Why Greenland doesn't add to your country count

Greenland has its own flag and its own government, and it's about the size of Western Europe. So why doesn't a week there add to your country count in Mapped?

Countries and territories

Mapped counts the 195 UN member and observer states as countries. It calls places that belong to one of those countries, or that only some countries recognise, territories.

Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Hong Kong and Macao are part of China. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom. Mapped lists 84 territories in all, including the Canary Islands, Pitcairn and Tristan da Cunha.

You can still mark them

You can mark every territory as visited and add dates and notes, the same as a country. In Add a place, each territory sits under the country it belongs to. Bermuda is under the United Kingdom and Réunion is under France. Search finds them too.

• They show in green on your globe and map.
• They count towards your continents, so Réunion counts for Africa.
• They don't add to your country count or your share of the world.

Why not count them?

If territories counted as countries, a weekend in Gibraltar would add as much as a month in Brazil. Your total would also stop matching your friends' totals, so the leaderboard would be unfair. Mapped keeps 195 as the maximum and still shows every territory you've marked on your map.

Mapped takes its borders and its list of territories from public sources. They don't express a view on the legal status of any place.