Final answer:
The world has 195 officially recognized countries. For telecommunication, 249 country codes are used to distinguish countries and territories.
Step-by-step explanation:
There are 195 officially recognized countries in the world today. This figure includes 193 member states of the United Nations and 2 observer states: the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine. For phone dialing purposes, there are 249 country codes in use. These are designated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and include territories and special areas, not just countries in the political sense.
These country codes are used in various contexts, such as international telephone dialing, internet domain names, and country-specific top-level domain extensions. The country codes are assigned by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and are typically two-letter codes, such as 'US' for the United States or 'DE' for Germany.