Hello! Today is Friday, March 6, 2026. Here are today’s birthdays:

• 1865: Duan Qirui | Minister of War of China (1912 – 1915); Premier of the Republic of China (1916 – 1917, 1917, 1918); Chief Executive of the Republic of China (1924 – 1926) | d. 1936
• 1929: Tom Foley | U.S. Representative from Washington (1965 – 1995); U.S. House Majority Whip (1981 – 1987); U.S. House Majority Leader (1987 – 1989); Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1989 – 1995); U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1997 – 2001) | d. 2013

Directory

Current States

This section includes the currently-existing sovereign states that have been added to the website thus far. Click on a country’s name to find the page for that country.

Albania

Argentina

Armenia

Australia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Belgium

Brazil

Bulgaria

Burundi

Cambodia

Canada

Central Afr. Republic

Chad

Chile

P.R. of China

R. of China

Croatia

Cuba

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

Egypt

El Salvador

Estonia

Ethiopia

Fiji

Finland

France

Gabon

Georgia

Germany

Greece

Honduras

Hungary

Iceland

India

Iran

Iraq

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Ivory Coast

Japan

Jordan

Kazakhstan

Kenya

Latvia

Libya

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malaysia

Marshall Islands

Mexico

Moldova

Monaco

Morocco

Netherlands

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Nigeria

North Korea

Norway

Pakistan

Panama

Paraguay

Peru

The Philippines

Poland

Portugal

Qatar

Romania

Russia

Rwanda

Saudi Arabia

Senegal

Serbia

Singapore

Slovenia

South Africa

South Korea

Spain

Sweden

Syria

Tanzania

Thailand

Tunisia

Turkey

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

United States

Uruguay

Uzbekistan

Venezuela

Vietnam

Zambia

Past States

This section includes states that no longer exist and have no successor states. The decision to include a particular state here is sometimes easy; for example, the Roman Empire clearly no longer exists. In other cases, however, I have judged that it makes more sense to include a past state under the heading of a currently-existing state. So, for instance, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union can be found on the Russia page; the Ottoman Empire can be found on the page for Turkey, and so on.

These are sometimes subjective judgements, and they do to some extent require taking a stance on the continuity between different regimes. Should the Holy Roman Empire, which was largely based in what is today Germany for most of its history, be regarded as a predecessor state of modern Germany? (In that particular case, I have chosen not to organize things that way). And many modern nation-states will make claims to great antiquity that assume an unbroken connection between the currently-existing state and the distant past that rarely have much basis in reality.

As a general rule, I have chosen to treat past states as the predecessors of modern states when there has been some sort of direct institutional continuity. Thus, for example, the Soviet Union becomes Russia, the Ottoman Empire becomes Turkey, and so on.

Confederate States

Czechoslovakia

German Democratic Republic

Hawaii

Holy Roman Empire

Prussia

Yugoslavia

International Institutions

This section covers a wide variety of institutions that are (in most cases) not states, ranging from international organizations such as the United Nations to central banks to religious institutions. In the latter case, religious institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic Caliphate did indeed physically occupy territory in which they exercised sovereign authority (and still do, in the case of the Catholic Church). Nevertheless, their claims to spiritual authority extended well beyond the territory they physically occupied, and so they are treated here as international institutions rather than as states.

The Caliphate

Central Banks

Crusading Orders

Eastern Orthodox Church

European Union

League of Nations

NATO

Roman Catholic Church

United Nations

Updates