How many countries are on earth?

Question: How many countries are on earth?
- Keywords:
  earth
Asked by alan14211421 to Alessandro, Angela, Claudia, Marina, Phil on 18 Mar 2013.
- Claudia Krehl answered on 18 Mar 2013:
  
  There are 196 of them, but it depends who you ask. There are a number of places who want to be independent countries but they are not recognized as such. For a list of recognized countries have a look here:
  
  http://geography.about.com/od/countryinformation/a/capitals.htm

Question: How many countries are on earth?