There Are Only 22 Countries in the World That the British Haven’t Invaded

Of the almost 200 current member states (and one observer state) of the United Nations, the British have, at some point in history, invaded and established a military presence in 171 of them.

This is what British historian Stuart Laycock learned after his son asked him how many countries Britain had invaded. He dug into the history of almost 200 nations and found only 22 that the Brits hadn’t marched into. He talks about each one in All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To, released in 2012.

There’s a little wiggle room to make some arguments with Laycock’s number. For example, he lists the countries based on their current geographic borders and names, and some of the invasions occurred when one or both of those things were different. Some of them even happened before the formation of the British state. “Invasion” is defined pretty broadly, too, and includes raids or intrusions into a territory by British pirates, privateers or armed explorers operating with approval of the Crown. If you don’t quibble with his methodology, though, Britain has an impressive 88 percent world domination rate.

Here are the members of this exclusive club, the countries that Britain hasn’t invaded (and that should maybe be a little wary now):

Andorra
Belarus
Bolivia
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Republic of
Guatemala
Ivory Coast
Kyrgyzstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Mali
Marshall Islands
Monaco
Mongolia
Paraguay
Sao Tome and Principe
Sweden
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Vatican City

Via The Telegraph.