How many Countries in the World?

States are established, live and die. For thousands of years, too many states have been established and fragmented. As of today, there is no way to determine exactly how many states were in our history. Even today, there're different numbers for sovereign countries.

According to United Nations (UN) there are 195 different sovereign countries. On the other hand, when we look at countries one by one, we get different results. For example, TRNC is recognized only by Turkey. Another example is Taiwan: Less than 20 countries have diplomatic relations with it.

The term of "de facto" tries to explain the situation. Just like TRNC, Palestine, and Republic of Abkhazia are other examples. There're also interesting facts: Pakistan doesn't recognize Armenia and Somaliland doesn't recognized by any country.

There are also microstates (or micronations) in the World. Their situation looks like same with Somaliland. Most famous ones are Sealand, Principality of Hutt River, Conch Republic.

It's hard to tell how many countries in the World. But it has to be minimum 195 countries, because FIBA and some similar international sport organizations have more then 200 members. Also when we consider at least a few of de facto ones, "minimum 195" can be true answer.