That political map on your wall? It’s just a temporary snapshot. Throughout history, nations have emerged, vanished, merged, and split apart as geopolitical forces reshape our world. Looking ahead to 2075, today’s familiar borders face unprecedented threats from rising seas, ethnic tensions, and political instability that could dramatically redraw the global landscape.
Here’s a look at 20 countries that might disappear or transform beyond recognition within the next half-century.
Maldives
With 80% of its territory less than one meter above sea level, the Maldives fights an existential battle against rising oceans. The government has already purchased land in other countries as insurance for population relocation.
Could a nation continue to exist when its physical territory disappears entirely? The Maldives’ struggle tests the very definition of statehood in our changing climate.
Kiribati
Kiribati’s coral atolls face imminent danger despite contributing almost nothing to the emissions drowning them. The government has purchased 6,000 acres in Fiji as part of its ‘migration with dignity’ strategy.
Some islands have already vanished, while others watch saltwater contaminate their precious freshwater supplies. The question isn’t if Kiribati will relocate but when – and whether it maintains any sovereignty afterward.
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Tuvalu
Tuvalu might become uninhabitable long before complete submersion. During king tides, residents now wade through seawater in village centers that were dry land just years ago.
Agricultural collapse and freshwater contamination threaten survival before total flooding. New Zealand’s special immigration lottery for Tuvaluans acknowledges the likely outcome – when most citizens live abroad rather than at home, what remains of a nation?
Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands battle dual threats—rising seas and the toxic legacy of nuclear testing that’s already rendered parts permanently uninhabitable. Their Compact of Free Association with the United States offers unique transition possibilities unavailable to other threatened island nations.
With an average elevation of just six feet above sea level, the Marshallese may need to leverage this relationship sooner than they’d hoped.
Belgium
Belgium’s motto, ‘Unity Makes Strength,’ seems aspirational for this linguistically divided country. Wealthy Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia already function largely separately, with different political parties, media, and administrative systems.
Only Brussels complicates potential separation. This artificial buffer state created in 1830 shows severe strain under linguistic and cultural pressures that could eventually split it along existing fault lines.
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Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia functions as a political patchwork barely held together by the 1995 Dayton Accords. Its bewildering structure includes two autonomous entities, three presidents representing different ethnic groups, and various special zones.
Republika Srpska regularly threatens secession, while some Croat areas demand their own entity. This dysfunctional arrangement produces political paralysis—hardly promising for long-term stability or continued existence in its current form.
North Korea
Despite defying collapse predictions for decades, North Korea faces fundamental challenges to its long-term survival. Chronic food insecurity persists despite endless agricultural campaigns. Information increasingly penetrates borders through smuggled media.
Leadership succession beyond the Kim dynasty presents another potential breaking point. Internal collapse or external pressures could dramatically transform the Korean peninsula’s political geography, potentially erasing North Korea through reunification.
Yemen
Yemen exists mainly on paper, with little resemblance to ground reality. Years of civil war have effectively split the territory between Houthi rebels in the northwest, the internationally recognized government in the south, and various other factions elsewhere.
This fragmentation echoes the country’s historical division – North and South Yemen were separate until 1990. With infrastructure destroyed and humanitarian crises deepening, Yemen demonstrates how quickly a recognized state can functionally disintegrate.
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Libya
Libya remains caught in de facto partition between competing governments following Gaddafi’s 2011 overthrow. This division reflects historical separations between Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan regions that functioned independently before colonial unification.
Despite valuable oil resources ensuring international involvement, Libya has operated without effective national governance for over a decade. The prospects for reunification diminish with each passing year of entrenched separation.
United Kingdom
The UK faces unprecedented pressures threatening its four-nation structure. Scottish independence sentiment has intensified since Brexit, forcing Scotland to leave the EU against its voters’ wishes.
Northern Ireland finds itself in an even more precarious position, with Brexit complications and demographic shifts making Irish reunification increasingly plausible. Either departure would transform this former global power into something unrecognizable from its current form.
Spain
Spain’s battle with regional separatism exposes fragility beneath apparent unity. The 2017 Catalan independence crisis demonstrated how quickly sub-national identity can threaten established European democracies.
Though authorities have maintained territorial integrity through legal measures and force, underlying tensions persist. Catalonia’s economic strength and distinct identity continue fueling independence movements, while the Basque Country already maintains substantial autonomy.
Spain’s cohesion remains uncertain as regional identities challenge national unity.
