Darrell from Washington, DC, wrote in: “someone who visited both Prague and Bratislava before Czechoslovakia split should get credit for two countries. Likewise, chalk up two countries if someone visited East and West Germany separately before 1990”.

Del from Texas says: “Easy, it counts if the part that split was visited”.

Henry from Hawaii says: No, one could count two countries if both Prague and Bratislava were visited before the split. It is the territory that counts since it is pretty much the same regardless of who owns it at any given time. A purist would argue that it would require visitation when the current state was in operation and one could agree with that view in order to keep the counting as standard as possible.

Nick from London wrote in to say: I liked the What Counts as having visited a Country? section in the newsletter this month. Years ago I visited a couple of bits of Yugoslavia, and I would note that as several countries now.

Our webmaster Paul sent in a link of the official ISO country list, for worldly travellers to tick ‘em off! Take a look at http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/index.html

This month’s question, from Nick from London is: I would be interested if people think it counts if you have visited a country for a stopover.