Make a map of all the countries you have visited
A world map of where you've been is one of the nicest ways to look back on your travels. This clickable map makes one in a few minutes. Click a country to colour it, or type its name in the search box. The panel on the right counts them for you, much like a countries visited counter app but with nothing to install: how many of the world's 195 countries you have been to, how many continents, and what percentage of the world's land and population you have seen.
You can mark each country in three ways: places you have visited, places you have lived, and places you want to visit next. Each one gets its own colour, and the legend on the map explains them. Under the counter, the tool keeps a list of the countries you've been to, grouped by colour, so it also works as a countries visited checklist. Country names can be shown on the map in your own language, and you can switch the whole look with one click: six colour themes, your own colours, four map projections, and a title and subtitle of your choice.
When the map looks right, download it as a PNG image in landscape, square or portrait format, or as an SVG for printing. What you see on the screen is exactly what you get in the file. My tip: I use the square format when I post the map of my visited countries on Instagram, and the 2× PNG for printing. It is a free online map to mark the places you've been, with no account, and your countries are saved in your browser, so you can come back after your next trip and add more.
How this interactive map of visited countries works
Everything happens in your browser. Here is what each part of the tool does.
- Choose a brush. At the top of the panel, pick what a click should mean: Visited, Lived here, Want to visit, or Erase. Clicking a country with the same brush again removes it.
- Click countries on the map. Click any country to colour it. Drag the map to move it, and use the + button or the mouse wheel to zoom in on small countries like Luxembourg, Singapore or the islands of the Caribbean.
- Or search by name. Type a country name in the search box and press Enter or pick it from the list. The search understands names in English and in the language of this page, and it ignores accents, so "sao tome" finds São Tomé and Príncipe.
- Watch the counter. The big number shows how many of the 195 countries you have visited or lived in, with a progress bar and the percentage, the continents you have reached, your share of the world's land and population, and a count for each continent.
- Customize the design. Pick a colour theme or set every colour yourself, choose the projection, show or hide country names, grid lines, the legend, the stats line and the site credit, and write your own title and subtitle.
- Download or share. Save the map as a PNG (normal or 2× sharp) or an SVG. Copy a share link that opens your exact selection, or send it straight to WhatsApp with your country count.
Nothing is uploaded. The world map loads once, and your list of countries is kept in your own browser (and in the share link, if you create one).
How to make your travel map, step by step
Here is the whole process, from an empty world map to a finished image.
The map opens on Europe with no countries marked. The counter in the side panel starts at 0 of 195.
Type a name in the search box and pick the country from the list. It is coloured with the current brush at once.
Click countries on the map to mark them. Switch the brush to mark places you lived or want to visit. The counter and the continent list update as you go. Then press ⤢ to fit the map to all your countries.
Pick one of the six themes or set your own colours, and choose Equal Earth, Natural Earth, Mercator or a globe you can turn.
Show the names of your countries (or all countries), change the label size, and write your own title and subtitle.
Choose landscape, square or portrait, then save a PNG or SVG. Copy the share link or send your map to WhatsApp.
Every way to customize your map
All of these options change the map you download, not just the preview.
- Colour themes. Classic (blue on light grey), Midnight (bright colours on a dark map), Sunset, Forest, Mono (black and grey, good for printing) and Gold (a scratch-map look with gold land).
- Your own colours. Change any of the eight colours: background, ocean, land, borders, visited, lived here, want to visit and text. The theme name switches to "Custom" once you do.
- Four projections. Equal Earth keeps every country at its true relative size. Natural Earth is a classic, rounded world map. Mercator is the familiar web-map shape without Antarctica. Globe shows the Earth as a ball that you turn by dragging.
- Country names. Hide all names, show only the countries you marked, or show every name for an interactive map of all countries. With "All countries", more names appear as you zoom in. A slider changes the size of the text.
- Borders and grid. Set the border width from none to thick, and add latitude and longitude grid lines every 10 degrees.
- Title, subtitle and footer. Write your own title and subtitle, or leave the title empty to hide the heading. Show or hide the legend, the stats line (countries, continents and share of the world) and the small site credit.
