Driftlog › Guides › How to count the countries you've visited
There is no single number, because there is no single list. The United Nations has 193 member states, plus 2 observer states that are not members (the Holy See and the State of Palestine). The US State Department's list of independent states has 197, on a fact sheet dated 11 August 2026. The Travelers' Century Club list has 330 countries and territories. NomadMania divides the world into 1,381 regions, and Most Traveled People into more than 1,500. ISO 3166-1, the list of two-letter country codes that software uses, has 249 entries. So your number depends on two choices: which list you count on, and what you call a visit.
Where I stand. I make Driftlog, a travel log app, and the Driftlog Counter, a free web page that counts countries from your photos. Both had to pick a counting rule. They come last on this page.
The numbers differ because each list counts a different thing. None of them is the wrong one.
| List | Number | What it counts | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|---|
| UN member states | 193 | Sovereign states admitted to the UN. The newest is South Sudan, in 2011. | What most people mean by every country in the world. NomadMania and Most Traveled People use it as their country list. |
| UN observer states | 2 more | The Holy See and the State of Palestine. Observers, not members. | 193 + 2 gives 195, the other number you will hear. |
| US State Department, Independent States in the World | 197 | States the US recognises as independent: the 193 UN members plus the Holy See, Kosovo, the Cook Islands and Niue. Taiwan is listed apart, under the heading Other. | The US government. The 197 includes the United States. |
| Travelers' Century Club (TCC) | 330 | Countries, plus places that are not countries in their own right, such as Alaska, Hawaii, England, Scotland and Wales. As of January 2022. | Its members. Anyone who has been to 100 places on the list can join. |
| NomadMania regions | 1,381 | Countries divided into regions by size, population, culture, economy and tourism. | Travellers ranked on nomadmania.com. |
| Most Traveled People (MTP) regions | Over 1,500 | MTP's own breakdown of the world into regions. | Travellers ranked on mtp.travel. |
| ISO 3166-1 | 249 | Two-letter codes for countries and territories. Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Greenland have one. England, Scotland, Wales and Kosovo do not. | Software. The Driftlog app counts by two-letter code. |
About the last row: ISO's own website does not let a script read it, so the 249 is my count of the copy published with the IANA time zone database (version 2026e).
The same trip is one country on one list and nothing on another. The two columns on the right are my own tools.
| Place | UN (193) | US State Dept (197) | TCC (330) | Driftlog Counter (194) | Driftlog app |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiwan | Not a member | Listed apart, under Other | One | Counted | One |
| Hong Kong, Macau | Not members | Dependencies list, under China | One each | Named, not counted | One each |
| Palestine | Observer state | Not listed | One | Named, not counted | Depends on the code returned |
| Vatican City | Observer state, as the Holy See | Counted, as the Holy See | One | Named, not counted | Depends on the code returned |
| Kosovo | Not a member | Counted | One | Named, not counted | Depends on the code returned |
| Northern Cyprus | Not a member | Not listed | One | Counted as Cyprus | No entry of its own |
| Cook Islands, Niue | Not members | Counted, one each | One each | Named, not counted | One each |
| Greenland | Not a member | Dependencies list, under Denmark | One | Named, not counted | One |
| Puerto Rico | Not a member | Dependencies list, under the United States | One | Named, not counted | One |
| Hawaii, Alaska | Part of the United States | Part of the United States | One each, apart from the contiguous United States | United States | United States |
| England, Scotland, Wales | One member, the United Kingdom | One state, the United Kingdom | One each, and Northern Ireland too | United Kingdom | United Kingdom |
Dependencies list: the State Department's separate list of dependencies and areas of special sovereignty. Named, not counted: the Counter shows the place by name on the map but leaves it out of its number. Depends on the code returned: the app counts the country code that the map service returns for the recorded position, so disputed land and very small states can go either way. The United Kingdom has one two-letter code.
The UN and the State Department publish lists of countries. Neither says what a visit is. The travel clubs do, and they give opposite answers.
The club decided that “even the shortest visit would suffice”, in the words of its list page. A port call or a refuelling stop counts, as long as you get off the plane, ship or vehicle and stand on the ground. The club adds that it prefers longer visits.
NomadMania wrote down what a minimal visit is in May 2023, after two polls of its members.
No rule is the correct one. These are the common ones, roughly from loosest to strictest.
Whatever you pick, apply it to your old trips too, and give the list and the rule with your number: 42 UN member states, layovers not counted.
This part is about things I make. Here is how each one counts, and where it gets it wrong.
A web page that reads the location saved in your photos, or a Google Maps Timeline export, and gives you a count and a map. It runs in the browser, with nothing uploaded and no account.
Open the Driftlog Counter. The source code is on GitHub under the MIT licence.
It records country, region, city and dates by itself, and rebuilds earlier trips from the location saved in your photos.
Where it is the wrong tool. It does not split Alaska, Hawaii, England, Scotland or Wales, so it will not match the Travelers' Century Club list. It is a keepsake, not a legal record: not for visa days or tax residency.
Free to download, and every country fills in on the map and counts. Details from your second foreign country on open with a one-time purchase of US$6.99. No subscription, no ads, no account. These rules are from iPhone version 1.7.2, and the Android version can differ.
There is no single agreed number. The United Nations has 193 member states and 2 non-member observer states, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. The US State Department lists 197 independent states. The Travelers' Century Club counts 330 countries and territories.
It depends on your rule. The Travelers' Century Club counts any stop, however short, if you got off the plane and set foot on the ground. NomadMania does not count a visit that stayed inside the airport, even if you went through immigration.
Under the Travelers' Century Club rule, yes, if you left the aircraft and stood on the ground. Under NomadMania's rules, no: airport-only visits are rejected with or without immigration, and so is a night in an airport hotel. Flying over a country counts under neither.
Taiwan is not a UN member state, and the US State Department lists it apart from its 197 independent states. It is one entry on the Travelers' Century Club list. The Driftlog Counter counts the 193 UN member states plus Taiwan, and the Driftlog app counts it as one.
Not on the UN list, and not among the State Department's 197 independent states. The Travelers' Century Club counts each as one. The Driftlog Counter names them without counting them, and the Driftlog app counts each as one.
On the UN and State Department lists they are one country, the United Kingdom. The Travelers' Century Club lists England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as four separate entries. The Driftlog Counter and the Driftlog app count them once, as the United Kingdom.
There is no rule. Lists of countries include your own, and the State Department's 197 includes the United States. When you compare numbers, say whether yours includes home. In the Driftlog app, the count on the map includes your home country if you have trips recorded there.
Start with what you already have. Photos taken with location on record where they were taken, and a Google Maps Timeline export lists where your phone has been. The free Driftlog Counter reads either in your browser, with nothing uploaded, and gives a count and a map.
How this page was made. Apart from the ISO count, every number and rule above was read on the organisation's own page on 4 October 2026. Lists get revised. If something here is wrong or out of date, email me at shiori.sutudio@gmail.com and I will fix it and change the date.