List of modern sovereign states by date of formation
Below is a list of sovereign states with the dates of their formation and date of their current form of government, this later sorted by continent.
This list includes the 195 states which are currently member states of the United Nations or non-member observer states with the United Nations General Assembly. This does not include extinct states, but does include several states with limited recognition.
For proposed states or various indigenous nations which consider themselves still under occupation, see list of active autonomist and secessionist movements.
Nation-building is a long evolutionary process, and in most cases the date of a country's "formation" cannot be objectively determined; e.g., the fact that England and France were sovereign kingdoms on equal footing in the medieval period does not prejudice the fact that England is not now a sovereign state, while France is a republic founded in 1870.
Around 60 countries gained independence from the United Kingdom throughout its history, the most in the world, followed by around 40 countries that gained independence from France throughout its history. Over 50% of the world's borders today were drawn as a result of British and French imperialism. Many countries have gained independence from other Western European empires, including 23 from Spain, 7 from Portugal, 4 from the Netherlands, 3 from Belgium, and 2 from Italy.
An unambiguous measure is the date of national constitutions; but as constitutions are an almost entirely modern concept, all formation dates by that criterion are modern or early modern.
Independence dates for widely recognized states earlier than 1919 should be treated with caution, since prior to the founding of the League of Nations, there was no international body to recognize nationhood, and independence had no meaning beyond mutual recognition of de facto sovereigns. See Disputed territories.
The following list contains the formation dates of countries with a short description of formation events. For a more detailed description of a country's formation and history, please see the main article for that country.
Sortable list
In this list, "date of last subordination" refers to the last date of control by an external government. The list takes into account the existence of states in an independent and continuous manner, ignoring historical periods in which states existed in the territories of the current states that were extinguished through conquest and annexation. Periods of colonial rule are also not counted. Foreign military occupations are included when the occupying nation does not have the objective of annexation or when a government in exile exists.The list shows large groupings associated with the dates of independence from decolonization or dissolution of a political union. In other cases, a sovereign state submitted to foreign military occupation or political subjugation for a period of time and later regained its independence.
Dates refer to de facto rule or occupation of the major territory, whether or not legitimized by international recognition.
In a union such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland-Lithuania, the Soviet Union, or the Kalmar Union, one of the constituents can be considered the dominant power – generally where the seat of government was located. The United Kingdom is a particularly complicated case. If England is viewed as the dominant member, then history can be traced from Roman conquest, Saxon invasions, 10th-century unification, and the 1066 Norman Conquest before the union of England and Scotland in 1707. However, if viewed from a Scottish perspective, an unbroken history of sovereignty can be traced from unification in 843 through the 1707 union with England. Some Scots view the 1707 union as a ceding of sovereignty to England.
There are cases where a state is completely extinguished or abolished without having any successor states. Cases like this occur when, for example, one state is annexed or conquered by another and ceases to exist even in nominal form. The most recent case in human history is the German Democratic Republic, which was completely abolished after the German reunification in 1990. Modern Germany is a reunification of the GDR into the Federal Republic of Germany, not a GDR successor state.
The list does not include states of the Holy Roman Empire or vassal or autonomous states of the Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire, as it considers these autonomous subdivisions and not sovereign states. British dominions before the adoption of the Statute of Westminster of 1931 are also not included, as these are also considered autonomous dependent states because although they had autonomy in internal affairs, they still depended on the metropole for foreign policy and defense.
The concept of sovereign state should not be confused with that of nation. This list has the date of creation of current sovereign states but not of nations. The historiography of some nations, such as the Bulgarians, even separates the different states founded by these nations
| Country | Continent | Acquisition of full sovereignty | Date of last subordination | Previous governing power | Historical Notes | Capital |
 dts|27 May 1863dts|30 August 2021 |