This paper develops a Fuzzy Adaptive Backstepping Control (FABC) and a Fuzzy Adaptive Backstepping Sliding Mode Control (FABSMC) for Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) nonlinear-systems with unmeasured states. The proposed adaptive schemes are fully compared. Thus, the Fuzzy Type-2 (FT2) concept and the High-Order Integral-Chain Differentiator (HOICD) are used as two universal approximators. Indeed, the first one is employed to approximate the nonlinear system model’s and the second one to estimate the unknown states. Special attention is paid for the used approximators robustness under unmodeled dynamics, parameter variations and process noise. It should be noted that the asymptotic stability of both the fuzzy adaptive controls and the observer convergence for each scheme have been proved. In addition, the employed schemes have been simulated on a two-tank coupled nonlinear system. Thus, from simulation results, we can prove that the proposed methods guarantee that all signals for closed loop systems are both regular and bounded. Specifically, it can be shown that the performances of the proposed Fuzzy Interval Type-2 (FIT2) schemes are significantly improved compared with Fuzzy Type-1 (FT1) schemes in presence of external disturbances.