See also: 
 
 Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty 
 
 Total count of independent states: 195 
 
 * Diplomatic relations with the United States 
 
 + Member of United Nations 
 
 ! New change, since previous list 
 
 STATE 
 
 Short-form name Long-form name GENC 2A Code (see Note 2) GENC 3A Code (see Note 2) Capital Afghanistan *+ Islamic Republic of Afghanistan AF AFG Kabul Albania *+ Republic of Albania AL ALB Tirana Algeria *+ People's Democratic Republic of Algeria DZ DZA Algiers Andorra *+ Principality of Andorra AD AND Andorra la Vella Angola *+ Republic of Angola AO AGO Luanda Antigua and 
 
 Barbuda *+ Antigua and Barbuda AG ATG Saint John's Argentina *+ Argentine Republic AR ARG Buenos Aires Armenia *+ Republic of Armenia AM ARM Yerevan Australia *+ Commonwealth of Australia AU AUS Canberra Austria *+ Republic of Austria AT AUT Vienna Azerbaijan *+ Republic of Azerbaijan AZ AZE Baku Bahamas, The *+ Commonwealth 
 
 of The Bahamas BS BHS Nassau Bahrain *+ Kingdom of Bahrain BH BHR Manama Bangladesh *+ People's Republic 
 
 of Bangladesh BD BGD Dhaka Barbados *+ Barbados BB BRB Bridgetown Belarus *+ Republic of Belarus BY BLR Minsk Belgium *+ Kingdom of Belgium BE BEL Brussels Belize *+ Belize BZ BLZ Belmopan Benin *+ Republic of Benin BJ BEN Porto-Novo 
 
 Cotonou (seat of government) Bhutan + Kingdom of Bhutan BT BTN Thimphu Bolivia *+ Plurinational State of Bolivia BO BOL La Paz (administrative) 
 
 Sucre (legislative/judiciary) Bosnia and 
 
 Herzegovina *+ Bosnia and Herzegovina BA BIH Sarajevo Botswana *+ Republic of Botswana BW BWA Gaborone Brazil *+ Federative Republic of Brazil BR BRA Brasília Brunei *+ Brunei Darussalam BN BRN Bandar Seri Begawan Bulgaria *+ Republic of Bulgaria BG BGR Sofia Burkina Faso *+ Burkina Faso BF BFA Ouagadougou Burma *+ Union of Burma MM MMR Rangoon 
 
 Nay Pyi Taw (administrative) Burundi *+ Republic of Burundi BI BDI Bujumbura Cabo Verde *+ Republic of Cabo Verde CV CPV Praia Cambodia *+ Kingdom of Cambodia KH KHM Phnom Penh Cameroon *+ Republic of Cameroon CM CMR Yaoundé Canada *+ Canada CA CAN Ottawa Central 
 
 African Republic *+ Central African Republic CF CAF Bangui Chad *+ Republic of Chad TD TCD N'Djamena Chile *+ Republic of Chile CL CHL Santiago China *+ (see note 3) People's Republic of China CN CHN Beijing Colombia *+ Republic of Colombia CO COL Bogotá Comoros *+ Union of the Comoros KM COM Moroni Congo (Brazzaville) *+ 
 
 (see note 4) Republic of the Congo CG COG Brazzaville Congo (Kinshasa) *+ 
 
 (see note 4) Democratic Republic 
 
 of the Congo CD COD Kinshasa Costa Rica *+ Republic of Costa Rica CR CRI San José Côte d'Ivoire *+ Republic of Côte d'Ivoire CI CIV Yamoussoukro Croatia *+ Republic of Croatia HR HRV Zagreb Cuba *+ Republic of Cuba CU CUB Havana Cyprus *+ Republic of Cyprus CY CYP Nicosia Czechia *+ Czech Republic CZ CZE Prague Denmark *+ Kingdom of Denmark DK DNK Copenhagen Djibouti *+ Republic of Djibouti DJ DJI Djibouti Dominica *+ Commonwealth of Dominica DM DMA Roseau Dominican Republic *+ Dominican Republic DO DOM Santo Domingo Ecuador *+ Republic of Ecuador EC ECU Quito Egypt *+ Arab Republic of Egypt EG EGY Cairo El Salvador *+ Republic of El Salvador SV SLV San Salvador Equatorial Guinea *+ Republic of Equatorial Guinea GQ GNQ Malabo Eritrea *+ State of Eritrea ER ERI Asmara Estonia *+ Republic of Estonia EE EST Tallinn ! Eswatini *+ ! Kingdom of Eswatini SZ SWZ Mbabane (administrative) Lobamba (legislative) Ethiopia *+ Federal Democratic 
 
