I'm also joining team more.

I think the days of vast geographic areas ruled by a centralized authority are coming to a close. Municipal governments will likely persist, though.

I am going to guess more. You go your way and I'll go mine will be the trend of the latter half of the century.

More; it's harder to keep minorities in line nowadays.

I would ask how many countries are truly sovereign today? Seems more like the vast majority of nations are subservient to the USA or to an increasing extent, China. I would suggest that the EU, Japan, Canada, Australasia, S.Korea and most of Lain America and Africa are monetarily and militarily subservient tribute states to the USA. USA controls the legacy institutions of global governance and banking. Iran, Russia, N.Korea are now reliant upon China for international trade payments...and China has built its CIPS and mBridge alternatives to the US petrodollar SWIFT trade payments hegemony. Saudi Arabia and others have joined mBridge. Most nations are also increasingly dependent upon China for trade - both in selling their commodity exports and imports of manufactured goods. Are there any truly independent nations except for USA and China?

more countries. States in the US, Russia, and Brazil are gonna push for independence.

@remindme in 100 years

Another point of view, there is only one country "Earth"

You are correct in that it has shifted in the past. Germany is a good example as it was once a more loose group of provinces prior to Hitler's rise. I have an American friend that moved back from there a few years ago and be talks about the different cultures inside of Germany that still persist.

I think it could go either way. More in my opinion would be better. That means more choice and more likelihood of countries being focused on a singular culture. I really think there is a strong case for voting with your feet and culture is in my opinion a more important factor than current governance systems as a factor for where one should live. People seem to forget this in the US but IMO many of our issues today are primarily due to cultural divides exaggerated by political opportunism. Voting and elections are at best lagging indicators or at worse the result of an easily duped population.

If different cultures can't or won't coexist in the same country why not peacefully spit and just trade with each other. We have done this for many years (trade).

More.

I could see more in Europe. Lot's of regions want independence like Catalonia.

Seems like it can go either way. Either way, I hope it will go hand in hand with a better life for most people.

Just take a look of Italy it has 105 provinces, each with its own language or dialect, different food, clothes and many other aspects. Diversity is good, but the left hate this kind of diversity. If decentralization wins we will have far more, as HHH says an Europe of a thousand Liechtensteins.

Tyler Cowen had some nice musings on this, but unfortunately I can't break the paywall. Helps? https://www.thefp.com/p/tyler-cowen-what-countries-wont-exist

How many countries were around a 100 years ago?

It can't get more I believe. So <=195.

I think that at some point a world government will emerge that really controls all openly under a single flag.

Great point, I think the world will converge on 10-15 fiat currencies, and the amount of countries will converge maybe to 20-30 countries.

Very interesting line of thought I think the major super powers will still be in place (i.e. USA, Russia, China), but I think we will see countries like around the world converge towards the super powers.

I'm leaning towards fewer countries, but I'm not sure.

It seems like on the company level, we've seen waves of consolidation everywhere, and industries that were once powered by dozens of players are now dominated by 2 or 3.

Wouldn't be shocked to see something similar play out on a global scale... a few "global power" countries making deals to take smaller nations under their wing amidst rising uncertainty.