Reasonable Division of the World (or RDW)

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This is a list created to help travelers who aspire to visit in depth the whole world, dividing all the countries in a reasonable way, at a human level.

 

United Nations (UN) figure of 193 countries (plus the two observers Vatican and Palestine) is the base camp.

Travelers Century Club (TCC), with 330 subjects, adds to its list the 193 UN countries plus overseas territories and groups of islands. For instance, in USA, apart from the continental country, they add Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, plus American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, Wake, Midway plus some small islands scattered in the Pacific. All overseas territories of France and United Kingdom are included, such as Reunion, Nouvelle Caledonie, Malvinas/Falklands Islands, or Pitcairn Island. Antarctica is divided into seven regions, while this continent is not considered in the list of the United Nations. If you visit the small seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates, that counts as 7 points, but if you visit huge countries such as Brazil, or Argentina, Mexico or India, it only counts 1 point each country.

Most Traveled People (MTP), considers 1500 subjects. Apart from all 330 territories included in TCC, they have copied the division of the club Nomad Mania. Apart from that, in MTP are included too remote islands without population that have completely nothing to offer to a traveler, like Bouvet, Peter I, Rockall, Sable, Redonda, Kermadec Islands, Clipperton, and a long etcetera of useless territories. Besides, it is illogical that tiny Switzerland is divided by 26 cantons, same points than visiting 26 countries of Africa. MTP also includes the 14 secret GUINNESS territories: Soberana Orden Militar de Malta – Franz Josef Land – Altos del Golán – Paracel Islands – Spratly Islands – Ashmore and Cartier Islands – Coral Sea Islands – Howland and Baker Islands – Kingman Reef – Clipperton – Island Peter I – Heard and McDonald Islands – Bouvet – Dependencias de las Islas Malvinas.

Nomad Mania (NM), with 1.301 subjects, divides practically all the UN countries into regions. But they go much further and they divide regions into several parts, as for instance Alaska, California, New York and Texas in USA, Krasnoyarsk and Sakha in Russia, plus many provinces of China and some of India, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Spain, etc., so complicating unnecessarily the list. We do not have to be more papist than the Pope. Why the large country of Mexico instead of 32 states or regions is divided only into about 20, while the 31 provinces of China are divided in about 60 parts? They also count in their list several uninhabited russian islands in the arctic, like Severnaya Zemlya in the krai of Krasnoyarsk, or New Siberian Islands in the Republic of Sakha. And they consider that if you circumnavigate an island without landing in it (for instance Bouvet), only watching it from the distance, it counts as visited! That is an aberration that even MTP does not do, it is like fooling yourself; with that same criterion they could count the Moon as visited. Finally, they concede 1 point for reaching the Geographical North Pole and another one for the Geographical South Pole.

ISO, (or International Organization for Standardization) with around 4.000 subjects, is an organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, but californian great traveler Jeff Shea saw too many faults and some important territories missing, so he improved the list creating SISO (Shea ISO).

SISO is ISO with many improvements made by Jeff Shea. It is divided in 3.978 territories. The inconvenient is that diminutive countries such as Slovenia have almost 200 divisions while large countries like Kazakhstan only have 14. To visit countries with too many divisions, like Thailand, Vietnam, United Kingdom or Turkey looks too arduous because the maps do not help much. Furthermore, there are not 200 tourists attractions to visit in small Slovenia, or over 200 in England, so why to induce travelers to visit all those tiny territories?

Greatest Globetrotters (GG): German traveler Sascha Grabow, the creator of this club, divides the world in 1461 territories, including capitals of the 193 United Nations, plus 1 point for overland entry. That is, if you fly to, let us say, Berlin, you count 1 point for the capitl of Germany.  But if you enter overland Germany, from  instance from France by bus or by train, you get 1 more point. That system rewards the overland travel, instead of using airplanes.

