The 15 Countries People Think Are FAKE

this video is made possible by brilliant learn something new every day for 20 off by being one of the first 200 people to sign up at brilliant.org real life lore okay answer this question fast how many countries are there in the world there isn't really any exactly correct answer because your answer pretty much depends on who's asking the question the united nations lists 193 countries as members the international olympic committee lists 206 member countries meanwhile fifa football lists 211 countries as members the united states government would say there's 196 countries the russian government would say 197. pakistan would say 192. everybody has different answers to that question largely because of these 15 awkward places places that by pretty much every conventional definition are actual functioning countries but which to all various extents have only limited international recognition for a whole bunch of different geopolitical reasons so beginning from the most recognized down to the least these are the 15 most awkward and controversial places to call a country in the world we're starting this list off with south korea which has been fully independent now for 73 years and is a full member of the united nations but is very publicly unrecognized by one other u.n member state with a population of more than 25 million people north korea this is because north korea claims the entirety of the korean peninsula and has never recognized south korea's authority or legitimacy to rule over the peninsula's southern half but since south korea is recognized by all of the other 191 un member states her legitimacy isn't really that much in question compared with any of the other states that are on this list next up is the people's republic of china or prc a un member state and one of only five permanent members of the united nations security council who is unrecognized by 15 other un member states one u.n observer and one non-un state 15 u.n member states withholding recognition may seem like a pretty big deal but most of these are just pretty tiny countries in order of largest population of smallest they are guatemala haiti honduras paraguay nicaragua swatini bhutan belize and the tiny island countries of saint lucia saint vincent and the grenadines marshall islands saint kitts and nevis palau naru and tuvalu followed up by the unobserver state of the holy sea or vatican city the largest and the most significant place who refuses to recognize the people's republic however is the republic of china or roc otherwise known as taiwan and they are the reason for all of this controversy the prc on the mainland and the roc on the island of taiwan each claim to be the sole legal government and representative for all of china on the international stage and each pursue their own version of the one china policy meaning that every country in the world is given a binary choice either recognize the prc or the roc as china but not both as a result neither the prc or roc recognize each other nearly the entire world recognizes the significantly larger and more influential prc while only 14 u.n member states and the holy see have publicly chosen to side with a smaller and less influential roc meanwhile bhutan chose the chadway out of this conundrum and is the only country who refuses to recognize either government and is therefore the only country in the world who doesn't recognize the existence of china in any capacity altogether that's only about 78 million people whose governments do not recognize the people's republic of china and there's a lot more controversial countries from there next up on our list is the republic of cyprus another u.n member state who isn't recognized by one other un member state and one non-un member turkey and the turkish republic of northern cyprus the republic of cyprus claimed sovereignty over the entire island of cyprus but back in 1974 a military coup d'etat occurred within cyprus that aimed to unite the island with greece turkey promptly invaded the island to stop that from happening expelled the ethnic greeks who lived there and set up the self-proclaimed turkish republic of northern cyprus upon that territory the republic of cyprus does not recognize the turkish republic of northern cyprus as being legitimate and in response turkey and her population of more than 82 million has refused to recognize the republic of cyprus next up is the republic of armenia yet another u.n member state who is unrecognized by one other u.n member state but it's someone that you probably wouldn't expect pakistan pakistan's beef here is that armenia and azerbaijan have both been practically at war with each other for decades ever since their independence and pakistan has chosen to align themselves with azerbaijan by refusing to recognize armenia now several other countries have allied with azerbaijan as well like turkey saudi arabia and yemen who have all severed their diplomatic relations with armenia but they still at least recognize armenia's existence even azerbaijan recognizes that armenia exists but not pakistan since pakistan's population is huge that's 216 million people whose government doesn't recognize the existence of armenia following armenia is north korea a u.n member state who's in a similar situation as south korea but with even less recognition because three u.n members and one non-u.n member are denying them any just like the north south korea also claims the entirety of the korean peninsula and has never recognized the north's authority or legitimacy to rule over the northern half and in a show of solidarity neither does japan france or taiwan making up a total of 269 million people whose governments do not recognize them let's just move on from there to the really controversial part of this video and dive straight into israel and palestine israel is a member of the united nations but is presently unrecognized by 28 other un member states and that number is changing all the time back in 1948 the present-day states of israel and palestine were each part of a british mandate the british decided to divide the land between an independent jewish state and an independent arab state but it went rather sloppy immediately upon israel's founding the entire arab and most of the islamic world took the position that the