This is a list of sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania. Although it is mostly ocean and spans many continental plates, Oceania is often listed with the continents.
This list follows the boundaries of geopolitical Oceania, which includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The main continental landmass of Oceania is Australia.
The boundary between Asia and Oceania is not clearly defined. For political reasons, the United Nations considers the boundary between the two regions to be the Indonesianâ€"Papua New Guineaian border. Papua New Guinea is occasionally considered Asian as it neighbours Indonesia, but this is rare, and it is generally accepted to be part of Oceania.
Sovereign states
United Nations member states
This section includes all sovereign states located in Oceania that are members of the United Nations. All are full members of the Pacific Islands Forum.
Non-United Nations member states
The two entries in this section (Cook Islands and Niue) are states in free association with New Zealand. While maintaining a close constitutional and political relationship with New Zealand, both states are members of several United Nations specialized agencies with full treaty-making capacity, and have independently engaged in diplomatic relations with sovereign states under their own name. Both are also full members of the Pacific Islands Forum. Because of these features, they are sometimes considered to have de facto status as sovereign states.
Non-sovereign territories
The following are entities considered to be within Oceania which are either:
1. Federal territories of sovereign states located outside these states' mainland.
2. Territories that constitute integral parts of sovereign states in some form other than a federal relationship, where a significant part of the sovereign state's landmass is located outside Oceania and/or the territory is located outside the sovereign state's mainland. Many of these territories are often described as dependencies.
3. Dependent territories of sovereign states.
Two of these territories (French Polynesia and New Caledonia) are associate members of the Pacific Islands Forum, while five others (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna) hold observer status within the organization.
See also
- List of Oceanian countries by GDP (PPP)
- List of Oceanian countries by population
- List of predecessors of sovereign states in Oceania
- List of sovereign states in Asia and Oceania by Human Development Index
Island countries
- List of Caribbean island countries by population
- List of island countries
- List of sovereign states and dependent territories in the Indian Ocean