East Africa Countries Map: Horn, EAC and Island States

An East Africa countries map can look surprisingly different depending on who made it. A statistical region, a geographic peninsula and a regional organization answer different questions. Start with the map’s definition before comparing its country count with another list.

The count depends on the definition

Using UN M49 Eastern Africa, this map includes 18 sovereign states and distinguishes four additional statistical areas. The Horn of Africa is a smaller geographic grouping, while the East African Community has its own membership. Mainland and island panels keep small places visible without treating every mapped area as an independent country.

How to use this article: Match the country numbers, identify the islands and area entries, or compare EAC membership with the regional map.

1. Read the East Africa Map

The mainland panel runs from Eritrea and the Horn in the north to Mozambique and Zimbabwe in the south. The separate island panels cover the Indian Ocean locations. Numbers identify states; letters identify the other areas listed by the UN. They are lookup labels, not a ranking.

Eastern Africa mainland and Madagascar map with numbered countries and clear callout lines, using the same key as the island panels. — Mainland states and Madagascar in the UN Eastern Africa grouping. Somaliland is hatched within Somalia’s mapped extent, not counted as another state. Boundary depiction is generalized, not a legal survey. Open the full-size map.

Country number key

The 18 states in this map’s UN M49 Eastern Africa grouping. On a narrow screen, swipe the table sideways to compare all four columns.
Country	Map location	EAC member	Narrow Horn
1. Burundi	Mainland; south of Rwanda	Yes	No
2. Comoros	Island panel; northwest of Madagascar	No	No
3. Djibouti	Mainland; beside the Gulf of Aden	No	Yes
4. Eritrea	Mainland; along the Red Sea	No	Yes
5. Ethiopia	Mainland; inland in the Horn	No	Yes
6. Kenya	Mainland; north of Tanzania	Yes	No
7. Madagascar	Island panel; east of Mozambique	No	No
8. Malawi	Mainland; between Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique	No	No
9. Mauritius	Island panel; east of Madagascar	No	No
10. Mozambique	Mainland; opposite Madagascar	No	No
11. Rwanda	Mainland; north of Burundi	Yes	No
12. Seychelles	Island panel; northeast of Madagascar	No	No
13. Somalia	Mainland; eastern tip of the Horn	Yes	Yes
14. South Sudan	Mainland; south of Sudan	Yes	No
15. Uganda	Mainland; west of Kenya	Yes	No
16. Tanzania	Mainland; south of Kenya	Yes	No
17. Zambia	Mainland; west of Malawi	No	No
18. Zimbabwe	Mainland; south of Zambia	No	No

The EAC and narrow-Horn columns compare the conventions explained below. The EAC also includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is absent from this table because M49 places it in Middle Africa. Membership follows the EAC roster consulted in November 2026. The table uses common short names; the UN entry for Tanzania is “United Republic of Tanzania.” Small mainland countries use leader lines so their numbers do not obscure neighboring boundaries. For a continent-wide view rather than this regional comparison, open the Africa map and regional sheets.

2. Which Countries and Areas Are Included?

The UN Statistics Division’s M49 list groups countries and areas for statistical use. It is not a list of EAC members or a ruling that geography, culture and political identity share the same boundary. This article’s 18-country count excludes the four additional area entries below.

Islands and the four additional area entries

Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles are the four sovereign island states in this grouping. Their ocean location does not remove them from the statistical region. The island map uses several frames because squeezing both mainland Africa and distant island groups into one phone-width image would make the smaller places disappear.

Six Indian Ocean locator panels show Comoros, Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius with Mayotte, Réunion, Chagos and selected French Southern island groups. — Island numbers continue the country key above. Letters match the area table below. Each frame has a different scale, with north at the top; symbols locate small islands rather than enlarge their land area. The southern panel locates Crozet in the west, Kerguelen in the southeast, and Amsterdam/Saint-Paul in the northeast. Coverage is selective, not a complete holdings inventory. Open the full-size map.

Other UN M49 Eastern Africa entries, not additional sovereign countries
Map letter and M49 entry	How it is treated here
A. British Indian Ocean Territory	Chagos locator; the M49 name is retained as a statistical label, not a declaration about treaty implementation.
B. Mayotte	Separate M49 area; administered by France and claimed by Comoros.
C. Réunion	Separate M49 area; a French overseas department, not another independent country.
D. French Southern Territories	One M49 area entry covering widely separated islands; selected southern groups are shown, not every island.

