Portal:Countries
The Countries Portal.svg) 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 country living. (Full article... )
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List of selected articles to understand countries
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General images -
The following are images from various country-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Percentage of people with undernutrition by country, World Food Program, 2020Under 2.5%2.5% – 5.0%5.0% – 14.9%15.0% – 24.9%25.0% – 34.9%Over 35.0%No data(from Developing country) -
World regions by total wealth (in trillions USD), 2018 (from Developing country) -
Solar cookers use sunlight as energy source for outdoor cooking. (from Developing country) -
Least developed economies according to ECOSOCLeast developed economies out of scope of the ECOSOCGraduated to developing economy
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Map of countries and territories by fertility rate as of 2020 (from Developing country) -
World map representing Human Development Index categories (based on 2022 data, published in 2024)(from Developing country)- Very high
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Flags of the United Nations member and non-member GA observer states in front of the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland (from List of sovereign states) -
A 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) -
Percentage of women older than 14 who have experienced violence by an intimate partner (from Developing country) -
Map of the Darién Gap at the border between Colombia and Panama (from List of transcontinental countries) -
Conventions 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.AsiaEuropehistorically placed in either continent(from List of transcontinental countries) -
Comparison 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) -
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Surface air temperature change over the past 50 years. (from Developing country) -
Developing countriesData unavailable
The latest classifications sorted by the IMF and the UN (from Developing country) -
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A 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. -
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African land part of EgyptAsian land part of EgyptThe rest of AfricaThe rest of Asia(from List of transcontinental countries) -
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Did you know...
- ... that the library of Raphael de Mercatellis was the first library in the Low Countries to "reveal an extensive interest in what we may call Renaissance ideas"?
Countries of the world -
Remaining countries not listed in the Recognized articles section at left are displayed here.
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 11 million inhabitants. But also the largest country in the Caribbean.
The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited as early as theTaíno peoples inhabiting the area at the time of Spanish colonization in the 15th century. It was then a colony of Spain, and slavery was abolished in 1886, remaining a colony until the Spanish–American War of 1898, when Cuba was occupied by the United States and gained independence in 1902. In 1940, Cuba implemented a new constitution, but mounting political unrest culminated in the 1952 Cuban coup d'état and the subsequent dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The Batista government was overthrown in January 1959 by the 26th of July Movement during the Cuban Revolution. That revolution established communist rule under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The country was a point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and nuclear war nearly broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced a severe economic downturn in the 1990s, known as the Special Period. In 2008, Fidel Castro retired after 49 years; Raúl Castro was elected his successor. Raúl Castro retired as president in 2018 and Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected president by the National Assembly following parliamentary elections. Raúl Castro retired as First Secretary of the Communist Party in 2021 and Díaz-Canel was elected. (Full article...
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Top 10 WikiProject Countries Popular articles of the month
This following country-related article is a most visited articles of WikiProject Countries, See complete list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Popular pages.
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The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly known as the ) -
Twelver Shia Islam as the official religion, marking the beginning of modern Iranian history.)
During the Afsharid Empire in the 18th century, Iran was a leading world power, though by the 19th century, it had lost significant territory through a series of conflicts with the Russian Empire. The early 20th century saw the Persian Constitutional Revolution and the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty. Attempts by Mohammad Mosaddegh to nationalize the country's vast fossil fuel supply led to an Anglo-American coup in 1953. After the Iranian Revolution, the monarchy was overthrown in 1979 and the Islamic Republic of Iran was established by The Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who became the country's first supreme leader. The forces of Saddam Hussein invaded the Iranian province of Khuzestan in 1980, initiating the Iran-Iraq War, which by the end of it in 1988, became the longest conventional war of the 20th century. Iran is officially governed as an Islamic Republic with a presidential system, albeit with ultimate authority vested in a supreme leader (rahbar), currently Ali Khamenei since Khomeini's death in 1989. The Iranian government has attracted criticism for its constraints and violations of human rights. (Full article... -
diffused into India from the northwest. Its evidence today is found in the hymns of the Rigveda. Preserved by an oral tradition that was resolutely vigilant, the Rigveda records the dawning of Hinduism in India. The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions.)
By 400 BCE, stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism,
and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.
Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin.
Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity, but also marked by the declining status of women, and the incorporation of untouchability into an organised system of belief. In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.
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... -
settlements across the occupied territories, actions which are deemed illegal under international law, and has annexed both East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, actions which are largely unrecognized internationally. Since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt, returning the Sinai Peninsula, and with Jordan, and has more recently normalized relations with several Arab countries. However, international efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not succeeded. Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism along with accusations from human rights organizations and United Nations officials that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Palestinian people. (Full article...)
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as thedecolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. British influence can be observed in the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies, and British culture remains globally influential, particularly in language, literature, music and sport. English is the world's most widely spoken language and the third-most spoken native language. (Full article...)
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an ongoing invasion. (Full article...)
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Maoist populism. In 1971, the PRC replaced the ROC as China's representation in the United Nations (UN). Following the Sino-Soviet split, the Shanghai Communiqué in 1972 marked the beginning of normalized relations with the United States. Economic reforms that began in 1978 led by reformists within the CCP moved the country away from a socialist planned economy toward an increasingly capitalist market economy, spurring significant economic growth, although liberal and democratic political reforms stalled after the June Fourth Incident in 1989. (Full article...)
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coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Japan has one of the world's longest life expectancies but has a population decline due to its very low birth rate. (Full article...)
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export-oriented industrial economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the 20th-largest by PPP measures, with a focus on steel, machinery, electronics, and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country. It is ranked highly in terms of civil liberties, healthcare, and human development. (Full article...)
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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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