which countries are not members of the united nations 
there are 193 members of the un all of them sovereign nations a special category allows so called observer states to participate in general assembly meetings but they cannot vote the two observer states are the holy see and palestine the holy see with the pope at its head was granted the status of a permanent observer in 1964 palestine officially applied to join the u n in 2011 but the un security council has not voted on the application in 2012 the state of palestine was officially recognized as a non member state certain other states including kosovo and the republic of china or taiwan are not members because they re not recognized by all members of the un 18who founded the united nations in april 1945 as world war ii was coming to a close representatives of 50 war weary countries gathered in san francisco for the un conference on international organization for two months the group worked on drafting and then signing the un charter creating the united nations an international organization that all hoped would help prevent another world war the charter was ratified by china france the soviet union the united kingdom the u s and other nations and the un got off the ground officially on oct 24 1945 2who is the secretary general of the un the ninth secretary general of the u n ant nio guterres took office on jan 1 2017 the portugal native took the oath for his second five year term which began in january 2022 14