Territories and other entities of the world

Nine kinds of status

“Territory” covers very different arrangements. Some places on this list are as much a part of their country as any mainland region; others run their own foreign policy. The status column uses these definitions:

Dependent territory (21)

Administered by another state without being fully part of it: British Overseas Territories, US territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam, Australia’s external territories and New Zealand’s Tokelau.

French overseas collectivity (6)

French territories with their own statutes and wide autonomy, such as French Polynesia and Saint Barthélemy; New Caledonia has a unique status under the 1998 Nouméa Accord.

Integral part of the state (7)

Legally part of the sovereign state, though listed separately by ISO: France’s five overseas departments (in the EU, using the euro), the Caribbean Netherlands and Svalbard.

Autonomous territory (8)

Self-governing parts of a state: Greenland and the Faroe Islands (Denmark), Åland (Finland), Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten (constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), and Hong Kong and Macau (China).

Crown Dependency (3)

Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man belong to the British Crown but are not part of the United Kingdom; the UK handles their defence and international relations.

State in free association (2)

The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing in free association with New Zealand and run their own foreign relations.

Disputed territory (1)

Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is claimed by Morocco and by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Partially recognised or breakaway state (6)

Breakaway entities that claim independence: Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.

No permanent population (6)

Territories with no permanent population, from Bouvet Island to the US Minor Outlying Islands, plus Antarctica.

Size and population do not follow status. Greenland, the largest entry by far at 2,166,086 km², has only 55,629 people, while Hong Kong packs 7,378,602 into 1,115 km². After Greenland, the largest are Western Sahara (266,000 km²), Somaliland (176,120 km²), French Guiana (83,534 km²). The most populous after Hong Kong and Puerto Rico are Kosovo (1,602,515), Réunion (886,298), Macau (723,188).

Which countries have territories?

10 states administer the dependencies, autonomous regions and associated states on this list (breakaway states and Western Sahara are not counted). Most are the remains of the British, French, Dutch, Danish and American overseas empires; China’s two entries are former Portuguese and British colonies returned in 1997 and 1999.

The UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories

The UN Special Committee on Decolonization keeps a list of territories whose peoples it considers not yet fully self-governing. It has 17 entries, down from 72 in 1946: American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, French Polynesia, Gibraltar, Guam, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Tokelau, Turks and Caicos Islands, United States Virgin Islands, Western Sahara. Ten are British, three American, two French and one belongs to New Zealand. Western Sahara has no administering power recognised by the UN.

Being on the list says nothing about what residents want: Bermuda, Gibraltar and the Falklands have voted to keep their current status, while independence movements are strong in New Caledonia. Places that are not on the list, such as Puerto Rico or Greenland, can still have lively debates about their future.

Status changes in progress

Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory)

The United Kingdom and Mauritius signed a treaty on 22 May 2025 to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, with the UK leasing back Diego Garcia, site of a UK–US military base, for 99 years. As of 12 November 2026 it has not been ratified or entered into force: UK ratification was paused pending agreement with the United States, and the implementing bill fell at the end of the parliamentary session in April 2026. The territory has no permanent population; its Chagossian inhabitants were expelled in 1967–1973.

Gibraltar

A UK–EU treaty signed on 14 July 2026, applied provisionally since 15 July, creates a customs union between the EU and Gibraltar and removes routine checks at the Spanish border, with Schengen checks at Gibraltar’s port and airport. It does not change sovereignty, which Spain continues to claim.

New Caledonia

Three independence referendums (2018, 2020, 2021) returned “no”. The 2025 Bougival agreement proposed a “State of New Caledonia” within the French Republic, but France’s National Assembly rejected the constitutional bill on 2 April 2026, so the 1998 Nouméa Accord still applies. The 2025 census counted 264,596 people, the first fall between censuses since 1946, after emigration that followed the 2024 unrest.

Western Sahara

In October 2025 the UN Security Council endorsed negotiations on the basis of Morocco’s autonomy plan (resolution 2797). On 30 October 2026 it failed to renew the mandate of its peacekeeping mission, MINURSO, which expired the next day. Morocco administers about 80% of the territory west of a defensive sand wall; the Polisario Front holds the rest.

Frequently asked questions