New country joins the world

Montenegro, the tiny Balkan country that has long been connected to Serbia, voted yesterday to become an independent country.

Montenegro will thus become the 193rd member of the international community (or maybe the 192nd or 194th, depending on who is counting). There are 191 members of the United Nations.  However, the U.S. State Department and many other U.N. members recognize 192 countries.  This includes Vatican City, which is considered an independent state but does not belong to the U.N.  Then there is Taiwan, which does not meet most international requirements for country status but is recognized by 25 nations.

Now, if you really want to get confused, the Travelers’ Century Club maintains a list of 315 countries, although more than one-third of them are not actually independent states but rather cultural regions that are considered “geographically, politically or ethnologically” distinct.  (Think Tibet, or Scotland, or Montenegro prior to Sunday’s vote.)

Montenegro is the fifth former republic of Yugoslavia to choose independence, joining Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia.  Only Serbia remains of the six Yugoslav republics, and there are indications that the region of Kosovo may also want to become independent.  Montenegro has dreams of joining the European Union but, as this article points out, there are hurdles ahead.  The country is small, with a population of about 650,000, and has no strong economic foundation outside of a tourism industry centered on a spectacular Adriatic coastline.

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