state was founded upon arab land taken from the arab palestinians by the british and universally refused to recognize israel's existence as the cold war intensified the americans backed the israeli cause while the soviets backed the palestinian and arab cause which led to nearly the entire communist eastern bloc withdrawing their recognition from israel as well for its entire existence east germany always refused to acknowledge israel's existence as well because unlike west germany the east german government refused to ever pay any reparations to the jewish victims of nazi germany and recognizing israel necessitated paying those reparations while israel itself refused relations with spain for a very long time because of her longtime dictator francisco franco who had maintained a close friendship with adolf hitler and nazi germany throughout the second world war finally after the yom kippur war of 1973 arab nations enacted an oil embargo against all foreign countries who recognized israel's existence owing to israel's occupation of all of the palestinian arab territories which led to widespread severing of relations across africa and the developing world 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 yemen 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 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 palestine is the first country on this list which is not a full member state of the united nations but is instead a un observer state a position they've only 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 consisting 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 arrived next to kosovo in europe with a population of nearly 2 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 saharawi 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 is which 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 un member turkey with a population of about 82 million which has led to similar accusations the northern cyprus is basically just a turkish protectorate next up is the republic of artsok the final place on this list that is recognized as a country by an actual un 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 dynaester 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 artsak 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 somaliland declared unilateral independence from the rest of somalia based upon the borders of the 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 other country is 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. counting up everybody who's ever claimed to have created a country gets complicated quickly and in a way that's pretty much just how math works in general the more and more you start learning the more complicated it seems to become maybe you're interested in learning more about our complicated world or maybe you just want to brush up on the basics of math logic or science so what should you do well you're already watching educational videos here on youtube which is a great start but in order to really learn something you have to actually do it and that's where brilliant will come in to help brilliant is a website and app built off of this exact principle you learn best while doing and solving in real time you can jump directly into solving problems and be coached bit by bit until before you even realize it you've learned a brand new subject in stem let's take this lesson they offer on the pythagorean theorem as an example you may remember from school what the formula is but in this lesson you're moving around triangles and actually proving that a squared plus b squared is equal to c squared every lesson you take on brilliant is as interactive and easy to understand as this one and it scales all the way up from here to complex topics that you never imagined you'd actually understand you won't ever be asked to memorize long complicated formulas or endless facts you just pick a course you're interested in like solar energy or computer science and you get started and if you're feeling stuck or make a mistake you can simply read the explanations to find out more and learn at your own pace the best part about brilliant though is that there's something there for everybody whether you want to start at the very basics of science math and computer science or dive straight into cutting-edge topics like differential equations or neural networks i always struggled with learning complicated stem subjects while i was in school because it was so easy for me to get overwhelmed by a huge wall of information that was difficult to ever focus on but now brilliant has helped me so much with learning about all of these things that i used to think were just a lost cause and they helped me make videos like the one you just watched so if you'd like to join me and the community of 8 million other learners and educators today you can get started on anything from astrophysics to algebra 2 for 20 off by being one of the first 200 people who go to brilliant.org reallife lore or by following the link that's down below in the description and as always thank you so much for watching

Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 6,260,550

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, countries, fake, fake countries, countries with limited recognition

Id: 4hc0Wx4jMdo

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/b778av]

2 countries with limited recognition not mentionned in the video:

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- Bosnia and Herzegovina is not recognised by all UN member states Source: http://www.mvp.gov.ba/vanjska_politika_bih/bilateralni_odnosi/datumi_priznanja_i_uspostave_diplomatskih_odnosa/default.aspx?id=6

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- The Republic of Croatia is not recognised by all UN member states Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_relations_of_Croatia The missing UN member states are Butan, South Sudan, Liberia, Niger, Somalia, the central african republic and Tonga Source:https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/prije-29-godina-hrvatska-je-medjunarodno-priznata/2246703.aspx

[u/ShowtimeCA]

I'm sure this video will not be controversial at all. If anyone in the comments insults anyone else you'll get banned, with been down this road before, you've been warned firends, please remain civil