The 15 Countries People Think Are FAKE

By 1975, Israel was widely unrecognized across africa---the middle east europe and asia but Israeli and American diplomacy along with massive geopolitical shifts would dramatically change that over the next several decades.

In 1979,Egypt broke ranks with the rest of the Arab world by becoming the first Arab state to recognize Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai peninsula which Israel had previously seized during the six day war of 1967.

By 1986, Franco was long dead and Spain became the final country of western Europe to recognize israel.

By the 1990s,the soviet union had collapsed and Eastern Europe along with China finally got around to recognizing Israel as well. Jordan became the second Arab state to recognize Israel in 1994.Israel managed to convince guinea to recognize them in 2016 by assisting them with their ebola epidemic.

Chad restored relations in 2019.While the united states helped to convince the united arab emirates.Bahrain Sudan and Morocco to become the next four Arab countries to recognize Israel in 2020.

Today the 28 u.n countries who continue to not recognize Israel.In order of population are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Saudi, Arabia, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Yeman, Venezuela, North Korea, Niger, Mali, Syria, Somalia, Tunisia, Cuba, Libya, Lebanon, Oman, Kuwait, Mauritania, Qatar, Djibouti, Komoros, Brunei, Maldives and Seychelles.With a combined population of more than 1.16 billion people alongside the controversy surrounding Israel is the controversy surrounding the state of Palestine.

Palestine is the first country on this list which is not a full member of the United Nations.But it is instead a U.N observer state.A position, they’ve only held for nine since2012. Which claims the areas of the west bank east jerusalem and the gaza strip all three of which are presently and effectively under Israeli occupation or blockade held for nine years since 2012. The Palestinian state is presently unrecognized by 55 u.n member states with a combined population of 1.24 billion. People primarily consist of North America,Western Europe,Israel itself.Australia,New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.On the other side, Palestine is recognized by 138 U.N member states including the entirety of the Arab and islamic worlds. South America,China,India and most of Eastern Europe.

Palestine is the final state on this list that is recognized by the majority of the world's governments and peoples. So moving on from there,we arrive next to kosovo in europe with a population of nearly two million people kosovo declared independence from Serbia 13 years ago in 2008.Serbia has refused to ever recognize kosovo as an independent sovereign state and has continued to claim it as just an autonomous Serbian province this entire time.Despite that though 97 U.N member states representing a combined population of around 2 billion people presently do recognize kosovo as a fully independent nation including several big countries, like the United States,Canada,Japan,Saudi Arabia,Germany and France.


However most of the world has taken the Serbian position that Kosovo is simply one of their own rebellious provinces.One of the most notable standout countries who takes this position is spain---The lone holdout of western europe who probably doesn't want to recognize a successful independence in Serbia.While other countries like Russia probably don't recognize Kosovo for very similar reasons.


The next least recognized place that may be a country is the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or SADR.They claim the entire territory of Western Sahara and Africa as their own sovereign territory which is in staunch opposition to Morocco's claim of also the entirety of Western Sahara. This is all because up until 1975, Western Sahara was occupied by Spain when they finally gave it up.

Morocco invaded the territory and claimed it for themselves while the Saharawi nationalist movement began a war of independence against them in practice. Most of Western Sahara is presently controlled and occupied by Morocco while only a narrow strip along the interior is actually controlled by the sadr.

The sadr's claim to statehood over Western Sahara is presently only recognized by 43 u.n member states. The largest supporters of which are the weird grouping of Mexico,Iran,Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Algeria, Syria, Vietnam and North Korea. At the same time, the only other country in the world which recognizes Morocco's claim to Western Sahara is the United States--- who pretty much only does so because in 2020. They negotiated a deal to do so in exchange for Morocco finally recognizing Israel.

