The UN was founded in 1945 by 51 nations - and now has 193 members
Born from the ruins of a world war, the United Nations has grown to include nearly every country on Earth.
Delegates from 50 countries met at the San Francisco Conference from April to June 1945 and signed the United Nations Charter on 26 June 1945. Poland, unrepresented at the conference, signed shortly after, bringing the original membership to 51.
The organisation formally came into existence on 24 October 1945, once the Charter had been ratified by the five permanent Security Council members - China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States - together with a majority of the other signatories. That date is still marked each year as United Nations Day.
Membership has grown from the original 51 Member States in 1945 to the current 193.
That expansion largely tracks the wave of decolonisation after 1945, as dozens of newly independent states joined.
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