 Republic of Ethiopia ET ETH Addis Ababa Fiji *+ Republic of Fiji FJ FJI Suva Finland *+ Republic of Finland FI FIN Helsinki France *+ French Republic FR FRA Paris Gabon *+ Gabonese Republic GA GAB Libreville Gambia, The *+ Republic of The Gambia GM GMB Banjul Georgia *+ Georgia GE GEO Tbilisi Germany *+ Federal Republic of Germany DE DEU Berlin Ghana *+ Republic of Ghana GH GHA Accra Greece *+ Hellenic Republic GR GRC Athens Grenada *+ Grenada GD GRD Saint George's Guatemala *+ Republic of Guatemala GT GTM Guatemala City Guinea *+ Republic of Guinea GN GIN Conakry Guinea-Bissau *+ Republic of Guinea-Bissau GW GNB Bissau Guyana *+ Co-operative Republic of Guyana GY GUY Georgetown Haiti *+ Republic of Haiti HT HTI Port-au-Prince Holy See * Holy See VA VAT Vatican City Honduras *+ Republic of Honduras HN HND Tegucigalpa Hungary *+ Hungary HU HUN Budapest Iceland *+ Republic of Iceland IS ISL Reykjavík India *+ Republic of India IN IND New Delhi Indonesia *+ Republic of Indonesia ID IDN Jakarta Iran + Islamic Republic of Iran IR IRN Tehran Iraq *+ Republic of Iraq IQ IRQ Baghdad Ireland *+ Ireland IE IRL Dublin Israel *+ State of Israel IL ISR Jerusalem Italy *+ Italian Republic IT ITA Rome Jamaica *+ Jamaica JM JAM Kingston Japan *+ Japan JP JPN Tokyo Jordan *+ Hashemite 
 
 Kingdom of Jordan JO JOR Amman Kazakhstan *+ Republic of Kazakhstan KZ KAZ Astana Kenya *+ Republic of Kenya KE KEN Nairobi Kiribati *+ Republic of Kiribati KI KIR Tarawa Korea, North + Democratic People's Republic of Korea KP PRK Pyongyang Korea, South *+ Republic of Korea KR KOR Seoul Kosovo * Republic of Kosovo XK XKS Pristina Kuwait *+ State of Kuwait KW KWT Kuwait City Kyrgyzstan *+ Kyrgyz Republic KG KGZ Bishkek Laos *+ Lao People's 
 
 Democratic Republic LA LAO Vientiane Latvia *+ Republic of Latvia LV LVA Riga Lebanon *+ Lebanese Republic LB LBN Beirut Lesotho *+ Kingdom of Lesotho LS LSO Maseru Liberia *+ Republic of Liberia LR LBR Monrovia Libya *+ State of Libya LY LBY Tripoli Liechtenstein *+ Principality of Liechtenstein LI LIE Vaduz Lithuania *+ Republic of Lithuania LT LTU Vilnius Luxembourg *+ Grand Duchy of Luxembourg LU LUX Luxembourg Macedonia *+ Republic of Macedonia MK MKD Skopje Madagascar *+ Republic of Madagascar MG MDG Antananarivo Malawi *+ Republic of Malawi MW MWI Lilongwe Malaysia *+ Malaysia MY MYS Kuala Lumpur Maldives *+ Republic of Maldives MV MDV Male Mali *+ Republic of Mali ML MLI Bamako Malta *+ Republic of Malta MT MLT Valletta Marshall Islands *+ Republic of the 
 
 Marshall Islands MH MHL Majuro Mauritania *+ Islamic Republic 
 
 of Mauritania MR MRT Nouakchott Mauritius *+ Republic of Mauritius MU MUS Port Louis Mexico *+ United Mexican States MX MEX Mexico City Micronesia, 
 
