Countries That Start With B: All 17, Listed

All 17 countries that start with B

This list counts the 195 states the United Nations recognizes as members or observers, the same 195 the Geography app and its country quiz use, so the total here will never drift from the total anywhere else on this site. Territories, disputed states, and former names are not counted separately, and the count is generated directly from that dataset rather than typed by hand.

Country	Capital	Continent	Context
Bahamas	Nassau	North America	An archipelago of about 700 islands and cays in the Atlantic, just southeast of Florida.
Bahrain	Manama	Asia	A small island kingdom in the Persian Gulf, connected to Saudi Arabia by a causeway roughly 25 kilometers long.
Bangladesh	Dhaka	Asia	One of the most densely populated countries in the world, built almost entirely on the Ganges delta.
Barbados	Bridgetown	North America	An Atlantic island east of the main Caribbean chain, a republic since removing the British monarch as head of state in 2021.
Belarus	Minsk	Europe	A landlocked Eastern European country bordering Russia, Ukraine, and three European Union states.
Belgium	Brussels	Europe	Home to the headquarters of both the European Union and NATO, in Brussels.
Belize	Belmopan	North America	The only country in Central America with English as an official language, formerly British Honduras.
Benin	Porto-Novo	Africa	A narrow West African country on the Gulf of Guinea, widely regarded as the historical birthplace of Vodun.
Bhutan	Thimphu	Asia	A small Himalayan kingdom that measures national progress by Gross National Happiness alongside GDP.
Bolivia	Sucre	South America	A landlocked South American country with two capitals: Sucre the constitutional seat, La Paz the seat of government.
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sarajevo	Europe	A Balkan country still governed under the power sharing structure set up by the 1995 Dayton Agreement.
Botswana	Gaborone	Africa	A landlocked southern African country, one of the world's largest diamond producers and home to much of the Kalahari.
Brazil	Brasilia	South America	South America's largest country by far, home to most of the Amazon rainforest.
Brunei	Bandar Seri Begawan	Asia	A small, oil rich sultanate on the island of Borneo, ruled by one of the world's longest reigning monarchs.
Bulgaria	Sofia	Europe	A Balkan country on the Black Sea that adopted the euro in January 2026, becoming its 21st member state.
Burkina Faso	Ouagadougou	Africa	A landlocked West African country renamed from Upper Volta in 1984.
Burundi	Gitega	Africa	A small East African country on Lake Tanganyika, among the most densely populated on the continent.

Where the seventeen B countries sit

B is one of the more evenly spread letters. Africa and Europe each hold four: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Burundi in Africa; Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria in Europe. Asia also holds four, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Brunei, three of them small states bordering much larger neighbors. North America has three island and coastal nations, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Belize, and South America has two, Bolivia and Brazil, at opposite ends of the population scale.

Brazil is the letter's outlier by size, the largest country in South America and home to most of the Amazon rainforest, while several of its letter mates, Barbados, Bahrain, and Brunei among them, are compact states that could fit inside a single Brazilian state many times over. Two B countries carry two capital cities apiece: Benin's official capital is Porto-Novo, with the government actually seated in Cotonou, and Bolivia's constitutional capital is Sucre, with the government seated in La Paz, one of the highest capital cities in the world.

Naming edge cases worth knowing

Burkina Faso was known as Upper Volta until 1984, when a revolutionary government renamed it; the old name survives only in historical references now. Bosnia and Herzegovina is filed as one entry under B despite its double name, the same pattern this dataset uses for Trinidad and Tobago and Antigua and Barbuda. Barbados is a recent addition to the republics: it removed the British monarch as its head of state in November 2021 while remaining a Commonwealth member, a change of government structure rather than of name.

Quick facts

Seventeen countries start with B, out of the 195 UN member and observer states.
Africa and Europe each contribute four of the seventeen, more than any other continent on this letter.
Benin and Bolivia both have two capital cities: an official seat and a separate seat of government.
Burkina Faso was known as Upper Volta before a 1984 renaming.

Common questions

How many countries start with the letter B?

Seventeen countries start with the letter B: Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, and Burundi.

Which B countries are landlocked?

Six of the seventeen have no coastline: Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Burundi. The rest all touch an ocean, a sea, or in Bolivia's neighbor Paraguay's case a major river system, though Bolivia itself is landlocked.

Is Belize the only English speaking country in Central America?

Yes. Belize, formerly British Honduras, is the sole Central American country with English as an official language, a legacy of British colonial rule that set it apart from its Spanish speaking neighbors.

Why does Bolivia have two capitals?

Sucre is Bolivia's constitutional capital and the seat of its judiciary, while La Paz, at over 3,600 meters, is the seat of the executive and legislative branches and the country's de facto seat of government.

Which B country recently became a republic?

Barbados did, on 30 November 2021, when it removed Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and installed its first president while remaining within the Commonwealth.

Countries that start with B