In the 1990s, over two dozen new countries appeared on the map. These included 15 new countries that were created when the U.S.S.R. broke up in 1991—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The dissolution of Yugoslavia also created several new countries in 1991 and 1992—Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia.

In 1993, Eritrea became independent of Ethiopia, and Czechoslovakia dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. That same year, the Pacific island countries of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau all became independent. In 1990, Namibia split from South Africa to become its own country, while East and West Germany combined to become Germany.