<P> The term "country" can refer to a sovereign state . There is no universal agreement on the number of "countries" in the world, since a number of states have disputed sovereignty status . There are 206 sovereign states, of which 193 states are members of the United Nations, two states have observer status at the U.N. (the Holy See and Palestine), and 11 other states are neither a member or observer at the U.N. All are defined as states by declarative theory of statehood and constitutive theory of statehood . The latest proclaimed state is South Sudan in 2011 . </P> <P> Although not sovereign states, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are usually referred to as countries (depending on context), which collectively form the United Kingdom--a sovereign state that is also referred to as a country . The Kingdom of Denmark, a sovereign state, comprises Mainland Denmark and two nominally separate countries--the Faroe Islands, and Greenland--which are almost fully internally self - governing . The Kingdom of the Netherlands, a sovereign state, comprises four separate countries: Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten . In the Kingdom of Spain, the regions of Galicia, the Catalan speaking parts (Catalonia, Valencia and Balearic Islands) and the Basque Country are sometimes recognized as non-sovereign states or group of states (namely, autonomous communities under the Spanish law), specially within nationalist movements . </P> <P> The degree of autonomy of non-sovereign countries varies widely . Some are possessions of sovereign states, as several states have overseas territories (such as French Polynesia or the British Virgin Islands), with citizenry at times identical and at times distinct from their own . Such territories, with the exception of distinct dependent territories, are usually listed together with sovereign states on lists of countries, but may nonetheless be treated as a separate "country of origin" in international trade, as Hong Kong is . </P>

What are the 4 characteristics of a country