 Federated States of *+ Federated States 
 
 of Micronesia FM FSM Palikir Moldova *+ Republic of Moldova MD MDA Chisinau Monaco *+ Principality of Monaco MC MCO Monaco Mongolia *+ Mongolia MN MNG Ulaanbaatar Montenegro *+ Montenegro ME MNE Podgorica Morocco *+ Kingdom of Morocco MA MAR Rabat Mozambique *+ Republic of Mozambique MZ MOZ Maputo Namibia *+ Republic of Namibia NA NAM Windhoek Nauru *+ Republic of Nauru NR NRU Yaren District 
 
 (no capital city) Nepal *+ Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal NP NPL Kathmandu Netherlands *+ Kingdom of the Netherlands NL NLD Amsterdam 
 
 The Hague (seat of government) New Zealand *+ New Zealand NZ NZL Wellington Nicaragua *+ Republic of Nicaragua NI NIC Managua Niger *+ Republic of Niger NE NER Niamey Nigeria *+ Federal Republic of Nigeria NG NGA Abuja Norway *+ Kingdom of Norway NO NOR Oslo Oman *+ Sultanate of Oman OM OMN Muscat Pakistan *+ Islamic Republic of Pakistan PK PAK Islamabad Palau *+ Republic of Palau PW PLW Ngerulmud Panama *+ Republic of Panama PA PAN Panama City Papua New Guinea *+ Independent State 
 
 of Papua New Guinea PG PNG Port Moresby Paraguay *+ Republic of Paraguay PY PRY Asunción Peru *+ Republic of Peru PE PER Lima Philippines *+ Republic of the Philippines PH PHL Manila Poland *+ Republic of Poland PL POL Warsaw Portugal *+ Portuguese Republic PT PRT Lisbon Qatar *+ State of Qatar QA QAT Doha Romania *+ Romania RO ROU Bucharest Russia *+ Russian Federation RU RUS Moscow Rwanda *+ Republic of Rwanda RW RWA Kigali Saint Kitts and Nevis *+ Federation of Saint 
 
 Kitts and Nevis KN KNA Basseterre Saint Lucia *+ Saint Lucia LC LCA Castries Saint Vincent and 
 
 the Grenadines *+ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines VC VCT Kingstown Samoa *+ Independent State of Samoa WS WSM Apia San Marino *+ Republic of San Marino SM SMR San Marino Sao Tome and Principe *+ Democratic Republic of 
 
 Sao Tome and Principe ST STP São Tomé Saudi Arabia *+ Kingdom of Saudi Arabia SA SAU Riyadh Senegal *+ Republic of Senegal SN SEN Dakar Serbia *+ Republic of Serbia RS SRB Belgrade Seychelles *+ Republic of Seychelles SC SYC Victoria Sierra Leone *+ Republic of Sierra Leone SL SLE Freetown Singapore *+ Republic of Singapore SG SGP Singapore Slovakia *+ Slovak Republic SK SVK Bratislava Slovenia *+ Republic of Slovenia SI SVN Ljubljana Solomon Islands *+ Solomon Islands SB SLB Honiara Somalia *+ Federal Republic of Somalia SO SOM Mogadishu South Africa *+ Republic of South Africa ZA ZAF Pretoria (administrative) 
 
 Cape Town (legislative) 
 
 Bloemfontein (judiciary) South Sudan *+ Republic of South Sudan SS SSD Juba Spain *+ Kingdom of Spain ES ESP Madrid Sri Lanka *+ Democratic Socialist 
 
 Republic of Sri Lanka LK LKA Colombo 
 
 Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte (legislative) Sudan *+ Republic of the Sudan SD SDN Khartoum Suriname *+ Republic of Suriname SR SUR Paramaribo Sweden *+ Kingdom of Sweden SE SWE Stockholm Switzerland *+ Swiss Confederation CH CHE Bern Syria *+ Syrian Arab Republic SY SYR Damascus Tajikistan *+ Republic of Tajikistan TJ TJK Dushanbe Tanzania *+ United Republic of Tanzania TZ TZA Dar es Salaam 
 
 Dodoma (legislative) Thailand *+ Kingdom of Thailand TH THA Bangkok Timor-Leste *+ Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste TL TLS Dili Togo *+ Togolese Republic TG TGO Lomé Tonga *+ Kingdom of Tonga TO TON Nuku'alofa Trinidad and Tobago *+ Republic of 
 
