Talk:List of sovereign states

Koreas and Congos

I believe that North and South Korea should be alphabetized standardly (in other words, North Korea by "N", South Korea by "S", rather than both by "K"). This is the order all other "North" and "South" countries take (North Macedonia, South Africa, South Sudan, South Ossetia). I also think sorting the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo (DRC by "D" and RotC by "R", rather than both by "C") would be useful. (I initially raised this point at Template talk:Asia topic, where I got some support but was advised to take it here.) AllegedlyHuman (talk) 04:56, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Can you demonstrate that this is what other similar sources do?

The difference in the case of the Koreas is that the North and South are informal disambiguators. In the other cases you cite the North or South is an integral part of the name. If they aren't going at "K", it's not obvious that the correct place is not at "D" and "R", in the same way as you propose for the two Congos. For example, at Olympic Opening ceremonies when the North Koreans have refused to march near the South Koreans, they've generally got around it by alphabetising North Korea based on (the local translation of) "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

I would find it decidedly odd to put the Republic of the Congo under "R", because that's now how I would expect lists to do it. I think you'll really struggle to find sources that do this. I think there may be sources that list the DRC under "D", but I think it's more logical to be consistent with what we do with other states, which is to disregard the long form descriptors.

My own view is that the status quo is more logical and more consistent with what we do in other cases. Kahastok talk 15:23, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose No, we shouldn't do that. Unlike North Macedonia, South Africa, South Sudan, and South Ossetia (these are real country names), North Korea and South Korea are not real country names. Officially, there is no North Korea or South Korea exists in our world. Their official names are the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) respectively, we call them North Korea and South Korea just for convenience. The international standard practice is listing both countries under K, not N, S, D or R. It's the same for both Congos, they should be listed under C instead of D or R. 2001:8003:9008:1301:7C69:518E:BF9:550D (talk) 14:19, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Afghanistan sovereignty recognition issue

Islamic emirate of Afghanistan is the present name for the government of the disputed Afghanistan after the recent power change. It's recognition is partial in global community. If the government in exile Islamic republic of Afghanistan is meant then, does it have enough criterion to be called sovereign state? SrihariPKurudi (talk) 19:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It's a sovereign state regardless of the government. Venezuela's government is also disputed but it's not mentioned here. I wouldn't change the full name of the country, though, unless it is recognized. It's similar to the naming of Burma/Myanmar controversy. TFD (talk) 22:15, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

The Islamic Republic is no longer a state as it has none of the four elements of statehood. It should be removed, bearing in mind that this is not a list of UN members. Ythlev (talk) 14:45, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

The state remains Afghanistan, although I feel there's a discussion to be had about the presentation of the formal name. CMD (talk) 14:55, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, complicated. No-one has recognized the Islamic emirate as yet but some have said they will if.... I guess we will have to wait and see. There is also the question of representation at the UN.Selfstudier (talk) 16:12, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I am rather inclined to defer to the article at Afghanistan for flag and formal name, since that saves us reinventing the wheel. However, insofar as the Islamic Republic is still recognised internationally as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, this needs to be mentioned in the Further information column. Kahastok talk 16:35, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as well.Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

The Afghanistan problem

I suggest this solution to our Afghanistan problem:

• The short name, formal name and flag are those given our article Afghanistan. Consensus there is to use the name and flag of the current ruling authority, i.e. the Taliban.
• We add a new text explaining the situation in the Further information column.
• We change the footnote at the top of the column to include Any alternative governments recognised by at least one state (irrespective of whether they have a government in exile).

I have some comments to make.

I actually think it is probably a violation of WP:WEIGHT for us to accept the Taliban flag and nomenclature for Afghanistan, given that they are not recognised as legitimate internationally. However, the issues at stake are exactly the same as at Afghanistan, and I see no value in rediscussing the point at every article independently.

I would note that the argument that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is still the UN member is irrelevant to the choice of name and flag because this is not Member states of the United Nations.

It seems to me that the presence or absence of a government in exile is not the relevant point, it is whether an alternative government is recognised. In this case, it is not obvious that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan still exists even as a government-in-exile. But, whether it exists or not, it is recognised by countries throughout the world and is represented at the UN, so it needs to be mentioned.

