47 members and then some

[Deleted]

I felt a need to check if this was still true regarding the "Council of Europe," and yes it is. (This concerns the subtitle of the Europe zone at Anyport.)

As for the "then some," the non members located officially in Europe are Belarus, Kazakhstan (both due to human rights issues) and Vatican City (due to being a theocracy), so we can assume that the Council will be complete if it ever has 50 members.

Since most of us love trivia, the Council was founded in 1949 with the following members: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Greece and Turkey joined 3 months later and Iceland and Germany joined in 1950.

[lagatta]

Well, there is also the possibility of member states either splitting up or forming larger unions. A lot of strife and violence in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, but not in the case of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. No independent Scotland or Catalonia for the time being... Of course Germany was reunited.

[Deleted]

And then there is Belgium which might split up sooner or later...

[bjd]

Why on earth would Kazakhstan be considered part of Europe? It's surrounded by countries that are in Asia.

[Deleted]

That is open to debate, but most of the ex-USSR is oriented politically towards Europe, as is Turkey even though only a small part of it is officially in Europe.