
Last Updated: 9 September 2025
Before we get into the List of NATO Counties, let’s have a quick intro about NATO and how it works.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization in short NATO is an international alliance that consists of 32 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949.
Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.
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Facts About NATO
- Out of the 32 member countries, 30 are in Europe and two are in North America.
- Between 1994 and 1997, broader forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbors were set up, including the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative, and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
- All members have militaries, except for Iceland, which does not have a typical army but a coast guard and a small unit of civilian specialists for NATO operations.
- Three of NATO’s members are nuclear weapons states: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
- NATO has 12 original founding member states. Three more members joined between 1952 and 1955, and a fourth new member joined in 1982.
- After the end of the Cold War, NATO added 16 more members from 1999 to 2024.
- Finland joined in 2023 and Sweden joined in 2024.
- No country that has joined NATO has ever opted to leave it since its founding, although France withdrew from NATO unified command between 1966 and 2009.
- Since the accession of Sweden on 7 March 2024, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization covers a total area of 27,580,492 km2
List Of NATO Countries
Founding And Changes In Membership
- Eighteen countries have joined NATO since its founding in 1949 by 12 countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States). No countries have left.
- The largest membership increase occurred in 2004 when 7 countries joined.
- Twentieth Century additions included Greece and Turkey in 1952, West Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982. Three former Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland joined in 1999 (invited 1997). The 1990 reunification of Germany brought in the territory of the former country of East Germany.
- Twenty-first Century additions began in May 2000 when 10 countries of the Baltics and Eastern Europe formed the Vilnius group to cooperate and lobby for NATO membership.
- Seven within the Vilnius group (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) joined in 2004.
- The remaining three joined subsequently, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and North Macedonia in 2020. Montenegro joined in 2017.
Military Personnel Of NATO Countries
The following list is constructed from The Military Balance, published annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies |
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