What Percentage of the World Have You Seen? Five Lists, Five Answers
· Nen
Ask a frequent traveller how much of the world they have seen and you will usually get a percentage within a few seconds. Ask how they worked it out and the conversation slows down.
A percentage is a fraction, and most people only ever think about the top half of it. They know their country total. They have rarely chosen what to divide it by, and that choice moves the answer further than another year of travel would.
Here is a worked example using a real record: 34 countries, one of them lived in. The same 34 countries produce every number below.
Start with the bottom half of the fraction
There is no single official list of the world's countries, so there is no single denominator. These are the ones you will meet most often.
| Denominator | Size | 34 countries gives |
|---|---|---|
| UN member states | 193 | 17.6% |
| UN members plus the two observer states | 195 | 17.4% |
| MapMyWorld's reference list | 199 | 17.1% |
| ISO 3166-1 country codes | 249 | 13.7% |
| Travelers' Century Club list | 330 | 10.3% at most |
The first three barely disagree. Moving from 193 to 199 costs half a percentage point, so if your circle argues about Kosovo and Taiwan, the argument is worth less than it feels.
The last two are different in kind, because they stop asking what a country is and start asking what a place is.
ISO 3166-1 assigns 249 codes to countries, dependent territories and areas of geographical interest. Your 34 is only a fair top half if you also credit yourself with any territories you reached, because the bottom half includes them.
The Travelers' Century Club list has 330 entries, and it reached that figure by splitting places a country list would treat as one. Saint Kitts and Nevis became two entries. That is why the 10.3% in the table is a floor and not a result. Anyone who counts by that list has to recount their travels against it, and their top number will rise along with the bottom one.
The rule that follows is simple: a percentage is only valid when the top and bottom of the fraction come from the same list. Dividing a country count by a territory list understates you. Adding territories to your count and then dividing by 193 flatters you. Both mistakes are common, and the second is the one that gets repeated at dinner.
For a closer look at the lists themselves, and at what counts as a visit in the first place, see what counts as visiting a country.
Why 17% is not one-sixth of the world
Pick any of those country lists and you have made a second decision without noticing it: every country weighs the same.
Russia accounts for about 11% of the world's landmass. Under a country count it is worth exactly as much as Vatican City, which is one entry on the list and takes an afternoon to walk around.
Population behaves the same way. India holds about 17.8% of the world's people and China about 17.0%. Together they are roughly a third of humanity, and on a list of 199 they are two entries, or 1% of the total.
So the same record can honestly produce very different statements. Our 34 countries include China but not India, Russia, Canada or Australia. Adding up by population gives one figure, adding up by land area gives a much smaller one, and neither looks anything like 17%.
None of these is the correct measure. They answer different questions:
- Share of countries tells you how many separate borders, currencies and systems you have dealt with.
- Share of population tells you how many of the world's people live somewhere you have stood, which is closer to what most people mean by seeing the world.
- Share of land area tells you how much of the map you have actually crossed, and it punishes anyone who has flown into one city in a very large country.
That last point is a real weakness in all three. Count a country and you count all of it, whether you crossed it by rail or spent four hours in one airport hotel. A percentage cannot see that. It is the reason a list of places sits underneath the count in any record worth keeping.
The breakdown that tells you more than the total
If you only do one calculation after reading this, make it this one. Split your total by continent and compare each slice with what is available.
Here is the same record of 34, using the continent groupings in our reference list.
| Continent | Visited | Available | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 21 | 46 | 46% |
| Asia | 8 | 48 | 17% |
| South America | 2 | 12 | 17% |
| North America | 2 | 24 | 8% |
| Africa | 1 | 54 | 2% |
| Oceania | 0 | 14 | 0% |
The single figure of 17% describes none of those rows. It is an average of a traveller who knows Europe fairly well and one who has barely started on three other continents. Africa has more countries than any other continent on this list, and this record holds one of them.
This is the more useful number because it is one you can act on. A total only tells you to go somewhere. A breakdown tells you where the gap is, and it often surprises people. Travellers who think of themselves as widely travelled tend to find that more than half of their total sits on one continent, usually the one they live on.
Continent groupings carry their own rules. Turkey, Russia and Egypt all fall on a boundary, and each list has to put them somewhere. Ours places Turkey in Asia, Russia in Europe and Egypt in Africa. If you group them differently your rows will shift by one or two, which is fine as long as you stay consistent. How many continents have you been to goes through those decisions in detail.
How to work out your own number in ten minutes
You need a list of your countries and nothing else.
- Write the list out. Include only the countries you would defend under a rule you have already chosen. If you have not chosen one, decide now whether a layover counts, and write that down at the top.
- Choose one denominator and name it. 193 if you want the figure people expect, 195 if you count the observer states, 199 or 249 if you count more widely. If you say the number aloud, say the list too: "17% of UN members" cannot be argued with. "17% of the world" can.
- Split the list by continent. Use one source for the groupings and keep it. Write visited over available for each row.
- Find your emptiest continent. That row is the most honest summary of your travel so far, and the best prompt for the next trip.
- Add one weighted figure if you are curious. Look up the population of each country on your list, add them, and divide by the world total. You only need to do this once a year, since most countries barely move it.
- Date it. Write the year next to the number. A percentage without a date cannot be compared with anything, including your own figure from five years ago.
Step 6 is the one people skip, and it is what turns a boast into a record. The figure that matters over a lifetime of travel is how the rows change, and you can only see that if you kept the earlier version.
Where MapMyWorld fits
You can do all of this on paper or in a spreadsheet, and a spreadsheet is a perfectly good home for it.
If you would rather not maintain one, MapMyWorld keeps the arithmetic for you. Mark a country on the map and your stats show your share of the 199-country reference list alongside a count for each continent, with countries you lived in counted as visited. Countries are unlimited on the Free plan, so you can log your whole list and see your rows without paying anything.
The reference list includes Kosovo, Taiwan, Palestine, Vatican City, Greenland and Antarctica, so check it against your own rule. If you hold to UN members only, the figure in the app will read slightly differently from your own, and the difference is the one in the table above.
Whichever tool you use, keep the fraction honest. Say which list you used, keep the top and bottom consistent, and look at the rows before you quote the total. If you enjoy this kind of counting, how many island nations you have been to is a good next argument to have with yourself.