UN member states
When the United Nations was established in October 1945, it had 51 member states. Back then, 22 of them representing 40 percent of all members were countries located in North and South America. Now that the organization has grown to 192 members, which region has the highest number of UN member states?
A. Asia B. Europe C. The Americas D. Africa
A. Asia is not correct.
Asia has 44 of the UN member states, or 23 percent of all current member nations. Since 50 percent of the world population lives in Asia, that makes Asia the most underrepresented continent in the United Nations in terms of the size of its total population.
B. Europe is not correct.
Forty-five of the UN member states are European, nearly 24 percent of the total. That is more than three times Europe's share of the global population.
Europe is the continent with the second-highest number of UN member states. Its representation at the UN is more in line with its share of the world economy, which accounted for about 20 percent of world gross domestic product (adjusted for purchasing power) in 2005.
C. The Amercas is not correct.
The Americas have 35 UN member states or 18 percent of the total. That makes the Americas the area in the world with the second-lowest number of member states after Oceania, which has only 14 members. Since the combined size of the Caribbean, Central, North, and South America's GDP accounted for 30 percent of the world GDP in 2005 (adjusted for purchasing power), with the United States alone generating 21 percent of world GDP, the region is also the most underrepresented relative to the size of its economies.
D. Africa is correct.
Africa has the highest number of UN member states with 53 countries, accounting for 28 percent of the member states. This is double African nations' combined share of the world population, which stands at 14 percent. At the same time, Africa's GDP was less than 5 percent of total world GDP in 2004 (adjusted for purchasing power), meaning that Africa's share of UN members is 5.5 times larger than its share of the world economy.
The Globalist Quiz is produced by The Globalist, a Washington-based research organization that promotes awareness of world affairs. © 2006 The Globalist, theglobalist.com. 