The UK Parliament’s Chagos treaty briefing explains the 2025 UK–Mauritius agreement. A statistical name is not evidence that the agreement has or has not entered into force. This locator deliberately does not claim to resolve that changing legal question.

Mayotte illustrates a different distinction: administration and a sovereignty claim can coexist. France describes its departmental status; the UN’s Mayotte agenda item records the continuing international question. The gold locator distinguishes the area entry without presenting its color as a sovereignty judgment.

“French Southern Territories” is the M49 label used here. The TAAF administration also has an Antarctic district, but Antarctica is a separate M49 region. The southern-island inset does not turn an Antarctic claim into part of East Africa, and it does not show every Scattered Island in the Mozambique Channel.

3. Eastern Africa, the Horn and the EAC Compared

Three definitions that should not be substituted for one another
Label	What determines the list
UN Eastern Africa	Statistical grouping: 18 sovereign states plus four separately listed areas.
Horn of Africa, narrow convention	Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia; broader political definitions can add neighbors.
East African Community	Membership in an intergovernmental organization, not a physical-geography boundary.

The Horn is smaller than the UN region

The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names describes the Horn through Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. This is the four-country convention used for the comparison here. It concentrates on Africa’s northeastern extension toward the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.

Broader policy discussions may include neighboring states. For example, a House of Commons briefing on the Horn and Red Sea explicitly includes Sudan in its scope. That does not make Sudan an M49 Eastern Africa entry: M49 places Sudan in Northern Africa, while South Sudan is in Eastern Africa.

The EAC has eight partner states

The East African Community’s official overview lists eight partner states: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Its membership is an institutional fact that should be rechecked when the organization admits new members.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the useful test case. It belongs to the EAC, but M49 assigns it to Middle Africa. Conversely, Ethiopia belongs to M49 Eastern Africa but is not on the EAC’s eight-member list. Neither source is contradicting the other; one is grouping statistics and the other is describing membership.

A map caption saying only “East Africa” leaves those choices hidden. A usable comparison names the convention first and then gives the list. Do not add together the Horn’s four countries and the EAC’s eight: several countries occur in both sets, and neither list represents all the entries on this map.

4. Use the Lakes and Ocean to Find Your Bearings

The African Great Lakes provide a second way to orient yourself after finding the country outlines. Lake Victoria lies among Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Farther southwest, Lake Tanganyika borders Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the four riparian states identified by the Lake Tanganyika Authority. The latter country’s presence around the lake does not change its M49 regional assignment.

Use the Lake Tanganyika profile for the lake’s detailed geography. Here, its main job is as a landmark connecting the country map to the Great Lakes area. The phrase “African Great Lakes region” is not a replacement for either the EAC membership list or all of UN Eastern Africa.

On the ocean side, the Mozambique Channel separates Madagascar from Mozambique. Comoros sits near its northern end, while Mauritius and Réunion are farther east of Madagascar. Seychelles lies to the northeast of Madagascar. Those relative positions are easier to see on the regional view than on a list of country names alone.

The inset layout requires care: nearby boxes are not necessarily nearby places. Chagos lies much farther east than the Comoros–Mayotte group. Crozet and Kerguelen are far south of the tropical islands. Distances should never be measured across the frames, and the map is not a navigation chart or a maritime-boundary map.

If your next question is about capital cities, use the separate African countries and capitals list. Keeping capitals in that lookup reference lets this page focus on its more easily confused task: which regional definition a map actually uses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Zanzibar another country on the map?

No. Zanzibar is part of the United Republic of Tanzania, not an additional sovereign state in this count. A map that labels Zanzibar separately is identifying an archipelago or administrative area, not necessarily adding another country.

Does the map show travel routes or entry requirements?

No. It is a geographic reference. A neighboring country or nearby island is not evidence of a usable border crossing, ferry connection or common entry permission. Those questions require current immigration and transport sources.

What Did We Learn Today?

The most useful first question about an East Africa map is not how many places it colors, but what its colors mean. UN regions, geographic subregions and organizations classify places for different purposes. Reading the convention alongside the mainland and island panels prevents a regional label, a country count and a membership list from being mistaken for the same thing.

Sources & Data Notes

The regional roster follows the UN M49 Eastern Africa table; EAC membership follows its official eight-partner overview, both consulted in November 2026. The maps use Natural Earth’s generalized country and lake geometry with original GeographyPin labels. Numbered markers are locators, not capitals. The island frames use different scales. Statistical entries and the source-data depiction of boundaries do not settle sovereignty, control or treaty implementation; no maritime claims are drawn.

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East Africa Countries Map: The Horn, Great Lakes and Island States