Photos: PolGeoNow's 2022 Visit to the Somaliland Office in Taiwan

Important Note: PolGeoNow does not take any position on whether Taiwan or Somaliland should be diplomatically recognized as independent countries, and does not take sides in the disputes they have with the governments of Somalia and China. During our visit to the Somaliland office in Taipei, we made clear to all parties that we were there strictly for neutral journalistic purposes. PolGeoNow has continued to report freely on developments both favorable and unfavorable to the self-declared Somaliland government in the time since our visit.

East Africa's self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland has an embassy-like representative office in the East Asian city of Taipei, semi-official capital of Taiwan. Somaliland and Taiwan are not accepted as independent countries by the United Nations (UN) - but neither are they controlled by the UN member countries that claim to have authority over them (Somalia and China respectively).

All photos by PolGeoNow

Map modified by PolGeoNow from graphic by Wikimedia user Addicted04 (CC BY-SA)

As part of PolGeoNow's mission to report neutrally on the realities of world geography, we're especially interested in so-called "de facto states" - places that are governed like independent countries, but aren't openly accepted as independent by most other governments. And in August 2022, we were lucky enough to visit an unusual site linking two prominent examples of such unrecognized countries: Somaliland and Taiwan. While in Taipei, Taiwan's semi-official capital, we were invited to visit the representative office of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, and to meet its head diplomat at the time, Mohamed Hagi.

We reported on our 2022 visit soon afterwards with a thread on Twitter (now X)*, and today we're publishing this more complete account for future reference and historical interest. 

*We're now also active on Mastodon, BlueSky, and Threads 

Somalia Supplement: Did Puntland Declare Independence?

This article is a supplement to PolGeoNow’s series of professional reports on territorial control in Somalia’s decades-long civil war. For more context, see that report series. However, this article is written to be accessible to general audiences.

Puntland's Not-quite "Declaration of Independence" 

Part of PolGeoNow's 2024 Somalia control map, showing Puntland state and surroundings. Click on the image to see the full map, complete with detailed legend (free for all readers). The larger blue area on the right represents land solidly controlled by Puntland, while the state's official claimed borders are marked by the dotted while line through Mudug region in the south, and by the left-hand side of the western zone labeled "Area claimed by both Somaliland and Puntland".

As Somalia’s original self-governing state – founded in the chaos of the 1990s before today's Somali federal government even existed – Puntland is in many ways the equivalent of an independent country. Somalia’s federal military has rarely been allowed to operate there, the federal government has little influence over the selection of state or local Puntland officials, and the state government tends to pick and choose to what degree it participates in the federal system. However, unlike neighboring Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991, Puntland has insisted since its founding that it's part of Somalia.

It caught the attention of political geography enthusiasts, then, when in March 2024, Puntland’s government was quoted as saying that it would begin operating with the “full powers of an independent state”. This came amid a dispute over constitutional reforms in Somalia's federal government – a government whose legitimacy Puntland said it no longer recognized. And it’s followed through in practice, refusing to even attend political talks on Somalia’s political future in the year since, continuing its own international relations with countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and fighting a successful war against an important branch of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS/ISIL) all on its own (except for some air support from the UAE and US).

Somalia Supplement: Is there an Al Shabaab presence in SSC-Khatumo?

This article is a supplement to PolGeoNow’s series of professional reports on territorial control in Somalia’s decades-long civil war. Reading it should require minimal prior knowledge, but for much more background, see our August 2023 and June 2024 Somalia reports.

Part of PolGeoNow's 2024 Somalia control map, showing areas of control and influence by SSC-Khatumo as the smaller area of blue on the left, and areas solidly controlled by Somaliland in green. Click on the image to see the full map, complete with detailed legend (free for all readers). Areas of known Al Shabaab presence are shown in the north, outside SSC-Khatumo's are of influence.

In 2023, militias in the northern area of Somalia’s claimed territory rose up in rebellion against the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, which has claimed since 1991 to be a separate country from Somalia. These militias and their supporters are trying to instead join Somalia as one of its federal states, which they call “SSC-Khatumo” (SSC-Khaatumo in Somali). The “SSC” stands for the three regions they claim governance over: Sool, Sanaag, and “Ayn” (spelled Cayn in Somali, though to most English speakers the C sounds silent).

As part of Somaliland’s opposition to SSC-Khatumo, various allegations have been made that the insurrectionists are linked to Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda affiliated organization that governs much of rural southern Somalia. These clams have been largely ignored outside of Somaliland, but we’re still sometimes asked why our maps don’t appear to take them into account. To address this, we’ve written up this article to explain in detail what’s going on, what we know about it, and what the reasoning is behind our mapping of the situation.

Syria: Map of Control in January 2025 (Subscription)

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Research by Djordje Djukic. Map by onestopmap.com, Evan Centanni, and Djordje Djukic

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A month after the fall of Assad, much is still unresolved. Russian bases remain along the coast, and Kurdish-led forces operate their own government in the east, where their war with Turkish-backed former rebels continues after a failed ceasefire. 

Meanwhile, Israel has further expanded its control in the southwest, while the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) reportedly grows in power, and Suwayda province is controlled by Druze militias with an unclear stance towards the new rebel-installed national government.

See all this and more on the latest update to PolGeoNow's concise, professional Syrian Civil War control map, which includes a timeline of key events since our previous Syria map report illustrating the situation on December 14, with sources cited.

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• Up-to-date illustration of current territorial control in Syria, color-coded for the victorious rebel coalition, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), resurgent forces of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL), the Israeli military (IDF), and other non-rebel-allied forces like the Russian military and Druze militias.
  
• Pattern showing the major areas of "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) activity beyond what the group fully controls.
  
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How Many Countries Are There in the World in 2025?

This article, originally from 2011, has been revised and updated to January 2025. You can view older versions of the article in our archives. No changes have been made to the country counts in this article since last year's update.

A world political map published by the US government.

One of the most basic questions for map-lovers is "How many countries are there in the world?" But anyone who just gives you a simple number isn't telling the whole truth. It actually depends a lot on how you define a "country". Here are six of the most common answers, each correct in its own way: