If it becomes crazy long, we might one day split it into multiple answers, but for now this should be ok.

@pnuts oh man! By the hundreds. In some places they are so thick you can't even find a place to get a glass of water. Not the quality bordellos like in Algarve or Sitges, but enough to make your eyes water. I wish bordellos were on topic in TSE, I wouldn't have to deal with visas all the time

Cool, now we can check to which country to travel next to become the sole expert in this country

I propose we stick to the list of UN members, rather than 'territories'. It gets awfully complicated otherwise. If @MarkMayo is okay with this, let's go ahead and remove 'Turkish Cyprus', Taiwan, England and other similar entries.

So where is this list of countries/territories from? I really don't think we need to include e.g. "Baker Island". UN members would be nice were it not for Taiwan etc.

@Mts it's sort of grown. I just put the list I'd been to in, and it's morphed / grown from there. I'm kinda ok with it for now I guess, I mean, it shows who we can ask about place x or y. I don't want to exclude Northern Ireland or Taiwan or Gibraltar if we just do strict 'countries'. Kosovo too.

@MarkMayo to be clear, I defs want to include Taiwan on this list, but someone put Baker Island and I don't think that necessary, so it would be nice to have some type of a guideline? Maybe like nations that play soccer plus additions for those few that don't?

@mts: It's from this collection of self-proclaimed internet travel experts (-: I would say anywhere that has separate visa rules or anything called a country. Places with any amount of recognition even if recognition has been obviously bought. So disputed territories. Note that Wales doesn't fall into any of these categories (-;

Okay, I've edited the list based on ISO 339, which is arguable as standard a list as we can get. I think the only controversial change is that Kosovo is placed under Serbia, but I did leave it as a separate entry— as with northern Cyprus or Kaliningrad, the place is legally and practically distinctive and it is useful to know who's been there. I don't just mean different— Hawaii is rather different from anywhere in the mainland U.S., but getting there is nothing like getting from Georgia proper to Abkhazia. The latter place is practically its own country.

@choster: They'll all get filled once Ankur notices this question (-;

Purpose to ask someone in chat? So someone who doesn't do chat should not edit? I went to chat once. Like trying to find a rare screw size in the dumpster behind an auto shop. And I can't even get to chat from the mobile app.

Perhaps a JavaScript wizard could code a function to add one's name to a list of destinations? If I click edit, are others locked out till I finish?

@WGroleau chat is haphazard, but it gives us a start. You could always ping someone on here as a comment and say there's a question for them in chat, then remove the comment when they've seen it or after a week, say.

I've been able to "mark off" a few countries that were blank. I wasn't going to count Chile since I didn't leave the airport in Santiago, but there's no entry for Easter Island I was there for days, so I've claimed Chile after all.

@MarkMayo: You could always ping someone to take a look at the summer tag rename too. But pinging doesn't seem to work there. Maybe here is special?

@mts: I don't know but the can of worms had been opened so now that we have the worms I'm adding only the ones I have already been to or have plans to visit on this trip. Let me see who wielded the can opener?

@mts: So it seems it was user568458 who first began expanding the China section to include autonomous areas with this edit - let's see if we can uncover the decision process to do so.

@hippietrail would you mind if I just removed said entries but leaving Tibet, maybe with a remark?

@mts: It seems we need a proper decision rather than just a China decision as other bits are also growing. I'm happy if all can-of-worms extras are removed but unhappy if only the ones I've been to or are planning to go to are removed. I see two solutions: 1) Only list places at least one of us has been to. 2) Make the list by "different visa or equivalent or different de facto government.

@hippietrail agree and feel this should be a meta post on its own. Would you mind? I'll not do the edit for now, even though I object to the current form.

@mts: I objected I think more than most maybe before you but until consensus is reached I don't want to revert other peoples' stuff. So I'll wait for the meta question and opine thereupon. Hard to imagine any way in which this would be impervious to cans of worms though actually.

Ha, I didn't mean to start any China inflation, I just meant to add places that had the same status as Tibet. So those first-level Regions/Provinces that are autonomous, like Tibet - but not any of the many other levels of China's administrative regions than the first level (else things get out of hand...)

@user568458 there's plenty "autonomous" whatnots in China but mostly it's a name. Tibet is special in that you need actual permits and stuff to travel there. Would you mind if we reduce the list of sub-bullet points to Tibet (for said reason) and remove the others?

@AbAppletic anyone can edit!

@MarkMayo, I do not have enough reputation to edit. Please add me to Malta, Spain, and Venezuela.

@mts Ah okay, that makes sense, go for it. That seems like a sensible place to draw the line, if it a) needs a permit or special visa/stamp, or b) is classed as a devolved country with a regional government.

China sub-territories (except Tibet) removed. Otherwise we'd have to take the 1200+ list of territories from TheBestTravelled

Should we only be putting our name at "Crimea" if we've visited since Russia made it "independent"? Otherwise you merely visited Ukraine. It's kind of the opposite of the why we don't include East Germany etc in the list.

@hippietrail, while Ukrainian Crimea and Russian one are great differences, we absolutely shouldn't make separate list item for another Crimea. The most reasonable thing in this case should be sub-item for Russian one.

All in all, I see no common rule in composing this list. Either we consider independent countries only, or plus unrecognized states (like Abkhazia), or plus autonomous territories (like Tibet) or all enclaves or exclaves (like Kaliningrad)? In any of these cases this list is not complete. I see no common approach in forming this list:)

Someone for God's sake should rearrange this list alphabetically)) I found at least 4 duplicated items, and with the increasing amount of edits this problem will be more and more acute.

@Suncatcher: The idea is supposed to be whether they're either officially called countries or de-facto operate as different countries from the POV of a traveller, meaning whether they need a different visa or something else perhaps not called a visa but more or less equivalent from the POV of a traveller. So Wales makes it under the first rule and Abkhazia and Crimea make it under the second. Some people seem to believe in a third rule about exclaves, but I'm not in favour of those if there's no special visa-like rules for travelling to them, like islands but without being in the sea.

@Suncatcher: My god somebody has really messed up the alphabetical order! Putting suff like "The" and "Turkish Republic of Northern" as non-alphabetizing prefixes. And somebody else put some of them in as alphabetizing prefixes. Ha ha well who even expected no mess to come of such a list? (-:

@hippietrail if Wales is a 'country' then all 50 US states must be on the list, I think? The levels of self-governance are similar between US states and UK sub-entities.

@Suncatcher I think the only reasonable way is to go by the list of UN members and then include all sub-territories which need a separate visa (Taiwan, Tibet, Kashmir, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, etc)

@JonathanReez, in my humble opinion we should stick to UN classification. There are plenty of unrecognized states which have very patchy visa policy (visa free for one, but requires visa for another), so this couldn't be a basis we can rely on. All these unrecognized territories should be sub-items.

@JonathanReez: Wales has its own government of some kind and everybody calls it a country, but officially, even within the UK, England & Wales together make up a country. I'm not sure if there are terms to distinguish the levels or kinds of those entities. Can of worms as I've said many times. Make sure you say "visa equivalent" because you don't need a different visa for Tibet as you do for Hong Kong or Taiwan, and in fact the stuff you need is more difficult and expensive. "Permit" doesn't quite cut it since there are many easy to get permits. Maybe "separate significant barrier to entry'.

For instead The Falklands requires a visa or equivalent for citiziens of every country in the world, including both Argentinians and Brits. Or at least it did way back when I checked. But then looking back the other way you only need one single visa to get you into all the countries in Schengen, but nobody would dispute those are countries. Once can. So many worms! Patchiness is not specific to unrecognized territories. For the US it's visa free for one, but requires visa for another. So is Australia. So is Schengen.

@hippietrail each US state also has a government with pretty much the same privileges as the government in Wales. I don't believe any British territories inside Europe deserve to be on the list, unless you go for the full 1200+ list of 'territories' linked by me above.

@JonathanReez: And lots of people call those US states "countries"? Nope. Nice straw man you made there. Hope you find a use for it. It's a can of worms. The cat is out of the bag. Can't be fixed. The whole thing is silly.

@hippietrail seeing that lots of people have been in all 4 regions of UK and it's possible to visit all 4 within 24 hours, I don't think it really matters. I'd shorten it down to UN members, where there are plenty of hard-to-reach countries that no one here has visited.

We may as well each make our own list organized however we want.

@hippietrail speaking of which, an interesting discussion on UK vs. US states autonomy: quora.com/…

Why is American Samoa on here? Isn't it part of the United States? EDIT: Same goes for Puerto Rico

@OldBunny2800, both have a... unique status in the US. They are much more akin to territories of the US then parts of the US themselves. Like the Cayman islands to the UK. I would not say visiting the US is the same as visiting Puerto Rico or the American Samoa.

@OldBunny2800 The top-level entries are all from ISO 3166. If you have questions about what should be added to the list, take it up with ISO.

Are we talking about Crimea before or after?

@hippietrail Wales may officially use the terminology 'country,' but I don't think anyone actually recognizes it as a sovereign nation-state, do they? I have to agree with Jonathan that listing England/Wales/Scotland/N. Ireland is kind of silly unless we also want to list states/provinces for all other countries. The legal status and practical status for travelers of England/Scotland/Wales/N. Ireland are much more in line with a state or province of, say, the U.S., Canada, or Australia than with a truly independent nation-state, regardless of what terminology they may use.

No Australian introduces themselves in an international group by saying they're Victorian or New South Welsh. Only in a group of Australians. I've never met a Scot or Northern Irish or Welsh who introduced themselves as British or from the UK. That's a big difference.

@Ryan, I disagree about American Samoa and PR. Samoa is visa-free for Americans and requires entry permit for others, Puerto-Rico uses regular Am visas. I am sure we cannot make distinction (include or not include in the list) on the basis of visa policy or travel experience with one or another country. Territories within one country can vary by policy/traditions/customs/lifestyle drastically and this cannot be the point of classification. Only ISO 3166 should be a rule of thumb, all other territories are sub-options under relevant countries.

this list is already saturated upto SE's answer size limit. it is showing me Body is limited to 30000 characters; you entered 30016 msg .. :(

@RoflcoptrException only countries left are like Somalia, lol...

@MatasVaitkevicius Yes, that's going to be difficult

@hippietrail - I can introduce myself as Scottish or British and regularly do one or the other.