How many countries were there in 500 A.D.?

Baloo55th

No-one's answered yet, probably because it's virtually unanswerable. The countries of Europe might be countable, but there would be dispute as to the actual status of many of them. As to the status and number of countries in Africa, nearly impossible to count as a large part of the continent was illiterate. Not necessarily uncivilised, but simply leaving no records. Then, do you count tribal territories as countries? In somewhere like New Guinea or Australia where there was not an overall administration, tribal areas would be countries by being the highest level administration units present. Feb 08 06, 5:28 PM