How many countries are there in the whole wide world counting south Sudan?

Answer 1

There are 196 Independent Countries in the world, however there are many territories/colonies that are considered countries, yet are not, like North Ireland for example (U.K) Taiwan is not an independent nation because of political reasons.

Hope this helped :3

Second answer

That is a bit tricky to answer definitively, since "country" doesn't necessarily mean "territory of a nation-state". Some states consider themselves to consist of a union of several countries: for example the United Kingdom consists of the distinct (but not independent) countries of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Man, and the Channel Islands. And then some places like "dependent territories" of, but not parts of, states. For example American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands are dependent territories, but not parts, of the USA; Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and the Falkland Islands are dependent territories (but not parts) of the UK; Aruba is a dependent territory (but not part) of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Cocos Island and Norfolk Island are dependent territories (but not parts) of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Besides that, different official organisations disagree as to what things are really states and what things pretend to be but aren't. The government of Pakistan says that there is no such thing as the Republic of Armenia. North Korea and South Korea both claim that there is only one country Korea, and that they own the other guy; the same is the case regarding the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan, Chinese Taipei). 33 countries say that there is no such country as Israel. There a certainly people who will disagree violently about particular entries on any list of countries or states. North Korea and South Korea agree that there is only one country called "Korea", but some people insist that Israel is a state and others insist that it is not, and people on both sides are prepared to kill people who disagree.

Without knowing what you mean by "country" and investigating each case individually, the best answer I can give is this:

There are 193 "member states" of the United Nations and one "observer state" (the Holy See, also know as the Vatican State). In addition to those there are twelve things that claim to be a state, and that have at least one UN member agree, but that are not members of the UN. That's a total of 206 state recognised by at least one other state.