The entire world has been split into a large number of habitable geographic locations called continents, which are further made up of separate entities called countries. Each country may be made up of a number of states, the number often depending on the size of the country as well as a range of other factors. These are some of the basics of modern day geography. In the context of globalization today, and even for the sake of general knowledge, it becomes critical that we know the number of countries that exist totally in the world today.
Officially, the world today consists of 193 countries. You can check on the Internet for a detailed list of these countries. However, there is a disparity between the number of countries in the world and the number listed in the United Nations. The UN has one lesser number in its list, and has 192 member countries. This anomaly comes from the fact that the Vatican, which is recognized as the smallest country, chose not to be a part of the UN. Therefore, while the UN list has 192 countries, the official count of the number of countries today puts it at 193.