The following is a list providing an overview of sovereign statesaround the world, with information on their status and recognition of their sovereignty. The 206 listed states can be divided into three categories based on membership within the United Nations System: 193 member states, two observer states and 11 other states. The sovereignty dispute column indicates states having undisputed sovereignty and states having disputed sovereignty. Compiling a list such as this can be a difficult and controversial process, as there is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations concerning the criteria for statehood. For more information on the criteria used to determine the contents of this list, please see the criteria for inclusion section below. The list is intended to include entities that have been recognised as having de facto status as sovereign states, and inclusion should not be seen as an endorsement of any specific claim to statehood in legal terms.
The dominant customary international law standard of statehood is the declarative theory of statehood, which was codified by the Montevideo Convention of 1933. The Convention defines the state as a person of international law if it "possess the following qualifications: a permanent population; a defined territory; government; and a capacity to enter into relations with the other states" so long as it was not "obtained by force whether this consists in the employment of arms, in threatening diplomatic representations, or in any other effective coercive measure". Debate exists on the degree to which recognition should be included as a criterion of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood argues that statehood is purely objective and recognition of a state by other states is irrelevant. On the other end of the spectrum, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law only if it is recognised as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list, included are all states that either:
consider themselves sovereign and are often regarded as satisfying the declarative theory of statehood, or
Note that in some cases, there is a divergence of opinion over the interpretation of the first point, and whether an entity satisfies it is disputed. Unique political entities which fail to meet the classification of a sovereign state are considered proto-states. On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 206 entities:
203 states recognised by at least one UN member state
Two states that satisfy the declarative theory of statehood and are recognised only by non-UN member states: Artsakh, Transnistria
One state that satisfies the declarative theory of statehood and is not recognised by any other state: Somaliland
The table includes bullets representing entities which are either not sovereign states or have a close association to another sovereign state. It also includes subnational areas where the sovereignty of the titular state is limited by an international agreement. Taken together, these include:
