, and others are not officially recognized by the US
Government. "Independent state" refers to a people politically
organized into a sovereign state with a definite territory.
"Dependencies" and "areas of special sovereignty" refer to a broad
category of political entities that are associated in some way with an
independent state. "Country" names used in the table of contents or
for page headings are usually the short-form names as approved by the
US Board on Geographic Names and may include independent states,
dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty, or other geographic
entities. There are a total of 267 separate geographic entities in The
World Factbook that may be categorized as follows:

INDEPENDENT STATES

191 Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and
Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The
Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize,
Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil,
Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon,
Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China,
Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the
Congo, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador,
Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia,
Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana,
Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Holy
See, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya,
Kiribati, North Korea, South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia,
Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Madagascar,
Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco,
Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, NZ,
Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama,
Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal,
Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and
Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Seychelles,
Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, S