Below is a list of sovereign states with the dates of their formation (date of their independence or of their constitution), sorted by continent.
This list includes the 195 states which are currently full member states or observer states of the United Nations. This does not include extinct states, but does include several states with limited recognition.
For proposed states or various indigenous nations which consider themselves still under occupation, see list of active autonomist and secessionist movements.
Nation-building is a long evolutionary process, and in most cases the date of a country's "formation" cannot be objectively determined; e.g., the fact that England and France were sovereign kingdoms on equal footing in the medieval period does not prejudice the fact that England is not now a sovereign state (having passed sovereignty to Great Britain in 1707), while France is a Republic founded in 1870 (though the term France generally refers to the current French Fifth Republic government, formed in 1958).
An unambiguous measure is the date of national constitutions; but as constitutions are an almost entirely modern concept, all formation dates by that criterion are modern or early modern (the oldest extant constitution being that of San Marino, dating to 1600).
Independence dates for widely recognized states earlier than 1919 should be treated with caution, since prior to the founding of the League of Nations, there was no international body to recognize nationhood, and independence had no meaning beyond mutual recognition of de facto sovereigns (the role of the League of Nations was effectively taken over by the United Nations after the Second World War). See also: disputed territories.
Many countries have some remote (or fantastically remote) symbolic foundation date as part of their national mythology, sometimes artificially inflating a country's "age" for reasons of nationalism, sometimes merely gesturing at a long and gradual process of the formalizing national identity.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
International recognition of Kosovo, since its declaration of independence from Serbia enacted on 17 February 2008, has been mixed, and international governments are divided on the issue. The Government of Serbia does not diplomatically recognise Kosovo as a sovereign state, although the two countries have enjoyed normalised economic relations since 2020 and have agreed not to try to interfere with the other's accession to the European Union.
The decolonization of the Americas occurred over several centuries as most of the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. The American Revolution was the first in the Americas, and the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was a victory against a great power, aided by France and Spain, Britain's enemies. The French Revolution in Europe followed, and collectively these events had profound effects on the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies in the Americas.
A declaration of independence, declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state.