Why are there so many different countries?

Answer 1

Most countries originate from way-back kingdoms or empires (Europe and Asia mostly), colonies (North America, South America, Africa and Oceania).

Small countries are often countries who have split from their former country (f.ex. Eritrea split from Ethiopia). Countries are sometimes divided (like Korea into North and South) and sometimes countries are dissolves, making the largest division inside the country become the new countries (like the Soviet Union that split into Russia, Ukraine and several other countries).

More countries can come because of:

- geographical impracticalities (mostly overseas, but can also be because of mountains and such)

- political differences

- cultural differences (languages, religion and so on)

- wealth (small parts of countries that have way more valuable resources often create their own country to benefit the most from their resources)

One huge reason of why there are so many countries is because European colonial powers often split their possessions into several independent (from each other) colonies and when they became independent countries, they stayed separate. The former Spanish colonies in America are separate countries because they were treated as separate possessions of Spain when they were under Spanish rule.

Oceanic countries and island countries (mostly quite small) and the colonial countries often chose to make each island into its own colony (and later country) rather than combining many such islands to do make a colony.