Is Greenland a Country? What Counts on a Travel Map

Greenland is not an independent country. It is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. It has had home rule since 1979, and the Act on Greenland Self-Government came into force on 21 June 2009. Denmark keeps the constitution, nationality, the Supreme Court, and foreign, defence and security policy. The same act says that if the people of Greenland decide in favour of independence, negotiations are to begin.

On a travel map that makes Greenland a territory: a place worth marking, counted on its own line and not among the 195 countries. That is how the world map treats it and 41 other places.

Is Greenland in North America or Europe? Geographically it is part of North America, and the United Nations’ regions, which this site follows, list it there. Politically it belongs with Denmark.

Is Puerto Rico a country?

No. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. The U.S. Department of the Interior names it, with the Northern Mariana Islands, as one of two U.S. insular areas that are commonwealths, and lists it among thirteen unincorporated U.S. territories. It is not a state either.

Is Hong Kong a country?

No. Article 1 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law reads: “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China.” Article 2 gives it “a high degree of autonomy”. It has been a Special Administrative Region since 1 July 1997; before that it was under British administration. Hong Kong keeps its own border controls and currency, which is why a trip there feels like a separate entry and why many travellers list it separately. Macao has been a Special Administrative Region of China since 1999.

Other places people ask about

• Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies. The British government describes them as “not part of the UK but … self-governing dependencies of the Crown”, and is responsible for their defence and international relations.
• Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In the Dutch government’s words, “Each country within the Kingdom has its own government.” The Kingdom is the member of the United Nations.
• The Cook Islands and Niue are each, in the words of New Zealand’s foreign ministry, “a self-governing state in ‘free association’ with New Zealand”. Their people are New Zealand citizens.
• Kosovo and Taiwan govern themselves and are recognised by some members of the United Nations, but are not members themselves.
• Western Sahara is a territory whose status is disputed.
• Antarctica has no government of its own. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in Washington on 1 December 1959 and in force since 1961, now has 58 parties. It reserves the continent “for peaceful purposes only” and keeps the question of territorial claims as it stood.
• England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are countries by the United Kingdom’s own description, and one member of the United Nations between them. On this map the United Kingdom is one country.

All 42 territories on the map, by the state responsible

“State responsible” means the member of the United Nations that the territory belongs to or that answers for it abroad. The four in the last row are listed on their own, because naming a state for them would mean taking a side, or, for Antarctica, because there is none.

How to count them

1. Keep one fixed list for your headline number. The usual one is 195: the 193 members of the United Nations plus the Holy See and Palestine, its two observer states. Why other lists reach 211, 249 or 330 is covered in how many countries there are.
2. Count territories on a second line. “31 countries and 4 territories” is clear to anyone. “35 countries” would need a footnote.
3. Do not read politics into a tick. Listing a place separately says where you have been. It says nothing about who governs it, and nothing about who should.

WorldTripMap follows these three rules. The countries checklist has the 195 and the 42 as two lists, and the data and methods page explains where the map’s boundaries come from.