 Trinidad and Tobago TT TTO Port of Spain Tunisia *+ Republic of Tunisia TN TUN Tunis Turkey *+ Republic of Turkey TR TUR Ankara Turkmenistan *+ Turkmenistan TM TKM Ashgabat Tuvalu *+ Tuvalu TV TUV Funafuti Uganda *+ Republic of Uganda UG UGA Kampala Ukraine *+ Ukraine UA UKR Kyiv United Arab Emirates *+ United Arab Emirates AE ARE Abu Dhabi United Kingdom *+ United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland GB GBR London United States + United States of America US USA Washington, DC Uruguay *+ Oriental Republic of Uruguay UY URY Montevideo Uzbekistan *+ Republic of Uzbekistan UZ UZB Tashkent Vanuatu *+ Republic of Vanuatu VU VUT Port-Vila Venezuela *+ Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela VE VEN Caracas Vietnam *+ Socialist Republic of Vietnam VN VNM Hanoi Yemen *+ Republic of Yemen YE YEM Sanaa Zambia *+ Republic of Zambia ZM ZMB Lusaka Zimbabwe *+ Republic of Zimbabwe ZW ZWE Harare 
 
 OTHER 
 
 Short-form name Long-form name GENC 2A Code (see Note 2)! GENC 3A Code (see Note 2)! Capital Taiwan (see note 5) (no long-form name) TW TWN Taipei 
 
 Source: Office of The Geographer and Global Issues, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C 
 
 NOTES 
 
 Note 1: In this listing, the term "independent state" refers to a people politically organized 
 
 into a sovereign state with a definite territory recognized as independent by the US. 
 
 
 
 Note 2: Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC) Standard two-letter and three-letter codes. GENC is the replacement standard for FIPS 10-4 and is the U.S. Government profile of the ISO 3166 international country code standard. For more information on GENC please see https://nsgreg.nga.mil/genc/discovery. 
 
 
 
 Note 3: With the establishment of diplomatic relations with China on January 1, 1979, the 
 
 US Government recognized the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government 
 
 of China and acknowledged the Chinese position that there is only one China and that 
 
 Taiwan is part of China. 
 
 
 
 Note 4: "Congo" is the official short-form name for both the Republic of the Congo and the 
 
 Democratic Republic of the Congo. To distinguish one from the other, the U.S. Department 
 
 of State adds the capital in parentheses. This practice is unofficial and provisional. 
 
 
 
 Note 5: Claimed by both the Government of the People's Republic of China and the authorities 
 
 on Taiwan. Administered by the authorities on Taiwan. (see note 3) 

 The youngest person to travel to all sovereign countries is James Asquith (UK) who was 24 years and 192 days old when he arrived in the final country, Federated States of Micronesia, on 8 July 2013. 
 
 James visited his first country outside of the UK, Lithuania, between 26 and 31 May 2001. He then visited every other sovereign country between 4 July 2008 and 8 July 2013. 

 The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine 
 
 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds) 
 
 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. 

 Cassie spent her childhood growing up in Connecticut, alongside her brother, Jason De Pecol and parents Mark and Cynthia De Pecol. Friends came and went in Cassies early life, as she attended public school, Montessori, Waldorf and was home schooled by her parents all before returning back to public school for 7th-10th grade. In 11th grade she home schooled herself through Keystone National High School, taking college courses. It only took a year of being away from her friends, swim team and talent shows before she realized she wanted to go back. Secretly, she was excited at the opportunity to develop her “Senior Project” which consisted of a Global Warming Awareness Day in Washington, Depot, CT. Cassie believes her yearning for travel stems from her sporadic educational background. 
 
 Cassie’s interest in sustainable tourism evolved after attending her first year at Long Island University – Global College in Costa Rica. Traveling into the rain forest, visiting indigenous cultures and studying socio-economic and political affairs at the university peaked her interest on how to combine the experience of exquisite natural environments while benefiting the economies of local cultures. 
 
 She furthered her ecological knowledge at Green Mountain College in Vermont and also studied tourism. At the age of 19 she decided to “plunge” into the world of eco tourism by physically travelling to and working at various hotels around the world. At 24 years old, Cassie had traveled to over 24 countries primarily on her own with little money to spare. She had worked her way through her travels by sweeping floors, serving tables and planting seeds. 
 
