This is a list of sovereign states and dependent territories of the world by continent, displayed with their respective national flags and capitals, including the following entities:
This list divides the world using the seven-continent model, with islands grouped into adjacent continents. The continents are:
In other models, Asia and Europe can be combined as Eurasia, while North and South America can be combined as the Americas (for a detailed description of how the world is divided into continents, including different models, see here).
There are sovereign states and dependent territories that can be considered to belong to more than one continent, according to geographical, political, or historical criteria.
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In this list, the sovereign states and dependent territories are classified according to the geoscheme created by the United Nations Statistics Division.[1] According to the UN, the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories.[2]
For a table of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa with geographical data such as area, population, and population density, see here.
For a table of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia with geographical data such as area, population, and population density, see here.
For a table of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe with geographical data such as area, population, and population density, see here.
For a table of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America with geographical data such as area, population, and population density, see here.
For a table of sovereign states and dependent territories in South America with geographical data such as area, population, and population density, see here.
For a table of sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania with geographical data such as area, population, and population density, see here.
Antarctica is regulated by the Antarctic Treaty System, which defines it as all land and ice shelves south of 60°S, and has no government and belongs to no country. However, the following territorial claims in Antarctica have been made:
Moreover, the following dependent territories are situated in the wider Antarctic Region:
In this section, the geographical boundaries of the continents are used to divide the world into continents, where differences from the previous list according to the United Nations geoscheme are noted.
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries of Africa, see here.
Considering the Suez Canal as a boundary between Africa and Asia, the following change from the previous list occurs:
Considering the continental shelf of Africa, the following changes from the previous list occur:
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries between Asia and Europe, see here.
Considering the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles) as a boundary between Asia and Europe, the following change from the previous list occurs:
Considering the Ural definition that follows the watershed of the Ural Mountains, and then the Ural River until the Caspian Sea, as a boundary between Asia and Europe, the following changes from the previous list occur:
Considering the Ural definition that follows the watershed of the Ural Mountains, and then the Ural River until it reaches Kazakhstan's border for the first time, and then the Or River and the Emba River, as a boundary between Asia and Europe, the following changes from the previous list occur:
Considering the Caucasus definition that follows the watershed of the Greater Caucasus of the Caucasus Mountains as a boundary between Asia and Europe, the following changes from the previous list occur:
Considering the Caucasus definition that follows the Kuma-Manych Depression, marked by the Kuma River and the Manych River, as a boundary between Asia and Europe, the following change from the previous list occurs:
Considering the continental shelfs of Asia and Europe, the following change from the previous list occurs:
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries between Asia and North America, see here.
Considering the continental shelfs of Asia and North America, the following change from the previous list occurs:
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries between Europe and North America, see here.
Though very rare, considering the Mid-Atlantic Ridge as a boundary between Europe and North America, the following change from the previous list occurs:
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries between North and South America, see here.
Considering the Panama Canal as a boundary between North and South America, the following change from the previous list occurs:
Considering the continental shelfs of North and South America, the following changes from the previous list occur:
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries of Oceania, see here.
Considering all Pacific Islands as being part of Oceania, the following changes from the previous list occur:
For a detailed description of the geographical boundaries of Antarctica, see here.
Considering sub-Antarctic islands north of 60°S which are fully integrated with its country, the following changes from the previous list occur:
There are a number of intergovernmental organizations with continental scope and having the most wide and possibly non-overlapping membership:
Therefore, a member of one of these organizations may be considered as belonging to that particular continent according to political criteria. Considering this, the following changes from the previous list occur:
However, in general only internationally recognized sovereign states are members of intergovernmental organizations, and not every one of them is a member of one of the organizations listed above.
Dependent territories, through political ties with their mother countries, may be associated with another continent other than its own geographical continent. For example, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Réunion, all overseas departments of France, are part of the EU and use the euro as their official currency. Other dependent territories of EU members, such as Greenland, while not part of the EU, enjoy special relationships with the EU.
The following dependent territories, all of them sparsely-populated islands remote from continental mass, may be grouped into more than one continent, as there is no general convention as to which continent they belong to: