Talk:List of sovereign states by date of formation

UK: Date of current form of government should be 1707, not 1922
I don't think it's correct to say that the United Kingdom's current form of government was formed in 1922, with the independence of (most of the island of) Ireland. The government before and after 1922 was functionally the same, with the same constitution, practices, etc, just with a large chunk of territory lost. The Acts of Union between Scotland and England(+Wales) was what actually formed the current system of government. An argument could be made that the current form of government relies on a Prime Minister, so then the current form of government would be 1721.

The UK's situation is unclear, but regardless I don't think picking 1922 as the date of the current form of government makes much sense 143.167.240.144 (talk) 02:48, 20 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The UK along with its Government were created in 1801. CicolasMoon (talk) 18:23, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Israel's first acquisition of sovereignty should be around 930 BC to match other ancient nations
I have noticed that for countries of ancient nations in this list the "date of acquisition of sovereignty" is the date of establishment of the earliest kingdoms even if that happened thousands of years ago, even if they are of a different nation and culture, and even if that sovereignty was disrupted since that time. For example: Iran is given the date 2600 BC, the time of the establishment of the Elamite kingdom in that area, even though the Elamites are a different nation from the Persians living there now (completely different language). India is given the date 2500 BC - the date of the Indus Valley Civilization, though no one knows if it had any cultural or genetic connection to modern-day Indians, and though it had lost its sovereignty several times in the interim period. Most recently to the British for 100 years. Japan got the date 660 BC although is mostly considered legendary. And there are more examples like this in the list. By the same logic, the "date of acquisition of sovereignty" of Israel should be set at the establishment of the first Jewish kingdoms in the holy land which was about 930 BC (according to latest estimates). This kingdoms were called Israel and Judea. Their historicity is undisputed. And their connection to modern Israel is obvious as well - same languages, same name, same religion, genetic descent etc. Vegan416 (talk) 12:08, 30 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Wtmitchell Vegan416 (talk) 12:26, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Vegan416 -- I am traveling in the non-urban Philippines, my laptop died and is not easily replaceable. I am poor at editing WP by cellphone so i must defer comment even though I would like to opine on this here/now. 122.53.92.30 (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Wtmitchell
 * Can you opine now? It's been two months... Vegan416 (talk) 06:12, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * OK, but I'm not focused on Israel here. This article is not a big interest item for me, but it's on my watchlist because of the messy situation regarding declaration of independence and acquisition of sovereignty (examples: Philippines, and the U.S.). The former generally gets celebrated as if it were equivalent to the latter, and it is not -- particularly if a failed revolution is involved. I think, without being able to cite specifics, that this article has a number of problems relating unclear definition of terms as used here. I do not think it is clear, for purposes of this article, what a "sovereign state" is and how/when, for purposes of this article, it is considered to have been "formed". I haven't thought any of that out well enough to suggest improvements. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Absolute nonsense, Israel now != Israel then. Selfstudier (talk) 22:28, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll ignore your disrespectful tone for the time being. But obviously if "Iran in 2600 BC"="Iran now", and "India in 2500 BC"="India now", and "Japan in 660 BC"="Japan now" and "Algeria of 202 BC"="Algeria now" and "Armenia in 880 AD"="Armenia now" then all the more so "Israel in 930 BC"="Israel now". Vegan416 (talk) 10:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Zero continuity between the two. Selfstudier (talk) 10:49, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier
 * 1. On the contrary. There is more continuity between 930BC Israel and 2024 Israel than between 2600BC Iran and 2024 Iran and between 2500BC India and 2024 India and 202BC Algeria and 2024 Algeria. For the sake of brevity, I'll make here a detailed comparison between the Israeli and Iranian case only. If you wish I can make detailed comparisons in the other cases as well.
 * 2. Name: The name of Israel is the same as it was in 930 BC - Israel. On the other hand, the name of Iran today is different from Elam (which is the source of the 2600BC date in the table here).
 * 3. Languages: The language in Israel now is basically the same as it was in 930BC - Hebrew. Children in elementary schools in Israel today can read and understand the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, the Elamite language of the Elam kingdom is completely different from modern Persian and belongs to a completely different family of its own. Almost nobody in Iran today can read or understand Elamite (or even ancient Persian texts from BC times). You need to be a highly trained archeologist or linguist to do that.
 * 4. Religions: The religion of Israel now is basically the same religion as it was in 930BC - Judaism. On the other hand, the religion of Iran today is completely different from the religion of Elam which was a polytheistic religion. Even the later religion of the Persian empires predating Islam - Zoroastrianism is completely different from Islam and its few thousand remaining believers are somewhat persecuted and just barely tolerated in today's Iran.
 * https://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/14/opinion/choksy-iran-zoroastrian/index.html
 * 5. Genetics: The Jews are genetic descendants of the ancient Israelites. This was proven by several genetic studies (see below). The modern-day Iranians may be genetically related genetically to the ancient Elamites. But maybe not. So far I haven't found any scientific research on this subject.
 * https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews
 * https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30487-6
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072/
 * https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-2009-10-1-r7
 * https://www.science.org/content/article/jews-and-arabs-share-recent-ancestry Vegan416 (talk) 13:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Not doing this. Not interested in WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Selfstudier (talk) 13:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking here about OTHER articles. I'm talking here about the internal consistency of THIS article. If you don't want to discuss the internal consistency of this article then your opinion is biased and should be rejected. Vegan416 (talk) 14:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There's no continuity for any of them CicolasMoon (talk) 18:24, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Obviously most editors disagree with you... Vegan416 (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It's a good thing I don't base my worldview on the opinions of incorrect wiki editors. Although, I don't see any evidence to suggest that your statement is true... 2A00:23EE:1970:49B0:75E8:7367:9807:7CC9 (talk) 20:23, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, the fact is that this claims stay here for a very long time... Vegan416 (talk) 21:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, because most people are afraid to just correct things on here 2A02:C7C:4C89:3C00:2184:9A7F:4B92:D449 (talk) 21:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look like it. There had been many changes in this page over time. Look at the history page. Vegan416 (talk) 22:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * While i certainly also have concerns over claims for "date of acquisition of sovereignty" dating back thousands of years through many different eras, as others have said Israel has a very clear and prolonged break in its existence as a state. I would be more inclined to delete the column altogether. A 2000+ year break in a states sovereignty or even existence does not meaningfully serve the purpose of the article. Yes, the modern state of Israel has made many efforts to re-establish old customs and history but it is in no way a continuation of the ancient kingdom.
 * If we were to include such early dates for states with such profound breaks in continuity, through massive changes in rule and demographics and that ceased to exist for thousands of years then almost any date for a state right back to it's first human settlement is open to being included. Having included the dates you mention it would then become very hard to argue against their inclusion. This would obviously not serve the purpose of the article which is to list the dates of the origin of modern sovereign states rather than to make a list of the dates of first human settlements in regions.
 * Simply put if the sovereignty has not been continuously maintained through the state since the date listed the date should not be included. In the case of Israel, the modern state has not had sovereignty over its territory since 930BC so should not be included. If you feel this is unfair, as mentioned I'd be open to discussing applying this to other states but i think continuity of the state in some meaningful form is essential for this list to make any sense or be manageable. Nickmista (talk) 01:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Major inconsistency in this article with regard to "Date of acquisition of sovereignty"
Following the @Wtmitchell comment above starting with the words "I believe that this article is unclear and confusing", and my discussion with @Selfstudier about "Israel's first acquisition of sovereignty", I want to point a major inconsistency in this article that needs to be resolved.