Most of the world's countries take an ambiguously neutral stance on who is actually the legitimate authority in western sahara so as not to piss anyone off which is mostly why you always see it marked out as grave on most world maps.Moving on next is the aforementioned Republic of China aka Taiwan the ROC used to be a member of the United nations but they were expelled from it in 1971 and replaced with the People's Republic of China. The ROC continues to claim being the sole legitimate government of all of China.But presently only controls the island of Taiwan--- the 14 U.N members who continue not recognizing the PRC of course recognize the ROC instead.

In addition, to the holy see although the ROC maintains very limited official recognition. They possess the world's 21st largest economy that's similar in size to Turkey with a population of more than 23 million people. The ROC maintains unofficial ties with more than 50 U.N member states across the world including the united states who in 2010 negotiated a deal to sell 6.4 billion dollars of weapons to them which makes them seem an awful lot like a pretty legitimate country.

Anyway, moving on from there are both the Republic of South Ossetia and the Republic of Abkhazia,two breakaway states of Georgia which declared their independence in 1992 and 1993. Today they are only recognized by the same five U.N member states--- Russia,Venezuela,Syria,Nicaragua and Naru.While tiny vanuatu evidently believes that while South Ossetia isn't a country. Abkhazia gives them ever so slightly more international recognition. Russia though is the primary supporter of both countries legitimacy with her population of more than 140 million which has led some to argue that both are almost just de facto russian protectorates.

Nearly every other UN member however continues taking the Georgian position that both South Ossetia and Abkhazia are merely rebellious provinces of Georgia. The next least recognized state is the aforementioned Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which occupies about the northern third of Cyprus island.

Not surprisingly, this republic is only recognized by a single U.N member Turkey with a population of about 82 million which has led to similar accusations that northern Cyprus is basically just a Turkish protectorate.

Next up is the Republic of Artsakh--- the final place on this list that is recognized as a country by an actual U.N member. In this case a single one Armenia art sock is the government which controls the ethnically armenian karabakh region surrounded by azerbaijan and every other U.N member in the world besides armenia considers karabakh to be basically just a rebellious province of Azerbaijan.The 14th least recognized country on this list is transnistria which declared independence from moldova back in the early 90s and is located between the sinister river in the west and the Ukrainian border in the east.

Nearly half a million people live inside of Transnistria and they maintain their own independent government military police and laws and flag, that is all wholly separate from Moldova despite that though,not a single UN member recognizes Transnistria as an independent country.Although three countries who do have some U.N member recognition do recognize them the aforementioned Abkhazia, South Ossetia and artsakh who all maintain a policy of recognizing one another.So since Russia recognizes Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Armenia recognizes art sock and all three of those countries recognize Transnistria.

They have some kind of legitimacy at least.But after that the final state with very limited recognition on this list is the republic of somaliland which fought a brutal seven year long war of independence from Somalia which saw hundreds of thousands of deaths.In 1991, unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia based upon the borders of the very very short-lived five-day-long republic of somaliland which did exist in 1960 after gaining independence from Britain and before joining up with the rest of Somalia.For all intents and purposes, Somaliland today is a pretty much fully independent country just like transnistria.

She has a population of nearly 6 million people.She has her own completely independent and separate democratic government who operates elections entirely outside of the rest of Somalia. But despite all of that, there isn't a single other country or un member state who has ever officially recognized them.And somalia meanwhile continues to claim them as just an autonomous province of Somalia,similar to how Serbia continues to claim Kosovo or how georgia continues to claim south Ossetia.


Despite all of that though there are six U.N member states who do maintain consulates and unofficial relations with Somaliland,Ethiopia,Kenya,Djibouti.The united Arab emirates Turkey and Denmark but because there isn't any official recognition just yet.Not even from non-un members who have un member recognition like Transnistria has Somaliland is the least recognized country on the planet that's definitely still very much so a country. Well unless you consider Afghanistan right now which so far since the Taliban took over no
another country has officially recognized either, but I think that's a tale for another time.

So yeah,counting up how many countries there are is a pretty complicated and pretty controversial business.And none of this is all to even mention the dozens of other places around the world that have even less recognition than these 15.