RDW, with 1.492 subjects, is a personal attempt to make a logical list, at a human level and measure, a kind of simplified ISO and SISO. The regions listed should be reached with local transport (with a few exceptions for the historical interest, like Antarctica, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Pitcairn, Tristan da Cunha, plus Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises or TAAF), should be inhabited, and should be chosen the historical regions instead of the small tiny provinces. For instance, why to include 50 provinces in Spain (as ISO does) if we, spaniards, only have 17 regions? The same goes with the about 100 provinces of Italy within its 20 regions. or the more than 100 french departments. Why to include almost 200 territories in Slovenia when the historical parts of the country are just a few regions? … and so on. That is why I chose 17 regions for Spain (plus Ceuta and Melilla in Africa), 20 regions in Italy, 3 regions in Switzerland (speaking French, German, Italian), etc. When in doubt, I have selected the fewer regions option. For instance, France had 22 regions in Europe until 2015, then in 2016 they reduced them to 13, number that I use, but clubs such as MTP and Nomad Mania still use 22. Atoll Clipperton in France has been ignored because it is uninhabited, same with the Eparses Islands, while the military base of British Indian Ocean Territory has not been included because of the impossibility to get there by public transport, same as Wake and Midway in the Pacific Ocean. If you consider that to travel is to learn and not getting points in virtual travel clubs to visit uninhabited places without any interest, and you want to separate the wheat from the chaff, then you should consider adopting RDW list of territories when traveling.

Regarding the countries not yet recognized by the United Nations, I have tried to be official, that is, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are divided within Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh is to be found within Azerbaijan, Transnistria within Moldova, Somaliland within Somalia, Kosovo within Serbia, North Cyprus within Cyprus, Bougainville within Papua New Guinea, Donetsk and Lugansk within Ukraine, etc. If in the future there are changes and these territories obtain official full recognition by the United Nations, then I will show these new countries separately.

Here below you can see the RDW list that I propose and I myself follow:

 

EUROPE:

 

1 – Albania: 3 regions plus capital city Tirana. Total 4 subjects

2 – Andorra: 1 region

 

3 – Austria: 9 states

4 – Belarus: 6 regions

5 – Belgium: 3 regions

6 – Bosnia and Herzegovina: 4 regions (including Brcko plus Republic of Srpska east and west), plus capital city Sarajevo. Total 5 subjects

 

7 – Bulgaria: 9 oblasts

8 – Croatia: 5 regions

9 – Cyprus: 6 districts (including the part taken by Turkey, but excluding the British Sovereign Bases)

10 – Czech Republic: 8 regions

11 – Denmark: 5 regions plus Greenland, Faroe Islands and Bornholm Island. Total 8 subjects

12 – Estonia: 4 regions plus Saaremaa Island. Total 5 subjects

13 – Finland: 5 regions plus Aland Islands. Total 6 subjects

 

14 – France: 13 regions plus French Polynesia (5 archipelagos: Marquesas, Leeward, Windward, Tuamotu-Gambier, Austral), New Caledonia, Wallis et Futuna, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Guadaloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Saint Pierre et Miquelon, Mayotte, Reunion, Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises (TAAF). Total 29 subjects

15 – Germany: 16 landers plus Heligoland Island. Total 17 subjects

16 – Greece: 13 regions plus Mount Athos. Total 14 subjects

17 – Hungary: 7 regions plus Budapest. Total 8 subjects

18 – Iceland: 8 regions

19 – Ireland: 6 regions (excluding Northern Ireland), plus capital city Dublin. Total 7 subjects

20 – Italy: 20 regions plus Pelagie Islands (Lampedusa). Total 21 subjects

21 – Latvia: 5 regions

22 – Liechtenstein: 1 region

23 – Lithuania: 5 regions

 

24 – Luxemburg: 1 region

25 – Malta: 1 region

26 – Moldova: 6 regions (including Transnistria)

27 – Monaco: 1 region

28 – Montenegro: 3 regions

29 – Netherlands: 12 provinces, plus Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius. Total 18 subjects

