What percentage of the world have I visited? A simple formula

Why is the base 195 and not a bigger number?

A percentage only makes sense when the whole is fixed. UN membership is stable: it has been 193 since South Sudan joined in 2011. Lists that include territories change more often and depend on who decides what counts. A territory-friendly total makes a nicer big number but a worse percentage, since you cannot compare two people who used different lists.

There is a second reason to avoid mixing. If territories were added to your count but the base stayed at 195, a traveler who visited many islands could pass 100 percent, which is nonsense. Inkpass avoids this by computing the percentage from UN countries alone, so territories never push you past what the 195 allow.

What does the percentage not tell you?

A country count treats Vatican City and Russia as equal parts of the world. That is the biggest limit of the figure. Keep the following in mind before you read too much into it:

• It ignores size. Seeing Monaco and seeing Canada both add one country.
• It ignores depth. A weekend counts the same as a year.
• It ignores population. A country of ten thousand people is one country, like a country of a billion.
• It ignores regions. A traveler who knows every state of one big country shows the same as one who landed once.
• It depends on your rule for what counts as visiting.

Can I measure it by land area instead?

You can, but you need data and a method. Exactly counting the share of land you have seen means deciding what seen means, then adding up the areas of the regions involved. Because Russia, Canada, the United States and China are very large, a single trip across one of them can change an area-based figure far more than ten trips to small countries.

For a rough idea, look at your map. The page on how to make a countries visited map explains why an equal-area projection such as Equal Earth shows your colored area honestly, while the familiar Mercator map exaggerates areas near the poles. The picture is a better guide to land area than the count.

Is a continent-based percentage more useful?

Often yes. A percentage by continent shows where your gaps are. Ten of fifty countries in Europe is 20 percent, which says more about Europe than the world percentage does. You can read your bar for each continent and decide where to go next.

Inkpass gives each continent its own ink and paper tone, and the World Card shows how many of the seven you have covered. At a glance you can tell that your album is deep in one continent and thin in another. The stamp album page describes the colors.

What do typical percentages feel like?

Numbers are easier to read with a picture in mind. Around 10 percent, which is 19 or 20 countries, most travelers have covered one region well and dipped into a second. At 25 percent, close to 49 countries, they usually have four or more continents. Past 50 percent, which is 98 countries, they have visited places that most travelers never will.

These are impressions, not data. No public survey gives a trustworthy average for the whole world, and any figure quoted without a source should be treated carefully. A fair way to use a percentage is to compare it with your own past: where were you five years ago, and where are you now?

A year-on-year change is also easy to share. Going from 14.4 percent to 18.5 percent says more about a good year of travel than a big total does.

How do I raise the figure honestly?

There are only two ways: visit more countries, or change your rule. Changing the rule is allowed if you do it openly. Keep these habits if you want a number you can trust:

1. Pick your counting rules once and note them down.
2. Recalculate after each trip, not once a year, so mistakes do not pile up.
3. Keep territories, layovers and historic places outside the percentage.
4. Write the date next to every percentage you share.
5. If you change a rule, recalculate the past figures too.

How does Inkpass calculate it?

The Me tab shows your count and the share of the world, rounded to one decimal. The share comes from UN countries only, divided by 195, so it matches the formula above. The map and the World Card use the same figure, and the rule printed under it tells a viewer how you counted.

If you switch on the UK nations or territories in counting rules, your displayed count may change, but the percentage of the world stays tied to the UN list. For the rules behind a total, read how many countries have I visited.