Timeline of national independence

This list includes currently extant sovereign states (list) and states with limited recognition that have declared independence from a predecessor state or an occupying power. Various states have never declared independence throughout their formations and hence are not included in the main list on this page, including states that were formed by the unification of multiple independent states, such as the United Kingdom, United States, and Tanzania, including states that did declare independence, but whose most recent establishment was through other means, such as Haiti, which declared independence from France in 1804, but split into two states in 1806 and was reunified in 1820. These countries are given on a separate list below. The list does not include duplicated entries for states that have declared independence multiple times, only using the most recent one. Subnational entities are usually not included in the list. Some of these dates of independence might be disputed. Entries in the "events" table are written in the present tense.