30 – North Macedonia: 3 regions

31 – Norway: 5 regions plus Svalbard Islands. Total 6 subjects

32 – Poland: 16 regions

33 – Portugal: 5 regions plus Azores and Madeira islands. Total 7 subjects

 

34 – Romania: 9 regions

35 – Russia: 83 regions plus Crimea and Sevastopol, plus Kuril Islands. Total 86 subjects

36 – San Marino: 1 region

37 – Serbia: 6 regions (including Kosovo)

38 – Slovakia: 8 krajov

39 – Slovenia: 6 regions

40 – Spain: 17 authonomies plus Ceuta and Melilla. Total 19 subjects

41 – Sweden: 8 regions plus Gotland Island. Total 9 subjects

42 – Switzerland: 3 regions plus capital city Bern. Total 4 subjects

43 – Ukraine: 25 regions (excluding Crimea and Sevastopol because were annexed by Russia)

44 – United Kingdom: 15 regions. In England (9), Scotland (4, including Orkney, Shetland and Outer Hebrides Islands), Wales (1) and Northern Ireland (1), plus Isle of Man, Channel Islands (2, Jersey and Guernsey), Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Malvinas/Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Saint Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, Turks and Caicos Islands, Pitcairn Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, British Soverain Bases in Cyprus. Total 32 subjects

- Vatican City (Observer Country): 1 region

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TOTAL REGIONS IN EUROPE: 456

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ASIA:

45 – Afghanistan: 8 regions

46 – Armenia: 11 regions

47 – Azerbaijan: 8 regions, including Nakhchivan and Nagorno Karabakh

48 – Bahrain: 1 region

49 – Bangladesh: 8 regions

50 – Bhutan: 3 regions

51 – Brunei: 2 regions

52 – Cambodia: 4 regions plus capital Phnom Penh. Total 5 subjects

53 – China: 31 regions plus Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. Total 34 subjects

54 – Georgia: 12 regions, including Abkhazia and South Ossetia

55 - India: 36 regions

56 – Indonesia: 8 regions plus capital Jakarta, plus West Timor. Total 10 subjects

57 – Iran: 7 regions plus capital Tehran and Qeshm Island. Total 9 subjects

58 – Iraq: 5 regions plus capital Baghdad. Total 6 subjects

59 – Israel: 6 regions plus the part of Judea and Samaria (but not Golan Heights, which officially belongs to Syria). Total 7 subjects

60 – Japan: 8 regions plus Okinawa and Ogasawara Islands. Total 10 subjects

61 – Jordan: 4 regions plus capital Amman. Total 5 subjects

 

62 – Kazakhstan: 14 regions

63 – Korea North: 4 regions

64 – Korea South: 6 regions

65 – Kuwait: 1 region

66 – Kyrgyzstan: 7 oblast plus 2 independent cities (Bishkek and Osh). Total 9 regions

67 – Laos: 3 regions plus capital Vientiane. Total 4 subjects

68 – Lebanon: 6 regions

69 – Malaysia: 5 regions plus Labuan Island, plus Langkawi Island. Total 7 subjects

70 – Maldives: 1 region, plus North Male Atoll, plus Addu Atoll. Total 3 subjects

71 – Mongolia: 5 regions plus capital Ulaanbaatar. Total 6 subjects

72 - Myanmar: 14 regions

73 – Nepal: 7 regions plus Kingdom of Mustang. Total 8 subjects

74 – Oman: 4 regions plus capital Muscat and Musandam. Total 6 subjects

- Palestine (Observer Country): 2 regions

75 – Pakistan: 8 regions

76 – Philippines: 17 regions

77 – Qatar: 1 region

78 – Saudi Arabia: 5 regions plus capital Riyadh. Total 6 subjects

79 – Singapore: 1 region

80 – Sri Lanka: 9 regions

81 – Syria: 6 regions plus capital Damascus. Total 7 subjects

82 – Tajikistan: 4 regions plus Capital City Dushanbe. Total 5 subjects

83 – Thailand: 6 regions plus capital Bangkok. Total 7 subjects

84 – Timor-Leste: 2 regions (main part and Oecusse)