There is an inconsistency in the way ancient nations/states are treated in this article, with no apparent justification whatsoever.


 * 1) On the one hand the we have a group of modern states whose "date of Acquisition of sovereignty"  is given hundreds or even thousands of years ago, despite the fact that many aspects of these dates can be disputed, such as: whether the modern concept of sovereignty even existed that far in the past?; were these states sovereign under any definition in those dates?; did their alleged sovereignty continue uninterrupted from those dates till now?; is there even a continuation of any national identity in those cases from then till now?; Are those dates accepted by historians or considered legendary? In this list of states we can find for example the following states: Algeria, Ethiopia, Morocco, Afghanistan, Armenia, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Mongolia, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, and maybe some others I missed.
 * 2) On the other hand we have several modern states which have the same claim to have their "Acquisition of sovereignty" date to be hundreds or thousands years ago as the ones in the first group, and yet are given only a recent date in the 20th or 19th century.  This list includes for example: Greece, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Yemen, Israel and maybe some others I missed.

Solving this inconsistency can go in one of two ways:


 * 1) My preferred way would be to raise the second group to the same level of the first one. If there is enough support for this way I am willing to take the task on myself.
 * 2) The other alternative is to move the first group to the status of the second one. That is, to decide that we don't want to get into all the controversies and disputes regarding ancient past, and just give the dates of the modern formal recognition of sovereignty which would mean something like the date of the establishment of the Liege of Nations or later, or something like that. This would effectively mean deleting the column of "date of Acquisition of sovereignty" and "Acquisition of sovereignty" from all the tables.

