Claim: Central America only contains non-sovereign states.
Evidence: Central America consists of seven countries : Belize , Costa Rica , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Nicaragua , and Panama.
It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the short-lived First Mexican Empire , followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America , from which it formally declared sovereignty in 1847.
Following a brief civil war , it permanently abolished its army in 1949 , becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army.