85 – Turkey: 7 regions plus Turkey in Europe, plus Istanbul, plus capital city Ankara. Total 10 subjects

86 – Turkmenistan: 5 regions plus Ashgabat as Capital City District. Total 6 subjects

87 – United Araba Emirates: 7 emirates

88 – Uzbekistan: 14 regions

89 – Vietnam: 8 regions plus Phu Quoc Island. Total 9 subjects

90 – Yemen: 6 regions, plus Sana’a as Federal Capital, plus Socotra Islands. Total 8 subjects

TOTAL REGIONS IN ASIA: 382

AFRICA

 

91 – Algeria: 7 regions

92 – Angola: 6 regions, including Cabinda

93 – Benin: 2 regions

94 – Botswana: 3 regions plus Capital City Gabarone. Total 4 subjects

95 – Burkina Faso: 4 regions

96 – Burundi: 1 region

97 – Cameroon: 10 regions

98 – Cape Verde: 2 regions (Ilhas do Barlavento and Ilhas do Sotavento)

99 – Central African Republic: 4 regions plus capital Bangui. Total 5 subjects

100 – Chad: 3 regions plus Capital City N’Djamena. Total 4 subjects

101 – Comoros: 3 regions

102 – Democratic Republic of the Congo: 11 regions

103 – Republic of the Congo: 6 regions

104 – Djibouti: 1 region

105 – Egypt: 6 regions

106 – Equatorial Guinea: 2 regions

107 – Eritrea: 6 regions

108 – Eswatini: 1 region

109 – Ethiopia: 10 regions

110 – Gabon: 3 regions plus capital Libreville. Total 4 subjects

111 – Gambia: 2 regions

112 – Ghana: 10 regions

113 – Guinea: 7 regions

114 – Guinea-Bissau: 2 regions

115 – Ivory Coast: 14 regions

116 – Kenya: 8 regions

117 – Lesotho: 1 region

118 – Liberia: 3 regions plus Capital City Monrovia. Total 4 subjects

119 – Libya: 4 regions

120 – Madagascar: 6 regions

121 – Malawi: 3 regions

122 – Mali: 8 regions plus Capital City Bamako. Total 9 subjects

123 – Mauritania: 3 regions plus Capital City Nouakchott. Total 4 subjects

124 – Mauritius: 3 regions (Mauritius, Rodrigues plus Agalega with Saint Brandon)

125 – Morocco: 12 regions

126 – Mozambique: 11 regions

127 – Namibia: 4 regions plus capital Windhoek. Total 5 subjects

128 – Niger: 8 regions

129 – Nigeria: 6 regions plus Abuja Federal Capital Territory. Total 7 subjects

130 – Rwanda: 1 region

131 – Sao Tome and Principe: 2 regions

132 – Senegal: 5 regions

133 – Seychelles: 2 regions (Inner Islands plus Outer Islands)

134 – Sierra Leone: 4 regions plus National Capital Freetown. Total 5 subjects

135 – Somalia: 5 regions

136 – South Africa: 9 regions

137 – South Sudan: 3 regions

138 – Sudan: 5 regions plus capital Khartoum. Total 6 subjects

139 – Tanzania; 6 regions (including Zanzibar), plus capital Dar es Salam. Total 7 subjects

140 – Togo: 3 regions

141 – Tunisia: 3 regions

142 – Uganda: 4 regions

143 – Zambia: 5 regions

144 – Zimbabwe: 8 provinces plus two cities with provincial status: Harare and Bulawayo. Total 10 regions

TOTAL REGIONS IN AFRICA: 285

AMERICA:

 