I will WP:BOLDly implement this suggestion in the article, but I have no doubt that people will continue to change it. I think changes need to be discussed here, rather than just with drive-by edits. I note that it is not immediately obvious what the current standing consensus is, since the article has not really been stable since the Fall of Kabul. But I suspect that it still refers to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Kahastok talk 11:21, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I would say there is not a strong consensus to use the flag at Afghanistan, it has taken its place through sheer force of edits, but this is probably not worth rediscussing as noted. I previously proposed at the template data that a default question mark flag be used, which may work here. Do we have sources on the alternative government being recently recognised as the government? My understanding is that even Panjshir, for that brief period, gave no official position on the old government. CMD (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

On the latter point, I must admit, it's my assumption based on my understanding that they haven't done anything at all other than refuse to recognise the new government. That, and the old flag still flies over the embassies. But when I tried briefly to find a source it was not forthcoming. I'm open to changing the wording if we can't prove the claim I put in, but I do think we need to put something there. Kahastok talk 15:08, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Is this the latest UNSC res? "Noting that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is not recognized at the United Nations, and furthermore that the UN Security Council does not support the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan"? Selfstudier (talk) 15:30, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Thinking over your first point, if the current flag at Afghanistan is dropped then I think it depends on why. If it's because we don't know what the Taliban flag looks like (and I don't know how definitive the sourcing for it is), then yes, the question mark flag is appropriate. If it's because of WP:WEIGHT concerns such as I expressed above, then I think Afghanistan is better because in that case we're saying we don't think it's neutral to give a flag. Kahastok talk 16:07, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

User:Svito3. If you revert per WP:BRD then you need to join the discussion. If you are not prepared to discuss your objection, then don't revert.

The claim in this edit summary, "we specificially list states as recognized by UN: note is sufficent" is factually wrong.

First, the UN does not recognise states at all. It recognises governments of states that have been accepted for membership.

Second, no part of our inclusion criteria or other descriptions of this list requires that we use the flag and name preferred by the current UN delegation. There are several instances where we differ from the UN in this area. And that's before we start discussing the 13 entities listed here that are not UN member states, and 11 that are also not UN observer states.

If you're looking for the list of UN member states, you can find it at member states of the United Nations.

Because of this, using the old flag and name with a footnote, The United Nations currently recognizes the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as the government of Afghanistan instead of the de facto ruling government is unacceptable to me. The fact that the UN recognises the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan does not explain why we would list it here, when even our own article Afghanistan uses the Taliban name and flag. Kahastok talk 16:07, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

This is your own interpretation of WP:BRD and you just started an edit war. -- Svito3 (talk) 18:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The name of the UN member state is Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It isn't clear whether the Taliban wants to rename the state *officially*, but if it does, it needs to (i) gain recognition as the legitimate government of Afdhanistan and (ii) gain acceptance of its preferred name for the country. Until such things tke place, we should not change the country's name in the article. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 03:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I mostly agree with AuH20Republican here, the UNSC resolution I posted above goes out of its way to refer to the "Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan" but avoids this usage when speaking of the Emirate or instead refers to the Taliban, it is not clear whether they mean a government or a state or they mean to refer to both as unwelcome (the wording suggests the latter). The country name is an ISO thing and won't happen if the UNSC opposes it.Selfstudier (talk) 10:13, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, so, my questions here are:

• What particular circumstances on this list justify our not simply adopting the usage on the article Afghanistan?
• In particular, you argue that the country name listed here "is an ISO thing" and imply that we should feel bound by the UN's decisions. On what basis do you argue this?

When answering, I ask that you consider that this is explicitly not a list of member states of the United Nations, nor a copy of ISO 3166-1. Because of this, there are already states listed here under names that are different from those found on ISO 3166-1. There are also states listed here that are not found on any ISO list at all. Kahastok talk 10:51, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, we have discussed this before in other contexts, I don't really think that WP editors should be making up rules in this area, I realize there is a long standing consensus about which states to include but the weakness has been shown with the current case (and Myanmar as well?).Selfstudier (talk) 10:58, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

