Country Border Lookup
List the countries bordering any given country.
Overview
The Country Border Lookup tells you which countries share a land border with any country in the world. Type a country name or ISO code and the tool returns the list of neighbouring sovereign states. It is the answer to "which countries border Switzerland?" and the building block for any analysis that depends on adjacency - sanctions modelling, road-trip planning, cross-border logistics or trivia.
Borders are surprisingly fluid as data: maritime-only neighbours, disputed regions, micro-states, and overseas territories all complicate any clean adjacency list. The dataset behind this tool sticks to internationally recognised land borders between sovereign states, so the United Kingdom shows only Ireland (its land border with the Republic of Ireland on the island of Ireland) rather than every country across the Channel.
How it works
The lookup is keyed by ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes (US, DE, FR …) but accepts common country names and alpha-3 codes (USA, DEU, FRA) as well. The underlying adjacency list is derived from CIA World Factbook border data: each entry maps a country code to the alpha-2 codes of its land neighbours, sorted alphabetically. Island nations with no land border (Japan, Iceland, New Zealand) return an empty list and a friendly note explaining why.
Borders are symmetric, so if Germany lists France as a neighbour, France will also list Germany. Disputed or de-facto borders - Kosovo, Western Sahara, Taiwan - follow the same recognition baseline used in the ISO 3166 standard.
Examples
- Switzerland (CH) borders Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Liechtenstein - 5 neighbours.
- Russia (RU) borders 14 countries, the most of any sovereign state along with China.
- Japan (JP) returns an empty list - it is an island nation with no land border.
- United States (US) borders Canada and Mexico - just 2 land neighbours despite its size.
FAQ
Why isn't the UK listed as bordering France?
The tool covers only land borders. The English Channel separates the two countries, so they are not adjacent in this dataset.
Are maritime borders included?
No. Maritime exclusive economic zones can stretch hundreds of nautical miles and overlap, which would make every island nation a "neighbour" of dozens of others. Only land contact counts here.
How is Russia counted - Europe or Asia?
Russia is treated as one sovereign state with neighbours on both continents. China and North Korea are listed alongside Norway and Finland in the same response.
Does the tool handle territorial disputes?
The dataset follows ISO 3166-1 recognition. Disputed areas are not given their own entries; their de-facto borders count for the recognised state.