- Image size. Landscape 16:9 (1600 × 900) for screens, square 1:1 (1200 × 1200) for Instagram and Facebook, and portrait 4:5 (1200 × 1500) for phone screens and prints. The 2× PNG doubles the pixels for sharp printing.
How the counts are calculated
"How many countries have you been to?" sounds like a simple question, but it depends on what you call a country. Here is exactly how this tool counts.
1. Which places count as the 195 countries
The tool uses the most common definition: the 193 member states of the United Nations, plus the two UN observer states, the Vatican and Palestine. That makes 195. Other places, such as Greenland, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Kosovo or the Faroe Islands, are on the map and can be marked, but they are counted separately as territories, so your country count stays comparable with other people's.
193 UN member states + 1 Vatican (UN observer) + 1 Palestine (UN observer) = 195 countries Share of countries = visited / 195 × 100
Countries marked "Lived here" also count, because you have obviously been there. Countries on your wish list do not count until you move them to Visited.
2. Continents
The tool uses the seven-continent model: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America. Each country belongs to one continent, following the Natural Earth data. Countries that span two continents are placed by their main area or capital: Russia counts as Europe, and Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan count as Asia. Territories count toward their continent, which is the only way to reach Antarctica.
Countries per continent (of the 195) Africa 54 · Asia 48 · Europe 44 North America 23 · Oceania 14 · South America 12
3. Your percentage of the world's land and population
Every country's area is measured on the sphere from its full-detail outline, in square kilometres. Your share of the world is the area of the places you have visited or lived in, divided by the area of all places on the map (about 146.6 million km², including Antarctica). The population share works the same way with population estimates, which are mostly from 2019.
Land share = Σ area of your places / 146,631,602 km² × 100 Population share = Σ population of your places / world population × 100 Example: France, Spain, Italy, USA, Japan countries 5 / 195 = 2.56 % land 11,251,022 km² = 7.67 % of the world population about 629 million = 8.19 % of the world
Large countries change the land share a lot: the USA alone is more than 6 percent of the world's land. That is why a traveller with fewer but bigger countries can have a larger share than one with many small ones. Note that France and the USA include their overseas parts here (French Guiana, Alaska and Hawaii), because the data keeps each country as one shape.
4. Why the default projection is Equal Earth
A flat map always distorts the round Earth somewhere. The Mercator projection, used by most web maps, makes places near the poles look far too big. On a Mercator map Greenland looks about as large as Africa, but Africa is really about 14 times bigger (30.0 million km² against 2.2 million km²). On a travel map that would make a trip to Scandinavia look much bigger than a trip to Brazil.
Equal Earth, published in 2018 by Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny, is an equal-area projection: every country keeps its true size relative to the others, and the shapes still look natural. That makes the coloured area on your map an honest picture of how much of the world you have seen. Mercator and Natural Earth are there if you prefer the look, and the globe is simply fun to turn.
10 ways people use their travel map
A visited countries map is fun on its own, but people also use it for many practical things.
- Share your travels on social media. Download the square image and post it on Instagram or Facebook with your country count. It is the quickest way to answer the question "Where have you been?".
- Plan the next trip. Mark your wish list in the "Want to visit" colour. Seeing the gaps on the map, for example a whole continent still grey, is a great way to choose the next destination.
- Set a travel goal. Many travellers aim for 30 countries by 30, or all countries of one continent. The counter and the per-continent list show exactly how far you are from your goal.
- A gift or a poster for your wall. Use the 2× PNG or the SVG to print your map as a poster, a framed picture or a card. The Mono and Gold themes look especially good on paper.
- Compare with friends and family. Send your share link and ask others to make their own map. Comparing counts and continents is a fun game for travel groups and family chats.
- A travel blog or website. Travel bloggers add a visited map to their "About" page. The SVG stays sharp at any size, and the landscape format fits a web page well.
- Teaching geography. Teachers use the map for class activities: pupils mark the countries they have visited, where their families come from, or the countries in a book, and learn names and continents along the way.
- Expats and people who moved abroad. The "Lived here" colour shows the countries you have lived in apart from the ones you only visited. It is a nice way to show a life spread across several countries.
- A travel diary or photo album. Put the map on the first page of a photo book or travel journal. Change the subtitle to the years of the trips, for example "2015 to 2026".
