this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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Explain Like I'm Five

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I see a lot of people saying that countries like Israel, Latvia, Belgium and Dubai are not real countries, but how are they not? They seem to meet the threshold. How are they any less real then any other country?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago

Dubai is likely the most well-known part of the UAE, so you may have heard people mention Dubai as if it were a country (because the audience might associate more with "Dubai" than "UAE"), without them meaning to imply that it's a real country.

There are certainly irredentist movements in many parts of the world that want to restore previous states of geopolitics, including the existence of the Soviet Union.

A country is ultimately a country if it is recognized as such by other countries. There are videos on the Internet that give greater details (search for keywords like "how many countries are there"). There are many places that some other countries say are countries, others not.