While the number of letters in a country's name has no actual impact on real-world factors such as its degree of human development, internet speed, or level of beer consumption, it can still serve as an amusing way to collect countries into groups. Five-letter names are quite prolific among the world's nations, having been chosen by 24 of the United Nations' 193 members as well as several non-sovereign territories. Among name lengths ranging from a minimum of four letters to a maximum of more than 30 letters, only six-letter, seven-letter, and eight-letter country names are more common. Note that these counts are determined using each country's common name, rather than their much longer official names or their nicknames.
In total, there are 24 countries around the world with five-letter names. One-third of these nationsโeight in totalโare located on the continent of Africa. Seven are among the countries of Asia and four are located in Oceania. Europe has three, and both North America and South America each have a single five-letter country.
There also exist six nations that have five-letter names, but are not currently classified as self-sovereign countries by the United Nations. Four of these nations are dependent territories, joined by one province and one largely autonomous Special Administrative Region (SAR).
ร land (Finland territory) | Cocos/Keeling Islands (Australia territory) |
Aruba (Netherlands territory) | Macau/Macao (China SAR) |
Ceuta (Spain territory) | Papua (Indonesia province) |
There are 26 countries (including territories) with 5 letters in their name.
The countries with 5 letters are: Aruba, Benin, Chile, China, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Haiti, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Libya, Macau, Malta, Nauru, Nepal, Niger, Palau, Qatar, Samoa, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Tonga and Yemen.