Home > Country

A country, a land, or a state, is a geographical area and an independent political entity with its own government, administration, laws, often a constitution, police, military, tax rules, and people.

All recognized states follow some degree of international standards in terms of the creation of official national symbols such as flags, and political rights such as citizenship. There are currently 193 countries recognized by the United Nations.

Some countries are nation stateThis article refers to a state in which a single nation is dominant. There is also an article on the Internet game NationStates. See also State (disambiguation). The term nation state (or nation-state , while often used interchangeably with the terms units – for example, FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents. or IsraelThis article discusses the State of Israel. For other meanings of Israel see Israel (disambiguation). The State of Israel Medinat Yisrael in Hebrew, Daulat Israil in Arabic) is a country in the Middle East on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea.. In these nation states one particular nationA nation is an imagined community of people created by a national ideology, also known as nationalism, to which certain norms and behavior are usually attributed. Added to this is usually the idea that a national (a person of the national ideology) should is dominant. Other states, such as the People's Republic of ChinaThe People's Republic of China PRC comprises most of the cultural, historic, and geographic area known as China. Since its founding in 1949, it has been led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). It is the world's most populous country, with a population, SpainThe Kingdom of Spain is a country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It inc or the United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly contain several nations (or, at least, some parts of the population call themselves a nation), in spite of some of them considering themselves as nation states.

Sometimes, parts of states with a distinct history or culture are called "lands" or "countries": England, Scotland and Wales – the three nations on the island of Great Britain – are known as countries, even though they are effectively governed as "components" of the British state. Tibet, an autonomous region of China, is similary called a country in everyday speech. Ireland is also sometimes called a country, even though it consists of one nation-state (the Republic of Ireland) and one component of a different state ( Northern Ireland).

The terms country, nation, state and land are often used as synonyms, but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:

• country is the geographical area
• nation designates a people, however national and international both confusingly refer as well to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in national capital, international law
• state is about government, and an entity in international law
• land may be used for "a country and its people" but also thought of as country belonging to a nation or a monarch

Some states consist of non-contiguous parts (an exclave), separated by land of one or more other states. Oecussi-Ambeno region of East Timor is an example of this.