How Many Countries Are in Africa? Full List by Region (54 Countries)

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent, and also its most politically fragmented: 54 UN-recognised countries share the landmass, plus the disputed territory of Western Sahara. If you have ever tried to name them all and stalled around number twenty, this guide organises the whole continent into five manageable regions.

Why the number is sometimes "55"

The African Union counts 55 members, because it includes Western Sahara (the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) alongside the 54 UN member states. Morocco disputes this territory's status, which is exactly why Morocco itself left the AU for over 30 years before rejoining in 2017. For UN purposes, the standard figure is 54.

North Africa (6 countries)

Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia. This region is defined by the Sahara and the Mediterranean, and by Arabic as the dominant language. Egypt's Cairo and Sudan's Khartoum both sit on the Nile, the river that has shaped North African civilisation for five thousand years.

West Africa (16 countries)

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Nigeria alone is home to more than 200 million people — Africa's most populous country by a wide margin, and one of the most linguistically diverse places on Earth with over 500 languages.

Central Africa (9 countries)

Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe. The DRC contains most of the Congo Basin rainforest, the second-largest tropical forest on Earth after the Amazon.

East Africa (14 countries, plus islands)

Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. This region includes the Great Rift Valley, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Madagascar — an island so isolated that over 90% of its wildlife exists nowhere else on Earth.

Southern Africa (5 countries)

Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. South Africa is unique in having three capital cities: Pretoria (executive), Cape Town (legislative) and Bloemfontein (judicial) — a compromise struck when the country unified in 1910.

Quick facts worth remembering

• Largest country by area: Algeria (about 2.4 million km²)
• Smallest country: Seychelles (about 460 km²)
• Most populous: Nigeria (over 200 million people)
• Newest country: South Sudan (2011)
• Only two countries never colonised: Ethiopia and Liberia

Practise the whole continent

Fifty-four countries is a lot to hold in your head at once. Spin the wheel repeatedly and every time it lands somewhere on the African continent, place it on the map before reading further — region first, exact country second. Do that a dozen times and the "Africa blank spot" most people have on their mental map starts to disappear for good.