Somaliland is a self-declared republic in the northwest of what is internationally recognized as Somalia. Formerly the British Somaliland Protectorate, it briefly gained independence in 1960, then voluntarily united with Italian Somalia to form the Somali Republic. After the collapse of the Somali state in 1991, Somaliland reasserted its sovereignty, rebuilt its institutions, held elections, and has since functioned as a de facto independent country with its own currency, parliament, borders, and relative stability—remarkably so in a region marked by chronic conflict.

Yet in international law it remains unrecognized, treated as part of Somalia despite three decades of effective self-rule. As of 2026, only Israel has extended formal diplomatic recognition, quietly valuing Somaliland’s strategic position near the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. The rest of the world maintains the fiction of Somali territorial unity, leaving Somaliland in the rare category of a state that exists in practice, but only faintly on the diplomatic map.