The World's Next New Countries

Podcast Transcript

Depending on how you define it, there are about 193 to 200 countries in the world today.

Over the last 100 years, that number has been constantly increasing. Sometimes, the number goes up a lot in short periods of time, and other times, there might be decades between the creation of a new country.

There hasn’t been a new country created since 2011, but it is entirely possible that we might make new additions to the list of nations before this decade is out.

Learn more about the world’s next possible countries on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

In a previous episode, I discussed the problem of trying to count the number of countries in the world. It is a far trickier problem than you might think.

Without getting into the weeds as to how many countries there are, most people would say there are between 193, which is the number of countries in the United Nations, and in the low 200s, which is the number in other international organizations.

The number of countries in the world has changed radically over time. In the early 19th century, most of the estimates I’ve read put the number at somewhere in the low 200s. This includes a lot of kingdoms, dutchies, chiefdoms, etc.

Throughout the 19th century, this number dropped precipitously as Europe carved up the rest of the world that hadn’t already been colonized, especially Africa.

By the First World War, the number of countries in the world was somewhere in the mid-50s, again, depending on how you define it.

The number of countries grew rapidly after the end of the Second World War and the start of decolonization. Every major colonial power had their colonies become independent, sometimes peacefully, sometimes not, until we reached a point in the late 1980s where all but a few small islands had become independent countries.

When the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia broke up, there was another spike in the number of new countries.

In the 21st century, things have slowed down considerably, but they haven’t stopped.

There have only been three new countries created since the year 2000.

East Timor in 2002. They achieved independence after a long war with Indonesia.

Montenegro in 2006. They broke off from Serbia, which had been called Serbia and Montenegro. Serbia changed its name but is the successor state to the former one, so I’m not counting them as new.

Finally, South Sudan became independent in 2011 after another long war with Sudan.

While it’s been over a decade since a new country has been created, that hasn’t been for a lack of trying.

What I’m going to do in this episode is cover the countries that I think have the best odds of becoming independent over the next ten years. This is of course, speculative, and I’ll almost certainly be wrong about some of them, but all of them are well along the path to becoming independent.

I will not be covering countries that are already de facto independent but lack universal recognition. That includes Palestine, Kosovo, and Taiwan. I will also not be covering various successionist movements in developed countries such as Catalonia, Scotland, Quebec, the Basque Country, Flanders, Lombardy, etc. Those are all issues with very different hurdles they have to overcome.

What I will be covering are places that are well down the independence path. For them to complete their independence journey, it is mostly a matter of will on their part and closing deals with their current countries.

So, with that, lets start with the first one, which is Greenland.

Greenland has been a territory of Denmark since 1814 when Denmark took full control following the dissolution of the union between Denmark and Norway.

Since then, particularly over the last few decades, Greenland has been given more and more control over its own affairs. It was granted home rule in 1979 and expanded autonomy in 2009.

Greenland has a small population of only about 56,000 people. While that seems small, and it is, it would be far from the smallest country in the world. In fact, there would be about 10 countries with smaller populations than Greenland.

Greenland is very different linguistically and ethnically from Denmark, and it’s pretty far away. Currently, polling shows support for independence in Greenland at around 70%, and the two largest parties in the Greenland parliament both support independence.

What Greenland has over other small countries is a whole lot of territory and resources as well as a strategic location. Granted, almost all of their land is covered in ice, but they have it.

Economically, they are heavily dependent on Denmark, but that could easily be replaced by cutting deals with other, larger countries like Canada and the United States, both of which are closer.

Greenland is almost entirely autonomous at this point and I think the transition to independence would be pretty smooth.

The next possible independent country is Bougainville.

I’m guessing that most of you are not as familiar with Bougainville as you are with Greenland.

Bougainville is currently part of Papua New Guinea. Bougainville is the easternmost part of Papua New Guinea, and geographically, it is the largest island in the Soloman Islands archipelago.

The Bougainville independence movement traces its roots to colonial-era grievances and economic exploitation, particularly over the Panguna copper mine, which fueled tensions between Bougainville and Papua New Guinea.

In 1975, Bougainville briefly declared independence from Papua New Guinea but was later reintegrated.

Discontent over resource control and ethnic differences led to the Bougainville Civil War, which took place from 1988 to 1998, between separatist groups and Papua New Guinea forces, resulting in thousands of deaths.

A peace agreement in 2001 granted Bougainville autonomous status and promised a future independence referendum.

In 2019, a non-binding referendum saw a 97.7% vote in favor of independence, yet full sovereignty depends on negotiations with Papua New Guinea.

The agreement between the government and Bougainville outlines a timeline for independence between 2025 and 2027, but ratification by Papua New Guinea’s parliament remains the last hurdle.

If Bougainville became independent, it would have a population of about 300,000 people and it would have a per capita GDP of about $1,100 per person.

The next potential country isn’t far away from Bougainville. It is New Caledonia.

New Caledonia is currently a part of France. France has had a very different history of decolonization from other countries. When the British made the decision to dismantle their empire after World War II, they couldn’t get rid of their colonies fast enough.

The French, on the other hand, resisted almost everything. They went to war over Algeria. Other than Haiti, which had a violent revolution, none of the French territories in the Caribbean have ever become independent.

