How Many Countries Are in Africa?

54, or 55. Fifty-four sovereign countries are recognised by the United Nations. The African Union counts fifty-five — and the gap between those two numbers has a name: Western Sahara.

Africa has more countries than any other continent — 54, against Asia’s 49 and Europe’s 44. But that figure is not really a fact about Africa. It is a fact about a meeting held in Berlin in the winter of 1884, where Africa’s borders were drawn by people who had never been there. The count, and the shape of nearly every country in it, is an inheritance from that room.

Below: a tool to rank all 54 countries by land area and population, a second slider that traces Africa’s languages of government, and a game to test whether you can name a country from its outline.

The borders were drawn in a room in Berlin

Between November 1884 and February 1885, representatives of fourteen states — European powers plus the United States — met at the Berlin Conference to agree the rules for claiming African territory. Not a single African was present. Over the following years the colonial powers carved the continent into possessions along straight lines and river courses, paying no attention to the kingdoms, languages and communities already on the ground. When independence came, mostly between the 1950s and 1970s, the new countries kept those colonial borders almost exactly. The 54 we count today are, in outline, the 54 drawn by outsiders.

54 or 55: the Western Sahara question

Western Sahara is the reason the number is not fixed. A former Spanish colony, it is claimed and largely controlled by Morocco, while the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic claims it as an independent state. The SADR is a full member of the African Union, which is why the AU has 55 member states. It is not a member of the United Nations, which is why the UN-based count is 54. Morocco even left the Organisation of African Unity in 1984 over the dispute and only rejoined the AU in 2017. Same territory, two institutions, two totals.

The country recognised by no one

Somaliland is the opposite case. It declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has since run its own government, currency, army and elections — most of the apparatus of a working state. Yet not one UN member formally recognises it as a country, so it appears on no standard list at all. Western Sahara sits between 54 and 55; Somaliland sits outside both. Each shows, in a different way, that “country” is decided by recognition, not just by facts on the ground.

The newest country in the world is African

The count does still move. South Sudan voted for independence from Sudan in a 2011 referendum and was admitted to the UN the same year — the most recent country anywhere to join. Its short history is also a reminder of why the colonial borders are blamed for so much: it splintered along lines of language, religion and ethnicity that the original map had simply ignored.

The languages of government are mostly colonial

Nowhere is the inheritance clearer than in what Africa’s governments speak. Thousands of languages are spoken across the continent, but the official languages — the ones used in parliaments, courts and schools — are dominated by a handful brought in from outside. Drag through them below, ordered by how many countries use each one.

English and French between them are official in more than forty of the 54 countries, a century after the colonisers who imported them left. Arabic spread earlier, by conquest and trade. The genuine exceptions stand out: Swahili, an East African trade language that grew into a lingua franca on its own terms, is the one entry near the top of the list that Africa gave itself.

Asking how many countries are in Africa sounds like a geography question. The honest answer is a history one: 54, or 55, and almost every line on the map was drawn somewhere else.

Can you name them by shape?

Eighteen African countries shown as outlines only, five names to choose from each time. Some — Egypt, Madagascar, Somalia — are unmistakable. Others are trickier than you would expect.