All 11 countries that start with G
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
 Gabon | Libreville | Africa | A Central African country straddling the equator, most of it covered by dense rainforest. |
 Gambia | Banjul | Africa | A narrow West African country tracing the Gambia River, surrounded on three sides by Senegal. |
 Georgia | Tbilisi | Asia | A country in the Caucasus on the Black Sea, among the first states to adopt Christianity as a state religion. |
 Germany | Berlin | Europe | The European Union's most populous country and Europe's largest economy. |
 Ghana | Accra | Africa | A West African country on the Gulf of Guinea, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonial rule, in 1957. |
 Greece | Athens | Europe | The birthplace of democracy, with more islands than any other country in the Mediterranean. |
 Grenada | Saint George's | North America | A small Caribbean island nation known as the Spice Isle for its nutmeg production. |
 Guatemala | Guatemala City | North America | The most populous country in Central America, home to significant Maya ruins. |
 Guinea | Conakry | Africa | A West African country holding some of the world's largest bauxite reserves. |
 Guinea-Bissau | Bissau | Africa | A small West African country, a former Portuguese colony independent since 1974. |
 Guyana | Georgetown | South America | A South American country that is culturally part of the Caribbean, the only one on the continent with English as its official language. |
Where these eleven sit on the map
Africa carries nearly half the letter: Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau, five of the eleven, stretched from the equator to the West African coast. Europe holds Germany and Greece, the letter's biggest economy and its oldest democracy respectively. Georgia sits in Asia by this dataset's convention, in the Caucasus on the Black Sea, and the Americas close out the list with Grenada and Guatemala in North America and Guyana in South America.
Population runs from Germany's more than 80 million down to Grenada's roughly 120,000, a spread of nearly three orders of magnitude within a single letter. Ghana carries particular historical weight: it was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from colonial rule, in 1957, a milestone that made it a symbol for the wave of African independence movements that followed through the 1960s.
Naming edge cases worth knowing
The Gambia is commonly written with the definite article, The Gambia, in its own constitution and in most official contexts, but it alphabetizes under G either way and appears here simply as Gambia. Guinea and Guinea-Bissau are separate countries despite the shared name: Guinea is the larger, French speaking state to the north, and Guinea-Bissau, a smaller, Portuguese speaking former colony, takes Bissau, its capital, as a distinguishing suffix. Georgia is placed in Asia here, following the UN geoscheme's Western Asia grouping, though it is frequently treated as European in cultural and political contexts and its relationship with the EU makes that debate an active one.
Quick facts
- Eleven countries start with G, out of the 195 UN member and observer states.
- Five of the eleven, nearly half, are in Africa.
- Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonial rule, in 1957.
- The Gambia is often written with the article The, but it alphabetizes under G regardless.