Countries Without the Letter A in Their Name

By John Misachi on September 17 2019 in World Facts

Only 31 countries do not contain the letter "a" in their name.

There are 195 countries in the world of which 193 countries are members of the United Nations. The other two countries, Holy See and Palestine, are non-member observer state. Of the 193 countries, 54 countries are located in Africa, 46 in Asia, 44 in Europe, 23 in North America, 12 in South America, and 14 in Oceania. Except for a few countries like North and South Korea, most of the countries have unique names. Nearly all the countries are named after the following: land feature, tribe name, the geography of the country, or an important personality. “A” is a common letter that appears in most of the countries’ names. In fact, only 32 countries of the world are without the letter A in their names. Here are some of the countries in this category.

Countries Without Letter a in Their Names by Region

Countries in Africa

Of the 32 countries without letter A in their name, 12 are in Africa. These countries include Benin, Burundi, 500 Internal Server Error

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, Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Lesotho, Morocco, Niger, Seychelles, and Togo. Notably, some of these countries like Morocco would contain letter A if the name is written in French (Maroc). Also, Congo is included as the longer Republic of the Congo also does not contain the letter A, whereas the neighboring country is not included as it is known as the Democratic Republic of Congo which has letter A. Interestingly, the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire does not have letter A in its official name but has it in its English name, Ivory Coast.

Countries in Europe

Nine countries in Europe do not have letter A in their names. These countries include Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom will be removed from this list if the official name (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is used since both Great Britain and Ireland contain the letter A. Interestingly, most of the capital cities of these countries also do not include the letter A. These cities include Brussels (Belgium), London (UK), Stockholm (Sweden), and Luxembourg City (Luxembourg).

Countries in Asia

Seven countries in Asia do not contain the letter A. These are Brunei, Cyprus, Mongolia, Philippines, Timor-Leste, Turkey, and Yemen. Cyprus and Yemen are generally considered part of the Middle East region in western Asia while Brunei and Timor-Leste are located in eastern Asia. While Timor-Leste does not contain the letter A, both its official name (the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste) and its English name (East-Timor) contain the letter A. Turkey is listed under both Asia and Europe as it is a transcontinental country.

Countries in the Americas

There are four countries in the Americas that do not include the letter A. These are Mexico in North America, Belize in Central America, and Chile, and Peru in South America. Belize was originally excluded from the list of countries without letter A since it was known as British Honduras.

Countries in Oceania

Of the 14 countries in Oceania, only one does not include the letter A. Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country of the coast of New Zealand.

Are the Official Names Different?

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