Talk:List of sovereign states by date of formation

"Date of last subordination" inconsistencies

In the sortable list, there are many countries (e.g. Spain, Poland) that list a "date of last subordination" long before the latest military occupation of their territories as mentioned in the "notes" column. This despite the introductory text to the sortable list explicitly saying that military occupation counts as subordination. Is this an error, or am I missing something? I could probably go fix all of these, but I wouldn't want to do so in contravention of some consensus that I'm not aware of. GeoEvan (talk) 00:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

You are good to go. This article is mostly a mass collection of drive-by edits; the only consensus is whatever might be discerned from the article itself, and open to interpretation. You are more than welcome to fix any inconsistencies you find as you see fit. Just try and avoid anything that might be seen as bait for more POV drive-by edits. --A D Monroe III (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I revised Portugal and San Marino. Goustien (talk) 21:39, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Timor-Leste, 1975 or 2002?

Timor-Leste is listed with a 2002 year of sovereignty in the Asia list and 1975 in the overall list lower down. I don't think the overall list has different criteria than the continental lists, but I may have missed some subtlety. I haven't given much thought to the nuances of sovereignty, but I think 2002 better fits the criteria mentioned in the text. Anyone else have enough confidence to reconcile the two lists?Jbening (talk) 02:42, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Changes in the list as a whole

I think we can all agree that for quite some time this list has been in not quite the best state that one could wish, which is why I am bringing forward the idea of doing a complete re-do to this article. These are my proposals which are all, of course, under discussion:

• Change Date of acquisition of sovereignty and Acquisition of sovereignty to Date of acquisition of statehood and Acquisition of statehood: Sovereignty in this context would imply that the date is when the territory gained legitimacy to govern the territory it controls, which is an entirely different question from what the article wants, the article wants the list to say when did these states were formed, which is not what it is implied in the use of the word sovereignty.
• Eliminate the territorial modification columns from the list entirely: These columns add nothing to the notion of the formation of the sovereign states. Apart from adding nothing relevant to the article, the columns become unnecessary when you look at the Timeline of geopolitical changes (1900−present) and Timeline of geopolitical changes (before 1900) lists, which although they are not perfect lists, make a better job at conveying territorial modifications than the two columns.
• Change the date order from M/D/Y to the much more widely used D/M/Y: Nothing to add here but to say that this should have been done a while ago.
• An overhaul at the Form of government columns: The current columns are very interesting as:
  • They just mention the change in something vague as "Current constitution adopted" or as it is the case with former monarchies something like "Monarchy abolished and replaced by republic", all of this without mentioning even the current form of government or even a hyperlink to the event that abolished the monarchy.
  • Sometimes the text is rather interesting, to say the least. For example, Yemen is listed with the presumption that the union of South and North Yemen somehow means the creation of the current Yemeni form of government, of course, should be in the sovereignty/statehood column. Or take Chile, which is listed under the presumption that the 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum changed the form of government of Chile, when in fact it would still be a presidential republic under a military dictatorship until 11 March 1990 when Patricio Aylwin became president.
• Add all partially-recognized states Without mentioning China/Taiwan which have to be discussed in detail, all partially-recognized states, even Somaliland with no states recognizing it. I have no idea why a list like this would not include them as even the lead says that "[This list] does include several states with limited recognition".
• Last but not least, and perhaps most importantly Set the formation date in accordance with the theory on the succession of states: A basis that can finally solve the problem on the subjectivity of this whole list, states should be discussed thoroughly, individually or in groups, as to when would this standard set the difference between the modern and the earlier versions of the state that perhaps are only similar in name and culture but not by law.

I will be waiting for all your comments on the subject. Cheers and Happy New Year! Shrek 5 the divorce (talk) 06:27, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I suggest using the 206 (193 + 2 + 11) of the List of sovereign states for which states to include.Selfstudier (talk) 11:04, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I haven't thought much about this, nor do I expect to as I don't have much relevant knowledge. However, I note in driving by that your suggested removal of the territorial modification columns would remove info re the Philippines which is not contained in the two other articles you mention. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:09, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Of course, all content in those columns that isn't included in the two timelines should be included in it. Also, I agree with the 206 number for the states. Shrek 5 the divorce (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I liked your suggestions, but I will wait for other editors to give their opinions. Most of the editions I make are in the "Sortable List" part, and most of the time they are editions related to the history of the countries, and I use the dates that Wikipedia itself gives me. BioAmazon3 (talk) 20:18, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

All right people, I've been thinking about this and I think that a single list for this article would be the best way to portray the contents of the article; it would take out considerable amounts of space that is used to convey the same information. The content in the Historical Notes of the sortable list and the Territorial modifications of the main list would be taken out and taken into the List of predecessors of sovereign states articles for the former, and the Timeline of geopolitical changes for the latter. I've made a table on France to show you how this new revision would look like:

Country	Continent	Date of acquisition of statehood	Acquisition of statehood	Date of last subordination	Previous governing power	Date of current form of government	Current form of government
France	Europe	843	The Kingdom of the West Franks is established from the division of Francia	25 August 1944	Germany	4 October 1958	The 1958 constitution establishes a semi-presidential system known as the Fifth Republic

As always this is up to discussion, and I would love to see your suggestions on what do you think of this proposal and what do you think should be added or deleted. Shrek 5 the divorce (talk) 22:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

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List of sovereign states by continent?

I don’t think the list in this page represents its title “List of sovereign states *by date of formation*”, because they are not ordered by date of formation at all, they are divided by continent and listed in alphabetical orderer. I think this is misleading (it was for me) and actually incorrect. Since I can’t change the title of the page, I propose the change to someone who can. In alternative, the list could actually be ordered by date of formation, and in that case the title could stay. Jayloke (talk) 05:04, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

article completely unusuable

boy, if only these could be sorted by date 69.113.166.178 (talk) 06:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)