145 – Antigua and Barbuda: 2 regions

146 – Argentina: 23 provinces plus 1 Authonomous City Buenos Aires. Total 24 subjects

147 – Bahamas: 1 region plus Capital City Nassau. Total 2 subjects

148 – Barbados: 1 region plus Capital City Bridgetown. Total 2 subjects

149 – Belize: 5 regions

150 – Bolivia: 9 regions

151 – Brazil: 26 states, 1 Federal District, plus Fernando de Noronha Island. Total 28 subjects

152 – Canada: 12 regions plus Newfounland (1) and Labrador (1). Total 14 subjects

153 – Chile: 5 zonas plus Easter Island and Juan Fernandez Islands. Total 7 subjects

154 – Colombia: 5 regions plus San Andres and Providencia Islands, plus Capital City Bogota. Total 7 subjects

155 – Costa Rica: 7 regions

156 – Cuba: 6 provincias plus Isla de la Juventud. Total 7 subjects

157 – Dominica: 1 region plus Capital City Roseau. Total 2 subjects

158 – Dominican Republic: 5 regions plus Capital City Santo Domingo. Total 6 regions

159 – Ecuador: 3 regions plus Capital City Quito, plus Galapagos Islands. Total 5 subjects

160 – El Salvador: 3 regions plus Capital City San Salvador. Total 4 subjects

161 – Grenada: 1 region plus Grenadines Islands. Total 2 subjects

162 – Guatemala: 5 regions plus Capital Guatemala City. Total 6 subjects

 

163 – Guyana: 3 regions plus Capital City Georgetown. Total 4 subjects

164 – Haiti: 3 regions plus the Capital Port-au-Prince. Total 4 subjects

165 – Honduras: 3 regions plus Capital City Tegucigalpa, plus Islas de la Bahia. Total 5 subjects

166 – Jamaica: 4 regions plus Capital City Kingston. Total 5 subjects

167 – Mexico: 31 states plus Mexico City. Total 32 subjects

168 - Nicaragua: 6 regions plus Corn Islands. Total 7 subjects

169 – Panama: 4 regions plus San Blas Islands. Total 5 subjects

170 – Paraguay: 4 regions

171 – Peru: 10 regions

172 – Saint Kitts and Nevis: 2 regions

173 – Saint Lucia: 1 region plus Capital City Castries. Total 2 subjects

174 – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 2 regions

175 – Suriname: 3 regions plus Capital City Paramaribo. Total 4 subjects

176 – Trinidad and Tobago: 2 regions

177 – United States: 50 states, 1 Federal District, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, US Virgin Islands. Total 56 subjects

178 – Uruguay: 4 regions plus Capital City Montevideo. Total 5 subjects

179 – Venezuela: 7 regions

TOTAL REGIONS IN AMERICA: 295

 

OCEANIA:

180 – Australia: 8 regions plus Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, Torres Strait Islands. Total 13 subjects

181 – Federated States of Micronesia: 4 regions

182 – Fiji: 5 regions

183 – Kiribati: 3 regions plus Banaba Island. Total 4 subjects

184 – Marshall Islands: 1 region

185 – Nauru: 1 region

186 – New Zealand: 2 regions plus Chatham Islands, Niue, Cook Islands, Tokelau. Total 6 subjects

187 – Palau: 5 regions plus Sonsorol Islands. Total 6 subjects

 

188 – Papua New Guinea: 10 regions

189 – Samoa: 2 regions

190 – Solomon Islands: 9 regions plus Capital Territory Honiara. Total 10 subjects

191 – Tonga: 3 regions

192 – Tuvalu: 1 region

193 – Vanuatu: 6 regions

TOTAL REGIONS IN OCEANIA: 72

EXTRA TERRITORIES:

 

RASD  or Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic controlled by the POLISARIO (the green area): 1 region

 

- Antarctica: 1 region

 

 

TOTAL REGIONS IN THE WORLD: 1.492

 

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