a perfect beach.) So we broke Greece into the mainland and the two main island archipelagos, plus the island of Crete which also meets the distance and size requirements. 

Using these parameters helped us sort most of the remaining questions. 

Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet, and the island of Hainan are counted separately from China, not as a political statement, but because there are significant historical, political, and touristic precedents to do so, even thought not all of them satisfy the distance requirement. According to the UN they are all China, but from a conversational point of view, going to Tibet or Taipei is very different from going to Beijing.

The Baleric Islands are counted separately from Spain – see also Corsica (France), Sardinia (Italy), and Zanzibar (Tanzania) – due to geographical, political, and tourist divisions. 

Hopefully you get the idea. 

Obviously there are many, many islands in the world that one could visit. But as most don’t have a significant draw or infrastructure to accommodate tourism, we classify them along with their mother country. 

We should also probably mention Antarctica. It is technically not a country at all, but various countries have made claims, effectively creating seven different territories. So despite the fact that few people are ever going to visit more than one of them, to be consistent we do count each territory separately. 

But we have to talk about Bir Tawil

Bir Tawil is an uninhabited area of almost 800 square miles located between Egypt and Sudan. It holds the distinction of being the only land on the planet that, due to disputed borders drawn over 100 years ago, is unclaimed by any country. 

Since it is unclaimed, does that mean it doesn’t exist? Or should it be on our list?

But wait, there’s more!

Consider the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. They are in the exact opposite situation, a country with no land. A Catholic lay religious order, they are considered a sovereign entity by international law as they maintain diplomatic relations with many countries. They have their own passports and currency, just not any actual territory, save a few office buildings in Rome and Malta. 

Are these both oddities? Yes. But since both can technically be visited, we include them on our list. 

Note from our lawyers: we definitely do not recommend trekking to the middle of uninhabited desert, though some have. (Some have even tried to claim the land of Bir Tawil for their own “country”, however, predictably, that did not go over very well.)

But we are kicking ourselves that we didn’t know about the Sovereign Military Order of Malta during our recent visit to Malta. We even looked at the building they are in without realizing what it was and that it could count as another country visited!

How many Micronations have you been to?

If you’re REALLY ready to nerd out, check out this Wikipedia article on Micronations. These “are small, self-proclaimed entities that claim to be independent sovereign states but which are not acknowledged as such by any recognised sovereign state.”

Many of them are jokes, hoaxes, or activism-based, such as the Nation of Celestial Space, which in 1949 claimed the entirely of the universe, excepting Earth, in an effort to stop other countries from claiming extra-terrestrial lands.

I’ve actually visited a few micronations myself, including Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Republic of Užupis in Vilnius, Lithuania.

However, I do not count these on my official tally, regardless of how fun of a rabbit hole it might be to look them up. They have no official recognition from anyone but themselves, and we have to draw the line somewhere.

The Final Tally

We feel confident that the rules we are using make sense both as a fun way to keep counting our “countries”, but also as a common-sense-trying-to-do-the-best-we-can with all of these unusual situations and variables. 

This gives us a total count (as of March 2022) of 322 “Countries” (technically Countries, Territories, Dependancies, and other Unique and Separated lands) for the traveler to count as distinct destinations. 

But we recognize two things. 

One, no matter the state of the world today, things are going to change tomorrow. So whatever our rules are today, this list of rules will adapt to a changeable future. 

Secondly, one of the perks of traveling to so many places is that you learn to be flexible and open to new information. It is very possible that someone reading this will leave the perfect argument in the comments that convince us to change our minds about a particular destination, or point out a flaw in our logic, or that will inform us of another unusual situation. 

We are open to all of it. 

So what will you decide?

At the end of the day, these decisions are all yours. You can use our rules, or someone else’s, or make your own. There isn’t a “right” or a “wrong” answer. The point is to spark conversation and learn a little bit more about the world and its geography.

There is very little practical difference from saying you’ve been to 47 countries vs saying you’ve been to 54, or even 74. What matters is that we continue to seek the adventure, and share it with those that are interested. Every destination offers us opportunities to learn a little more about the world, about its peoples, and about ourselves. 

So despite knowing there are going to be people who disagree with our methods, we are sharing this to encourage the conversation, because we think talking about it enriches the entire community.  

And also because no other traveler should suffer the tragedy of visiting Malta without getting two countries for the price of one.