- Work travel records. Frequent business travellers use the map to keep track of the countries they have worked in, and the Mono theme for a clean slide in a presentation or CV.
Frequently asked questions
Twelve common questions about making a map of the countries you have visited and counting them.
1. How many countries are there in the world?
This tool counts 195: the 193 United Nations member states plus the Vatican and Palestine, which are UN observer states. It is the most widely used number. Territories such as Greenland, Hong Kong or Puerto Rico can still be marked on the map, but they are counted separately so your total stays comparable.
2. How do I mark a country I have visited?
Make sure the "Visited" brush is selected, then click the country on the map, or type its name in the search box and press Enter. To remove it, click it again with the same brush, use the Erase brush, or press the ✕ next to its name in the list.
3. How do I select very small countries?
Search for them by name, which is the easiest way. You can also zoom in with the + button or the mouse wheel and drag the map to the right place. On a phone, use the + button and drag with one finger.
4. What is the difference between Visited, Lived here and Want to visit?
They are three colours for three kinds of places. Visited and Lived here both count toward your number of countries. Want to visit is your wish list: it is shown on the map and in the legend, but it does not count until you change it to Visited.
5. How do I download my map as an image?
In the "Save and share" section, choose the image size (landscape, square or portrait), then click "PNG image" or "PNG (2× sharp)". The file downloads straight away and looks exactly like the preview. "SVG (vector)" gives a file that stays sharp at any size, for printing.
6. Will my countries be saved if I close the page?
Yes, in the same browser on the same device. The list is kept in your browser's local storage. It is not saved on our server, so it will not appear on another device and it is lost if you clear your browser data. To keep it safe, copy the share link and save it somewhere.
7. How do I share my map with friends?
Click "Copy link" to copy a link that opens the map with your countries already marked, or "Share on WhatsApp" to send it with your country count. You can also download the image and post it anywhere.
8. Can I show country names on the map?
Yes. Under "Country names", choose "Your countries" to label only the places you marked, or "All countries" to label every country (more names appear as you zoom in). The names follow the language of this page, and the slider changes their size.
9. Which map projection should I choose?
For a fair picture of how much of the world you have seen, keep Equal Earth, which shows every country at its true relative size. Natural Earth looks a bit rounder and softer. Mercator is the familiar web-map shape but makes northern countries look much bigger. The globe looks great in the square or portrait format.
10. Is the tool free, and is my data private?
Yes, it is free with no sign-up. Everything runs in your browser: the country list is stored only on your device, and nothing is uploaded. The only thing that leaves your browser is a share link, and only if you create and send one yourself.
11. How do I count how many countries I've visited?
Just mark them. Every country you mark as Visited or Lived here goes into the counter at the top of the panel, which shows your number out of 195, the percentage, and how many continents you have reached. The list under it is your checklist of the countries you've been to, sorted into visited, lived and wish list, and the ✕ next to a name removes it. It is free, with no app to install and no account to create.
12. Can I make a map of the cities I've visited?
Not with this tool. It colours whole countries, because the counter and the percentages are based on countries. To pin single cities, use the Digitize GIS Data tool: it places points on a map and saves them as a GeoJSON or KML file. My take: a country map for the big picture is usually what people want to share, and city pins are more of a personal record.
Data, libraries and credits
This tool is built on open data and open source software. Many thanks to the people behind them.
- Natural Earth (1:50m Admin 0 countries) · Public domainThe country outlines, names in all seven languages, continents, label positions and population estimates.
- d3-geo · ISCDraws the world map in the chosen projection, handles the date line and the globe, and turns the map into the SVG you download.
- Equal Earth projection · Šavrič, Patterson and Jenny (2018)The equal-area world projection used by default, so every country shows at its true relative size.
- Measured every country's area on the sphere and lightly simplified the outlines when the map data was prepared.
- WhatsApp Click to Chat · Link format onlyThe share button opens WhatsApp with a ready-made message through the public wa.me link.
Country borders and names follow Natural Earth, which shows the de facto situation on the ground. They do not express any opinion of this site on disputed borders.
Related world map tools
Your list of countries is stored only in your browser. Country borders are for illustration and follow Natural Earth. Map data: Natural Earth (public domain).
