There are 193 members of the U.N., all of them sovereign nations. A special category allows so-called observer states to participate in General Assembly meetings, but they cannot vote. The two observer states are the Holy See and Palestine. The Holy See, with the pope at its head, was granted the status of a permanent observer in 1964. Palestine officially applied to join the U.N. in 2011, but the U.N. Security Council has not voted on the application. In 2012, the State of Palestine was officially recognized as a non-member state. Certain other states, including Kosovo and the Republic of China, or Taiwan, are not members because they're not recognized by all members of the U.N.