The weakness here is expected from reflecting real-world difficulty in a simple list, especially when dealing with a dynamic situation that external sources do not have a clear line on. That would be challenging in any rules framework. It is not exactly the situation that the IRA is itself a UN member, the nebulous entity of Afghanistan is the UN member, and names and governments often change without affecting membership, although the UN can choose representatives. I think this discussion should separate the issue of the note in the extent, and the flag/name. The government note is currently done for Syria, and seems reasonable if only to reduce continued drive-bys. The flag/name is trickier, as these are specifically representative symbols, and so the situation hinges on how to interpret what representation means. (This is not something Talk:Afghanistan has grappled with in any real capacity.) CMD (talk) 11:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

If it occurs, to take one possible outcome, that Iran were to recognize the Emirate, then we would have to include it in this list, am I right? Selfstudier (talk) 12:38, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

If Iran recognised it as a separate new state to the existing state of Afghanistan, then that meets our criteria. However, this seems unlikely. CMD (talk) 13:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why our limitation in being a simple list is substantially different to Afghanistan's limitation in having a simple infobox. They have just one flag and just one name, and so do we. If they didn't grapple with it in the (remarkably short) RFC that they had at Talk:Afghanistan, perhaps we should push them to reconsider the question through a new RFC (advertised on WP:CENT, that runs at least a week). I have not yet seen any good reason to deviate from the principle that we should follow their consensus, whatever it is.

Other options that they (and therefore we) could adopt might be no flag or full name, or both flags and full names. I believe we did something like this for Syria earlier in the war, and something like the following table could be possible.

Sample table collapsed for brevity Kahastok talk 16:20, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Common and formal names Membership within the UN System Sovereignty dispute Further information on status and recognition of sovereignty Afghanistan – Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan A UN member state A None Insert text here Where obviously "insert text here" is replaced with an appropriate and sourced description for the situation, and the header footnotes are not removed.

Kahastok talk 16:20, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

The RfC was remarkably short because it was closed by the person who opened it, but you're right the simplicity is a real issue in both cases. I would prefer no flag and no long name to a doubling, although I won't strongly object if others feel otherwise. CMD (talk) 01:22, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Status of Palestine, the Cook Islands and Niue

According to ISO 3166-1, Palestine, the Cook Islands and Niue are not independent countries. From my understanding, the Cook Islands and Niue are constituent states of New Zealand, they are not fully independent and their citizens are actually New Zealand citizens. Although they enjoyed far more autonomy than other ordinary dependent territories and can cast votes independently within the United Nations System just like any other country, they are not technically fully sovereign states. As for Palestine, it is a sovereign political entity which has limited control over their claimed territory. For comparison, it is an entity sitting somewhere between the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (a sovereign entity with no control over any territory) and the Holy See (a sovereign entity with absolute control over a defined territory which makes it a fully sovereign state).

In my point of view, only political entities which tick all the boxes could attain the status of a sovereign state and we should place all three of the above-mentioned entities under the "Other states" section, together with those partially recognized states. 2001:8003:9008:1301:F0D6:2B9B:76:77AE (talk) 08:28, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi IP, please see the List of sovereign states#Criteria for inclusion section, which explains the inclusion criteria here. There's no right answer, but the system here uses some criteria which can be verified through external WP:Reliable sources. Best, CMD (talk) 08:39, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I noticed that the Cook Islands and Niue have also been listed as non-sovereign territories in the article Dependent territory. This is inappropriate and not acceptable. How can a political entity be both a sovereign state and a dependent territory at the same time? I think we should reach a consensus about these two entities and make some adjustments to these articles accordingly. 2001:8003:9008:1301:F0D6:2B9B:76:77AE (talk) 08:48, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

That shows the inherent synthesis of this article. It can only be a list of countries recognized as independent by Wikipedia editors. You can search the archives where these countries have been discussed many times. New Zealand reported to the UN that the two territories had become associated states, but that they were not "independent," which is self-contradictory. Also note that New Zealanders retained British nationality long after the country was recognized as sovereign. In fact British subjecthood was never formally extinguished, just effectively superseded by separate citizenship acts in each Commonwealth state. TFD (talk) 09:37, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The ISO criterion "independent" is paywalled so it's not precisely clear what it means, in the case of Palestine one can perhaps assume they refer to the fact of it being occupied as restricting its "independence", yet it has declared independence and it has recognition as a state. As for partially recognized states note that also includes Israel. So I think this proposal is not a good idea all in all.Selfstudier (talk) 10:17, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Chances are, if there are objective criteria, it relies on recognition by the P5 and/or UN membership. Of course, the ISO is not required to follow an WP:NPOV as we are.

