Country

There are 196 countries in the world, populated by 7.3 billion people speaking roughly 6,500 different languages.

Vatican City is the smallest country in the world by both area and population. The whole country is only 108.7 acres, which a population of just 1,000.

By many accounts, the Republic of San Marino, is the world's oldest country. The tiny country that is completely landlocked by Italy was founded on September 3, 301 AD.

The republic of Carpatho-Ruthenia existed for just one day, in 1939.

On December 30, 2012 a British man, Graham Hughes, set a new Guinness World Record by becoming the first person to visit all 193 countries of the United Nations - without using a plane. Mr Hughes spent four years travelling around the world, visiting 201 countries in total.

 American entrepreneur and professor Jim Kitchen is the first person to travel to all 193 United Nations recognized countries and to space. He traveled to space as a member of the NS-20 mission on March 31, 2022.

Apart from Vatican City, which has only 451 residents, the country with the lowest population is Tuvalu in the Pacific with around 10,000.

The seven largest countries in the world (Russia, Canada, USA, China, Australia, Brazil and Argentina) take half of our planet’s territory.

The youngest country in the world is Uganda, where 49% of the population is under 15.

One of the Windward Islands, Saint Lucia was named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse by the French, the island's first European settlers. It is the only country in the world named after a woman

The only countries that are double-landlocked—landlocked by countries that also landlocked—are Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.

Lesotho, Vatican City, and San Marino are the only countries completely surrounded by one other country. Lesotho is the largest - it's located in South Africa.

Many countries end in the word -istan because "stan" is an ancient Persian word that means "land".

Here is a list of songs with names of countries in their title.