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 called countries.
The definition and usage of the word "country" are flexible and has 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...)
Selected articles to understand countries - show another
Countries by direction of road traffic, c. 2020
⇅ Left-hand traffic
⇵ Right-hand traffic
Left-hand traffic (LHT) and right-hand traffic (RHT) are the practices, in bidirectional traffic, of keeping to the left side and to the right side of the road, respectively. They are fundamental to traffic flow, and are sometimes called the rule of the road. The terms right- and left-hand drive refer to the position of the driver and the steering wheel in the vehicle and are, in automobiles, the reverse of the terms right- and left-hand traffic. The rule also includes where on the road a vehicle is to be driven, if there is room for more than one vehicle in the one direction, and the side on which the vehicle in the rear overtakes the one in the front. For example, a driver in an LHT country would typically overtake on the right of the vehicle being overtaken.
RHT is used in 165 countries and territories, mainly in the Americas, Continental Europe, northern Africa and mainland Asia (except South Asia), while 75 countries use LHT, which account for about a sixth of the world's land area, a quarter of its roads, and about a third of its population. In 1919, 104 of the world's territories were LHT and an equal number were RHT. Between 1919 and 1986, 34 of the LHT territories switched to RHT. (Full article...)
Image 3A 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 7A map of World Bank high-income economies in 2019; high-income economies are indicated in blue, while former high-income economies are shown in teal.
Image 9Comparison 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 10Percentage of women older than 14 who have experienced violence by an intimate partner (from Developing country)
Image 11Conventions 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.
Centered on the Congo Basin, the territory of the DRC was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was reached by the Bantu expansion about 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to 19th centuries. In the northeast, center, and east, the kingdoms of Azande, Luba, and Lunda ruled from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium formally acquired rights to the Congo territory from the colonial nations of Europe in 1885 and declared the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. From 1885 to 1908, his colonial military forced the local population to produce rubber and committed widespread atrocities. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory, which thus became a Belgian colony. (Full article...)
In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on India's southern and western coasts. Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains, eventually founding the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam. In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India. In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion. The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace, leaving a legacy of luminous architecture. Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning India into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty. British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly, but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and the public life took root. A pioneering and influential nationalist movement emerged, which was noted for nonviolent resistance and became the major factor in ending British rule. In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions, a Hindu-majority Dominion of India and a Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration. (Full article...)
Image 3
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of The Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is 27,750 km2 (10,714 sq mi), the third largest country in the Caribbean, and has an estimated population of 11.4 million,0 making it the most populous Caribbean country. The capital is Port-au-Prince.
The island was originally inhabited by the Taíno people. The first Europeans arrived in December 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus. Columbus founded the first European settlement in the Americas, La Navidad, on what is now the northeastern coast of Haiti. The island was claimed by Spain, forming part of the Spanish Empire until the early 17th century. Competing claims and settlements led to the west of the island being ceded to France in 1697, which was subsequently named Saint-Domingue. French colonists established sugarcaneplantations, worked by enslaved persons brought from Africa, which made the colony one of the world's richest.
In the midst of the French Revolution, enslaved persons, maroons, and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), led by a former slave and general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. Napoleon's forces were defeated by Louverture's successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), who declared Haiti's sovereignty on 1 January 1804, leading to a massacre of the French. The country became the first independent nation of the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country in the Americas to officially abolish slavery, and only country established by a slave revolt. President Jean-Pierre Boyer decided to invade and occupy Santo Domingo in February 1822, which eventually led to the long Haitian–Dominican war. Defeated, Haiti recognized Dominican independence in 1867, following their declaration in 1844. Haiti's first century of independence was characterized by political instability, ostracism by the international community, payment of a crippling debt to France and the vast cost of the war and the occupation of Santo Domingo. Political volatility and foreign economic influence prompted the US to occupy the country between 1915 and 1934. The last contingent of US Marines departed on August 15, 1934, after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde and Haïti regained its independence. François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier took power in 1957, ushering in a long period of autocratic rule continued by his son, Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier, that lasted until 1986; the period was characterized by state-sanctioned violence against the opposition and civilians, corruption, and economic stagnation. The country endured a 2004 coup d'état, which prompted U.N. intervention, as well as a catastrophic earthquake in 2010 that killed over 250,000 people and a cholera outbreak. Many countries canceled Haiti's debt, including France and the United States. With its deteriorating economic situation, Haiti has experienced a socioeconomic and political crisis marked by riots and protests, widespread hunger, and increased gang activity. As of February 2023, Haiti has no remaining elected government officials and has been described as a failed state. (Full article...)
One of the cradles of civilization, China has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era, with the earliest dynasties emerging in the Yellow River basin before the late second millennium BCE. The eighth to third centuries BCE saw a breakdown in the authority of the Zhou dynasty, accompanied by the emergence of administrative and military techniques, literature, philosophy, and historiography. In 221 BCE, China was unified under an emperor for the first time. Appointed non-hereditary officials began ruling counties instead of the aristocracy, ushering in more than two millennia of imperial dynasties including the Qin, Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing. With the invention of gunpowder and paper, the establishment of the Silk Road, and the building of the Great Wall, Chinese culture—including languages, traditions, architecture, philosophy and technology—flourished and has heavily influenced East Asia and beyond.
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 rankings of national economies over time have changed considerably; the United States surpassed the British Empire's output around 1916, which in turn had surpassed the Qing dynasty in aggregate output decades earlier. Since China's transition to a socialist market economy through controlled privatisation and deregulation, the country has seen its ranking increase from ninth in 1978, to second in 2010; China's economic growth accelerated during this period and its share of global nominal GDP surged from 2% in 1980 to 18% in 2021. Among others, India has also experienced an economic boom since the implementation of economic liberalisation in the early 1990s. (Full article...)
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