Ultimately, if the OP has suggestions for consistent and neutral new inclusion criteria and splitting criteria then they are of course welcome to propose them. But the status quo is a compromise based on the fact that there is no perfect way of doing this. To that end, before proposing a new rule, the OP would be well-advised to review the archives on the topic, where many of the plausible alternatives were discussed in detail. Note that the archives on these topics are long enough to fill a 750-page book. This really was discussed in minute detail. Kahastok talk 21:01, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you are proposing here. Are you suggesting that we should group these countries into two categories, one called "Sovereign states" which consists of the 193 UN member states plus the Holy See, and the other one called "Other states" which consists of Palestine, the Cook Islands, Niue and some de facto states? Just for your information, the Cook Islands, Niue and the de facto states are already included under the "Other states" category, so basically you were proposing that we move Palestine to "Other states" and change the first category to "Sovereign states"? I wouldn't support such proposal though, because the term "sovereign state" is difficult to define, people may argue that those "Other states" are also sovereign states. I reckon the list in its current format is appropriate.

As for the Cook Islands and Niue being listed as non-sovereign territories in the article dependent territory, I reckon we should change that. I don't think double listing these two areas as sovereign states and dependent territories is appropriate. Since the consensus here is that both the Cook Islands and Niue are sovereign states, I reckon we should remove both entities from the "Lists of dependent territories" and place them under the "Lists of similar entities" instead. Vic Park (talk) 12:22, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

How states should be grouped in the list?

Observer states should not be grouped together with UN member states, instead they should be included in other states. Palestine is much closer in sovereignty status to Kosovo than to a UN member state. --Somerby (talk) 10:28, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Your edit has been reverted per the warning notices at the top of this talk page, consensus is required for changes of this type.(In addition, note that Arbpia warning notices for Israel Palestine related content have been added to this page).Selfstudier (talk) 10:52, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Selfstudier, do you agree with my proposal in essence? --Somerby (talk) 11:09, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Apart from the discussion in the section just prior to this one, these matters have been discussed in grinding detail previously, maybe have a look in the archives. There have also been similar discussions at other related list articles. I daresay there will be further such discussions in the future since everyone seems to have slightly different opinions about it. This a list of sovereign states primarily, the UN status (or "limited recognition" status) is not the principal point of the list but if the UN has recognized status as a state (yes for Palestine, Holy See, no for Kosovo and some others), then why would you need to further distinguish based on observer status? Selfstudier (talk) 11:20, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Selfstudier what made you think that the UN recognize Palestine as more sovereign entity than for instance the Cook Islands? They are all states, some other states recognize them sovereign, some not. This is perfectly well described in List of states with limited recognition. Kosovo is also a state, although not all UN members recognize its sovereignty. There is even a state (yes, everyone agree that Somaliland is perfect state, much more stable than UN member Somalia) whose sovereignty is not recognised by any other state. And if you divide this list of sovereign states into two groups than they should be "UN member states" and "Other states". --Somerby (talk) 11:56, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

So you said, I don't agree.Selfstudier (talk) 12:23, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Oppose I don't agree. In my opinion, all 206 countries listed in this article can be breakdown into 4 categories:

1. 193 UN member states;

2. 2 UN observer states (the Holy See and Palestine);

3. 3 states which are members of at least one UN specialized agency (the Cook Islands, Niue, and Kosovo);

4. 8 states outside the United Nations System (Taiwan, the SADR, and Somaliland etc.).

Personally, I prefer to list them under 4 categories, but if the consensus here is to group them into two categories, I reckon the best dividing line should be between either "2." and "3." (current format) or "3." and "4." (still okay for me) instead of "1." and "2." (your proposal). Vic Park (talk) 01:41, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

• I also prefer to group them under 4 categories. But if to group them into two categories, I think that the dividing line should be between "1." and "2." --Somerby (talk) 08:49, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
• Me personally, I prefer to list them under 4 categories, but if the consensus here is to group them into two categories, I believe the best dividing line should be between "3." and "4." --Lagelander (talk) 09:59, 8 October 2021 (UTC)