Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 October 24

= October 24 =

Number of worldwide embassies
Hello, I tried to find statistics on the number of diplomatic missions of all countries in the world. However, I was not able to find such information. Can anybody offer at least some appropriate estimate?--Neufund (talk) 13:55, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Can you try to define what you mean by a diplomatic mission? Is that just embassies, or does it include consulates as well? What about honorary consuls? Does it have to be a mission to another sovereign state. or do we include missions to the UN, EU, WHO etc? What about missions from unrecognised countries? What about sub-national bodies: Scotland has an office at the EU? Counting embassies would be hard enough - but if you include everything else it is going to get very complicated. Wymspen (talk) 14:59, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, what about missions-by-proxy? Would a Protecting power, i.e. Switzerland's role in Iran-U.S. relations, count?  The U.S. maintains no direct diplomatic presence in Iran, but still uses the Swiss embassy as a mission-by-proxy.  Does that count as a "mission"?  -- Jayron 32 16:33, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * First of all, thanks a lot for commenting, and sorry for being so imprecise! Considerung your – entirely justified! – objections, I would, of course, now confine myself solely to proper embassies of and in UN-acknowledged sovereign states. Kind regards,--Neufund (talk) 18:06, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Still not entirely clear. Switzerland handles much of Lichtenstein's foreign relations, does this mean that Swiss embassies are also Lichtensteinian (?) embassies? If so, do they count twice (once for Switzerland and once for Lichtenstein)? Or only once (as they are only one building)? What about cases of non-resident ambassadors? Until 2012, the ambassador of the UK to Kazakhstan (located in Astana) was also the ambassador (non-resident) to Kyrgyzstan. --Khajidha (talk) 11:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I know this will be viewed as pedantry, but it's very common for embassies to share a building....  OK, I'll get my hat.... Hayttom (talk) 18:28, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * We can create an upper bound. There are 191 undisputed sovereign states. If all of them had 1 embassy (however titled) in each of the others, there would 191 x 190 = 36,290. We know that not all do, so it's somewhat short of this, but it would still be a very substantial amount of real estate.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:45, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There are a series of Wikipedia articles entitled "List of diplomatic missions of [name of Country]" which would be a starting point for making an account. I do not know if such a list exists for every country - but there do seem to be quite a lot of them. Lists of diplomatic missions Wymspen (talk) 15:04, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * One thing on the upper bound; we can probably also count any state which is recognized by a reasonable majority of other states as well; they all have fully functional embassies. Under the accounting that gives us 191 states, that leaves out such places as Republic of Cyprus, which is unrecognized by exactly 1 other country (Turkey), South Korea, which is unrecognized by exactly 1 other country (North Korea), North Korea, which is unrecognized by exactly 3 other countries (France, Japan, and South Korea).  I think you could count those three as "Good enough" for our purposes in the count.  Of the others, I'd argue that the PRC, Israel, and Palestine all meet the requirements of well-enough recognized as well; they all have double-digit numbers of states that don't recognize them, but they also have over 100+ other states that do, and they have functional control over their territories and a working diplomacy on the world stage.  Other than Taiwan, all of the other unrecognized states are ephemeral enough to ignore.  Taiwan is messy to deal with, but realpolitik prevents most other states from recognizing it. By my somewhat more fuzzy, but much more practical, accounting, there's 197 clear, well-recognized states.  -- Jayron 32 17:15, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think Jack was using the UN membership as his list of "undisputed" states, even if some of them actually are disputed. I'd say that Kosovo has enough recognition to be on your list as well. --Khajidha (talk) 17:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Nope, apparently the 191 comes from a count of UN members minus those members with disputes but with the addition of non-member states that are not disputed (Vatican, Cook Islands, Niue). --Khajidha (talk) 17:33, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd actually be fine with either count ...--Neufund (talk) 16:59, 26 October 2018 (UTC)