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Somalia
Somalia exists more as an internationally recognized concept than a functioning state. For three decades, the region has operated as a patchwork beyond central government control.
Somaliland has functioned as a de facto independent state since 1991, complete with government, currency, and security forces – lacking only international recognition. Despite improving security in Mogadishu, the federal government controls limited territory, raising questions about whether Somalia might eventually formalize its current fragmentation.
Iraq
Iraq’s borders, drawn by colonial powers with little regard for ethnic and religious realities, contain fault lines threatening long-term cohesion. Kurdistan already functions with substantial autonomy, including independent oil sales and security forces.
Though a 2017 independence referendum failed to achieve separation, Kurdish national aspirations remain strong. Meanwhile, sectarian divisions between Shia-dominated government and Sunni regions create persistent tensions that could eventually redraw Mesopotamia’s map along ethnic and religious lines.
Cyprus
Cyprus has remained divided since 1974 between the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized only by Turkey). Despite numerous reunification attempts and EU membership incentives, the island remains split along ethnic lines.
Separate societies have developed on each side of the buffer zone over generations, making reunification increasingly difficult. This frozen conflict seems unsustainable over five decades, suggesting either eventual reunification or formal separation.
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Haiti
Haiti confronts catastrophic governance failure threatening its viability as a functioning state. Political instability, environmental collapse, natural disasters, and gang violence have created a situation where the government controls only portions of the capital.
Large sections of Port-au-Prince remain under gang control, while rural areas receive minimal services. Multiple international interventions have failed to establish sustainable governance. Haiti risks becoming a textbook failed state requiring unprecedented international administration or entirely new governance structures.
Democratic Republic of Congo
The DRC’s enormous size creates inherent governance challenges worsened by colonial boundaries that ignored ethnic and geographic realities. Eastern regions suffer from ongoing conflicts involving dozens of armed groups beyond government control.
Despite vast mineral wealth, the country struggles to maintain basic infrastructure connecting its far-flung regions. These persistent challenges suggest the DRC might eventually reorganize into smaller, more manageable units reflecting regional and ethnic divisions as arbitrary colonial boundaries prove increasingly impractical.
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea’s extraordinary diversity – over 800 languages across thousands of traditional communities – creates unique governance challenges. Bougainville voted overwhelmingly for independence in a 2019 referendum that remains unimplemented.
This precedent, combined with other autonomy movements and difficulties delivering basic services across challenging terrain, suggests PNG might eventually fragment along cultural lines. The vast differences between coastal, highland, and island regions create natural divisions that could eventually receive political recognition.
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Moldova
Moldova exists in geopolitical limbo, which threatens its long-term viability. Already divided between its recognized territory and breakaway Transnistria (a de facto independent state since 1992 with Russian support),
Moldova faces additional complications from autonomous Gagauzia maintaining pro-Russian sentiment. Caught between Russian and European spheres while sharing language and culture with Romania, Moldova occupies an unstable middle ground that is precarious because of the Ukraine conflict.
These pressures could eventually lead to Romania’s absorption or further fragmentation.
Pakistan
Pakistan faces multiple centrifugal forces challenging national cohesion. Ethnonationalist movements in Balochistan and Sindh have periodically advocated for independence, while economic disparities between provinces breed resentment.
Water scarcity, religious extremism, and complex relationships with neighbors create additional stress. Though the military has maintained unity thus far, climate change impacts could intensify separatist movements in the coming decades.
Pakistan’s hastily drawn partition boundaries may face increasing pressure from these overlapping challenges.
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan’s unusual geography creates inherent vulnerabilities. Armenia physically separates the Nakhchivan exclave from the main territory, while disputes continue around Nagorno-Karabakh despite Azerbaijan’s 2020 military gains. Complex boundaries, historical claims, and regional tensions suggest that Azerbaijan’s borders might eventually be redrawn through conflict or negotiation.
As Turkey increases influence and Russia’s role evolves, regional relationships continue shifting in ways that could fundamentally alter Azerbaijan’s territory and composition.
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When Nations Transform
Political maps aren’t permanent. Throughout history, countless countries have disappeared, merged, split, or transformed beyond recognition. The Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia are all gone, replaced by new political entities. Natural geography provides the only constant backdrop against which human borders constantly shift.
Looking ahead 50 years, climate change presents unprecedented challenges to territorial statehood, while ethnic tensions and governance failures test colonial-era boundaries drawn with little regard for cultural realities. Some familiar nations will likely join history’s former countries, remembered only in outdated maps as the world continues its perpetual political reorganization.
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