 Cassie is now setting fourth on an international expedition to travel to all Sovereign Nations while leading as an IIPT Ambassador for Peace. For more information, please visit her website, Expedition 196. 
 
 Press/Articles 

 For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser . 
 
 Anyone prone to crippling envy should look away now because a 27-year-old is on her way to becoming the youngest person in history to visit every country in the world. 
 
 Cassie De Pecol, from the US state of Connecticut, has spent the last 16 months ticking off nations at a rate of knots - it's now 180 and counting - and expects to complete the full list before the end of the year by stepping foot in a further 16. 
 
 The whistlestop traveller, who has been documenting her experiences on Instagram under the moniker expedition_196, has spent around £160,000 so far, which includes 254 flight tickets, but has funded much of her trip through sponsors and by obtaining free accommodation in exchange for social media posts. 
 
 De Pecol, who says she spends between two and five days in each place, is also filming her travels for a documentary, acting as an ambassador for the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism and collecting water samples around the world for Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation. 
 
 "As a young woman, I'd always dream to travel to as many countries as possible and make our world a better place," she said. "It bothered me though that I could never figure out how to ignite this inner fire and make it happen. 
 
 "For the better part of my late teens and early twenties, I travelled. After having completed three and a half years of college, I booked a one-way ticket and travelled across four continents and 26 countries." 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 It was that initial voyage that sparked De Pecol's ambition to visit every country, and use her adventure to inspire good will around the world. 
 
 She is now back in Connecticut organising visas and transport to reach the last 16 - which are surprisingly spread across the globe: Greenland, Syria, Cameroon, Libya and Israel all remain. 
 
 De Pecol, who knows the self-defence system, Krav Maga, and is also a triathlete, said that when she has finished she plans to rent a cabin in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada, to reflect on the trip. 
 
 "I'd love to continue inspiring people and travelling," she said. 
 
 🇵🇹🐚 Portugal 🐚🇵🇹 Country #12 of #Expedition196 #PeaceThroughTourism #WorldTourismDay2015 A photo posted by ᶜᴬˢˢᴬᴺᴰᴿᴬ ᴰᴱ ᴾᴱᶜᴼᴸ (@expedition_196) on Sep 27, 2015 at 5:35pm PDT 
 
 De Pecol looks set to take the record for being the youngest person to step foot in all the world's countries - including disputed lands such as Taiwan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories - from 33-year-old Graham Hughes, who completed the same challenge in 2014, in just under four years. However, Hughes did it without ever flying. 
 
 For those without the time to tick off every one of the world's countries, there is a Travellers' Century Club for adventurers to manage 100 nations. The group notes 325 countries and territories, including parts of the countries removed from their parent. 
 
 The Telegraph, London 
 
 See also: Blogger pays just $300 for a $60,000 first-class trip 
 
 See also: Meet the Melbourne woman who sleeps in luxury hotels for a living
– Cassie De Pecol is only 27, but she's set to reach a milestone that most elderly people haven't accomplished: visit all of the world's countries, in her case in the fastest time and at the youngest age. The Connecticut native has been documenting her travels on the Expedition 196 site—there are 196 recognized sovereign nations in the world, though the US and some other entities don't count Taiwan—and posting pics on social media. She has just over a dozen nations left to hit, ideally by year's end, including Libya and Syria. Her expedition officially started on July 24, 2015, and she's trying to break the Guinness World Record of Graham Hughes, who accomplished the same feat in four years, 31 days in 2014 at the age of 33. (The youngest person to visit all of the nations was 24-year-old James Asquith, who did it in five years.) Per her website, De Pecol notes her travel bug was jump-started in college when she spent time in Costa Rica. According to her Twitter bio, she's now up to 181 countries; she spends two to five days in each. Though she's so far spent about $200,000 on her journey, which has included more than 250 flights, much of that has been paid for by sponsors and by bartering for free lodging in exchange for social media posts. But what's the world traveler going to do once she's gone everywhere she could possibly go? She tells Traveller she hopes to hole up in a rented cabin in British Columbia and reminisce about her most amazing adventure, as well as inspire other people to indulge their wanderlust. (Hope she felt fine in the world's top 10 "good" countries.)