Africa is made up of how many countries

Even before my journey to every country in the world , I love delving into how many countries are in each continent. The main issue with 54 being the number of countries in Africa stems around Morocco and Western Sahara — so is 54 the actual number of countries? Then there are a few disputed territories which could extend the list further, I explain that at the bottom of the article. I wrote an article about how many are countries in the world and I came to countries on face value, but that could reach up to countries. When it came to my personal goal of visiting every country in the world, I used the number Generally speaking, to stay on the right side of political debates, you can stick to the UN number of 54 African countries on the main continent of Africa and the nearby island nations.

There are also two additional states whose independence is under dispute: Western Sahara and Somaliland. Africa has the second-largest population in the world, with an estimated 1 billion inhabitants. Over 1 official languages are spoken across the African continent; and the largest religious group is Islam, followed by Christianity. The latter is an independent movement based in Algeria. Officially known as the Republic of Somaliland, it is a self-declared state and recognised internationally as an autonomous region of Somalia. The government of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to the former British Somaliland protectorate which, after a brief independence period, united with the Trust Territory of Somaliland formerly Italian Somaliland to form the Somali Republic.

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent , after Asia. At about Africa's average population is the youngest amongst all the continents; [5] [6] the median age in was Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context.

So how many countries does Africa have? The AU claims to represent all African countries. So are there 54 or 57?