Your opinions? Vegan416 (talk) 13:42, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The Israel thing is just national myth, that apart, some people are never going to be happy with a list like this because nuance cannot easily be reduced to a simple list. I would just AfD the article, with a possible outcome being a merge with List of national constitutions. Selfstudier (talk) 14:57, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier The fact that there were independent Israelite/Jewish kingdoms in the land of Israel in the first millennium BC is established history and not a myth. That apart, an AfD is an extreme measure, and I'm not in favor of it at the moment (unless we try the other options first and they prove to be futile). Vegan416 (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The OR tag has been up there since 2019, if "other options" involves yet more OR, pass. So ancient history, national myths and the rest all binworthy afaiac. Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier
 * I have no idea what the OR tag refers to. It was put there years before I got involved in this article. However you can rest assured that I don't intend to do any OR on this article. There is absolutely no need for it from my POV, as everything I'm going to add to the article will be based and referenced to established historical research from existing reliable secondary sources. Vegan416 (talk) 16:27, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier@Wtmitchell
 * As I said I moved some countries from the the second group to the first, and I plan to move some more. Any comments so far? Vegan416 (talk) 08:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think any discussion on dates regarding modern states needs to have clear direct continuity in the existence of that state. As mentioned it's essentially meaningless to regard states such as Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy etc as having dates of "current form of government" or otherwise dating back to pre-history. This is a pointless and selective approach when the current forms of government bare essentially no resemblance to those ancient states. If we are to seriously consider these dates/claims we also need to seriously consider all dates of first settlement by humans as being traceable to the modern state which is not of course not at all the purpose of this article.
 * Reconciling these issues isn't trivial given the myriad of ways governments are constituted and the major and minor ways states can shift over time.
 * With regards to your question then my view is any break in continuity for the existence of these states resets the clock on any date in the article. If a country has been part of numerous kingdoms and conquered many times over centuries it cannot have a date of sovereignty thousands of years earlier since it has obviously not been sovereign since that time.
 * In practice, my view is that any date more than a few hundred years needs some very very close scrutiny since it is rare for a nation state to not change drastically and/or be conquered/annexed in that large an amount of time. I would guess dates more than 1000 years old would essentially disappear. Nickmista (talk) 00:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As you said in you later comment here "I would be more inclined to delete the column altogether". Since I raised that possibility here several months ago nobody objected to deleting this column altogether, we can say there is a consensus about it. Also I have noticed recently something I missed before that, and that is that the article contains a second set of tables that have a column titled "Historical notes", which summarizes the entire history and changes in sovereignty of each land. This makes the columns of ""acquisition of sovereignty" and "Dates of acquisition of sovereignty" (in the first set of tables) completely redundant and superfluous as well as contentious. So I'll delete it later today. Vegan416 (talk) 06:43, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

A quick summary of proposed changes
Much of what i'm going to say has been raised already, so I wanted to make this thread to summarise the changes and see if there were any objections. Proposed changes:

1. Either remove 'Date of acquisition of sovereignty' (which i think @Vegan416 had said they would do). Or I can add text to clarify that it's explicitly referring to the creation of the current version of that state and update the dates accordingly. I'm a fan of the latter here, since the chart seems to capture the important bits (e.g. UK sovereignty 1707, date of current government = 1922)

This is for two reasons:

- First, the top of the article clearly states: "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." "Extinct States" links to an article that has every non-current state, from ancient Egypt through to USSR. It's redundant and unnecessary to refer to the the '

- Second, it's a contentious/propaganda tool (is modern Cambodia closely tied to the Khmer empire listed? Is an ancient Israel connected to a modern one? Vegan mentioned language but that was resurrected in the 19th century. Why is Egypt only 1922, even though Coptic is still used in some communities? etc, etc)

-Third, it's misleading. The article is about modern nation-states, and it's absurd for a user to see that Israel has been around since 1300bce while Egypt appears to only exist from 1922 onward.

2. Rename article to 'List of (modern, current, something) sovereign states by date of formation'

This is to make it more explicit that this article is a list of current nation-states and not meant as a historical look 178.25.72.42 (talk) 23:48, 25 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I tried to delete this column, but it turns out to be very difficult to do without messing up the formatting of the tables, so I gave it up as not worth the trouble. I agree to your suggestion as long as it is done CONSISTENTLY, and I'll watch for it. Anyway just a small correction. Hebrew was never a dead language. It's true that there were long period where it didn't serve as an everyday language, but it never ceased to be a literary language, and was often the only way that Jews from different countries could communicate with each other. Vegan416 (talk) 06:33, 26 June 2024 (UTC)