France acquired New Caledonia in 1853 and took it as a colony from the native Kanak people who lived there.

Calls for independence intensified in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to violent clashes, including the Ouvéa hostage crisis in 1988.

The Ouvéa hostage crisis occurred in April-May 1988, when Kanak separatists in New Caledonia took gendarmes hostage on Ouvéa Island, leading to a violent French military raid that resulted in the deaths of 19 Kanak militants and two soldiers,

This led to the Matignon Accords in 1988 and later the Nouméa Accord in 1998, which granted New Caledonia greater autonomy and outlined a process for potential independence. Three referendums were held in 2018, 2020, and 2021, with the pro-independence vote increasing initially but ultimately rejected, especially in the controversial 2021 vote, which Kanak leaders boycotted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the problems is that the native Kanak people only make up approximately 41% of New Caledonia’s population. Other significant groups include Europeans, French at around 24%, and smaller communities of Polynesians, Indonesians, Vietnamese, and other Pacific Islanders.

Of the countries I’ve mentioned so far, New Caledonia has the hardest road to independence because of the population demographics of the island and the fact that France controls them.

If they became independent, they would have a population of about 271,000 and a relatively high per capita GDP of $34,000. Only about 15% of the New Caledonian economy is economic support from France.

Much of their economy comes from nickel mining and tourism.

The next country on my list is Somaliland.

Somaliland is the northernmost part of the nation of Somalia. It is, for all practical purposes, already an independent country.

They control all of their own affairs. They are completely autonomous. The Somali government has no presence in Somaliland. They issue their own passports, have their own currency, and have run democratic elections with peaceful transitions of power.

In terms of land, they are slightly larger than Uruguay, and they have a population of approximately 6.2 million people, which is about the same as El Salvador.

Somaliland was previously a British protectorate from 1884 to 1960. They briefly gained independence on June 26, 1960, before voluntarily uniting with Italian Somaliland to form Somalia.

Decades of marginalization, political instability, and civil war, particularly the brutal suppression of the Isaaq clan, led to a growing independence movement.

Somaliland unilaterally declared independence from Somalia in 1991 after the collapse of the dictator Siad Barre’s regime.

After the collapse of the Barre regime, most of the country collapsed into factions run by warlords. The exception was Somaliland, which became an island of relative stability.

So, if they have basically been running their own affairs for 30 years and existing as a de facto independent country, why aren’t they considered independent?

It has to do with the fact that everyone, including African countries, is very hesitant to recognize new African countries.

As I covered in a previous episode, the map of Africa was drawn by European powers. Since decolonization, only two new countries have been created, Eritrea and South Sudan, and both of those involved long, bloody wars.

The fear is that if Somaliland’s neighbors recognize them, they are opening the door to other separatist movements in their own countries.

Also, the Somali government in Mogadishu doesn’t recognize their independence, even though they have zero influence in the region anymore.

Somaliland independence is sort of out of their hands. There has been talk of Ethiopia finally recognizing Somaliland. If a few countries start, then maybe it would open the floodgates for more countries to recognize the reality on the ground for the last 30 years that Somaliland has been independent.

The final country that has an excellent chance of becoming independent is the Cook Islands.

The Cook Islands are a Polynesian territory of about 15,000 people who live on the islands.

The Cook Islands are as close as you can currently get to being an independent country without actually being an independent country. Officially, they are a territory of New Zealand. However, they have full control over their own affairs. They have diplomatic relations with several countries, including the United States.

They also have their own Olympic team and representatives in international organizations such as UNESCO and the World Health Organization. They even have their own currency and stamps.

The New Zealand government has also said they will not stop Cook Island’s independence if they should choose to declare independence.

So, why isn’t the Cook Islands independent?

It primarily has to do with citizenship and passports. While 15,000 people live in the Cook Islands, there are another 85,000 to 100,000 Cook Islanders who live in New Zealand—the vast majority of who were born there.

Currently, all Cook Islanders have New Zealand citizenship. The Cook Islands wants to issue their own passports. New Zealand’s stance is that if you want to do that, then you need to become independent, which they have no problems with, but you can’t have it both ways.

The ties between the Cook Islands and New Zealand are so strong that there hasn’t really been a lot of pressure to take the next final step for full independence.

They could literally do it at any time and there is nothing stopping them except for the fact that they just haven’t bothered to pull the trigger on full independence yet.

Just for good measure, I should also acknowledge the possibility of independence for the other, much smaller, New Zealand territories of Tokelau and Nuie, but those are for another episode.

I think the territories that I’ve listed here have the best shot at being new potential members of the United Nations by the year 2035. However, you never know what is going to happen in the future.

Some major countries could collapse and split into multiple countries, some breakaway faction of a country could win a civil war, or something else entirely unforeseen could happen.

That uncertainty is part of the process of how new countries are made.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

I have a correction I’d like to make. In the previous episode on the Cambridge Five, I said that the US signal intelligence program that spied on the Soviets was called Project Verona.

Discord user pfe-Oct-2016 correctly pointed out that the name of the project was Venona, not Verona. The ‘r’ should be replaced with an ‘n’.

Today’s one-star review comes from listener EED is horrible over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write.

Horrible

Written by A.I.