Top Countries with Most Diplomatic Missions Worldwide (2024)

January 3, 2020

Author: Prabhu Balakrishnan

Diplomatic missions are a fundamental aspect of a country’s foreign policy, serving as key role for maintaining bilateral relations, protecting citizens, promoting economic interests, towards to global cooperation and understanding. Embassies, consulates, and missions are the places where government representatives serve in foreign countries and takes place with mutual consent between countries.

The Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations, aims is to facilitate “the development of friendly relations” among governments through a uniform set of practices and principles, most notably, it codifies the longstanding custom of diplomatic immunity, in which diplomatic missions are granted privileges that enable diplomats to perform their functions without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country.

According to Global Diplomacy Index by Lowy institute – China, US and France are the top 3 countries in the World to have the most diplomatic posts/missions abroad, thus establishing biggest diplomatic footprint around the world.

Before we head below, let’s understand a bit about embassy and consulates and difference in their workings. The Embassies, Consulates and High commissions are established to extend diplomacy and assist their citizens during emergency.

So what are the differences?

Embassy is a diplomatic mission generally located in the capital city of another country which offers a full range of services, including consular services. Embassy and diplomatic employees have full and absolute inviolability and immunities towards host state authorities including its judiciary
High commission is an embassy of a Commonwealth country located in another Commonwealth country.
Permanent mission is a diplomatic mission to a major international organization (eg UN). All missions to the United Nations are known simply as permanent missions, while EU member states’ missions to the European Union are known as permanent representations, and the head of such a mission is typically both a permanent representative and an ambassador.
Consulate General is a diplomatic mission located usually other than the capital city, which provides a full range of consular services. consulate and consular employees only have limited inviolability and immunities
Consulate is a diplomatic mission that is similar to a consulate general, but may not provide a full range of services ( only limited service).

Top Countries

These are the list of top countries that have the most diplomatic missions abroad for 2021.

Source: Global Diplomacy Index 2021

Rank	Country	Number of total posts	Embassies/ High Commissions	Consulates/ Consulates-General	Permanent missions	Other representations
1	China	275	171	92	10	8
2	United States	267	167	82	11	3
3	France	264	161	89	15	2
4	Japan	258	153	70	13	22
5	Turkey[2]	254	146	93	13	2
6	Russia	243	144	85	11	2
7	Germany	227	153	61	12	1
8	Brazil	222	138	70	12	2
9	Spain	215	115	89	10	1
10	United Kingdom	209	151	45	10	3
11	India	206	139	54	5	4
12	Italy	205	122	75	5	3
13	South Korea	202	128	55	6	13
14	Argentina	172	92	67	10	3
15	Mexico	157	80	67	7	3
16	Netherlands	153	94	49	8	2
17	Sweden	152	107	29	12	4
18	Libya	149	119	22	8	0
19	Switzerland	146	103	30	10	3
–	European Union	145	0	0	145	0
20	Canada	144	96	36	10	2
21	Iran	140	99	35	4	2
22	Australia	136	88	36	9	3
23	Greece	135	82	43	9	1
24	Indonesia	132	94	34	3	1
25	Hungary	131	86	35	7	3
26	Portugal	129	72	48	8	1
27	Chile	128	70	51	6	1
28	Saudi Arabia	127	102	22	2	1
29	South Africa	124	106	14	2	2
30	Romania	119	82	23	9	5
31	Poland	118	81	31	4	2
32	Pakistan	117	85	30	2	0
32	Czech Republic	116	90	19	5	2
33	Malaysia	108	80	23	4	1
35	Taiwan	107	15	2	1	89
36	Belgium	106	89	9	7	1
37	Israel	104	77	20	6	1
38	Bulgaria	101	77	17	6	1
39	Norway	100	80	9	10	1
40	Austria	99	80	10	7	2
41	Thailand	98	65	29	3	1
42	Vietnam	96	69	22	4	1
43	New Zealand	92	56	30	6	0
44	Denmark	89	67	14	6	2
45	Ireland	88	67	14	6	1
46	Philippines	87	60	23	4	0
47	Finland	85	70	6	6	3
48	Slovakia	81	63	8	8	2
49	Bangladesh	75	57	16	2	0
50	Croatia	72	50	17	4	1
51	Sri Lanka	67	51	13	2	1
52	Lithuania	61	40	12	8	1
53	Cyprus	59	43	7	8	1
54	Nigeria	56	42	6	7	1
55	Slovenia	54	41	5	7	1
56	North Korea	52	47	3	2	0
57	Singapore	50	28	17	4	1
58	Latvia	49	39	3	7	0
59	Estonia	48	40	2	6	0
60	Egypt	47	38	5	3	1
61	Myanmar	46	38	6	2	0
62	Malta	45	30	7	7	1
63	Algeria	44	28	8	6	2
64	Mongolia	43	30	11	1	1
65	Brunei	42	35	4	3	0
66	Nepal	40	32	7	1	0
67	Laos	39	26	10	3	0
68	Cambodia	38	25	10	3	0
69	Luxembourg	37	26	7	3	1
70	Iceland	25	16	4	5	0
71	Bhutan	9	5	2	2	0

Source: Global Diplomacy Index 2021 / Lowy Institute

Top Countries with Most Diplomatic Missions Worldwide (2024)

Top Countries

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Prabhu Balakrishnan