The Times Atlas (2002) lists "all independent countries and populated dependencies and disputed territories" of the world. This includes 192 nations, 37 territories and 5 disputed bits.

Of the 192 nations, most qualify themselves in their 'official' name. For example the 'Commonwealth of Australia'. Australia is a commonwealth, apparently, whatever that means. There are 3 nations in the world that wish to be know as a commonwealth.

So breaking it down there are 24 nations that proclaim in their title to be monarchies and 153 that proclaim that they most certainly are not. This leaves 15 others who don't proclaim anything at all. Maybe it's because they're all laid back about who they are. Or maybe they just want an air of ambiguity to surround them. These are the country whose official title is their everyday one as well, like Canada, for example, or Jaimaca.

Of the 24 self-proclaimed monarchies, there are singular examples of Islamic Emirate, United Emirates, Sultanate and Grand Duchy. There are 3 Principalities and 17 Kingdoms, although 2 of these feel the need to have an extra qualifier, giving us one Hashmite and one United Kingdom.

Of the non-monarchies, as noted, 3 are commonwealths, which is a cute way of avoiding being a monarchy or a republic.

Seventeen other nations merely proclaim their togetherness in their title. This gives us a Union, a Confederation and a Federated States. Two countries use Independent State, and 2 use United States. There are 3 Federations and 7 who merely use the word State. Non confrontational; matter of fact; functional.

This leave 132 Republics. 106 of these are just that, Republic, no further qualifier. Republican qualifiers then emerge into groups. There are the togetherness qualifiers – Federal (3), Federative (1) and United (1). There are the political qualifiers – Democratic (4), People's (2), Socialist (1) and Co-operative (1). Then there are combinations of these terms – 2 People's Democratics, and one each of Federal Democratic, Democratic Socialist, Democratic & Popular and Sovereign Democratic.

Uruguay called itself an Oriental Republic. Huh?

That leaves Republics with fairly definite views to their affiliations – Arab (2), Islamic (2), Federal Islamic (1) and one Islamic Arab & African.

There is one final qualifier not yet mentioned. And whilst it's not a Republic, I thought it could go with this group – Socialist People's Arab Jamahiriya. Well Libya, that makes up for your boring flag then.