The number of sovereign states has steadily increased over the past few decades and is rapidly approaching two hundred. Many of these countries are small. The median country size in terms of population is around five million people. Tuvalu, the smallest state with a seat at the United Nations, has 11,000 people. The smallest country in the sample studied by Winters and Martins (W&M) is Niue, a self-governing country in free association with New Zealand, with only 2,000 inhabitants.