Countries Teaching Resources

Explore the countries of the world with your students this school year with worksheets, activities and more resources created by teachers for teachers like you.

This collection is stocked with curriculum-aligned printable and digital activities and worksheets and includes resources to help students get to know the global community, the diverse characteristics of places around the world and more!

Whether it's your first year teaching about countries or you simply need a quick place to find some answers to students' common questions for your lessons, we have you covered. Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a definition of country and answers to questions about how many countries there are in the world.

What Is a Country? A Kid-Friendly Definition

If you're introducing countries for the first time, it can be helpful to have a definition of the word at hand to explain the meaning. Here's a definition our teacher team uses to explain what a country is:

A country is a piece of land that is recognized as an independent political entity. Each country has its own government, borders that separate it from other countries and unique identities such as histories, traditions and laws.

The United States is the country we live in, but there are many other countries all around the globe. Some you might know include Canada, Mexico and China.

Countries can be found on six of the world's seven continents. The only continent that doesn't have a country is Antarctica!

What Countries Border the United States

The United States has giant oceans on its East and West borders, but there are two other countries with which we share land borders:

• Canada
• Mexico

How Many Countries Are There?

There are currently 193 different countries in the world that are recognized by the United Nations.

There are two more countries that are called "observer nations" by the UN.

What Is the Largest Country in the World?

The United States is a big country that covers approximately 3.8 million square miles of land! But even with all of that land, the nation is only the third largest in the world by area.

So which country is the largest? And just how big is it?

The largest country by area is Russia. The nation spans approximately 6.6 million square miles of land. It's so large that it spans two different continents — Europe and Asia.

What Is the Smallest Country in the World?

The smallest country in the world is so small it fits inside a city! Vatican City, sometimes called the Holy See.

This tiny country is just 109 acres wide!