Country
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A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, or dependent territory.<ref name="Fowler Bunck 1996 pp. 381–404"/><ref name="academic.oup.com i784"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Most sovereign states, but not all countries, are members of the United Nations. There is no universal agreement on the number of "countries" in the world, since several states have disputed sovereignty status or limited recognition, and a number of non-sovereign entities are commonly considered countries.<ref name="Seguin 2011 f032"/>
The definition and usage of the word "country" are flexible and have changed over time. The Economist wrote in 2010 that "any attempt to find a clear definition of a country soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Areas much smaller than a political entity may be referred to as a "country", such as the West Country in England, "big sky country" (used in various contexts of the American West), "coal country" (used to describe coal-mining regions), or simply "the country" (used to describe a rural area).<ref name="oed"/><ref name="Merriam-Webster 2024 u184">Template:Cite web</ref> The term "country" is also used as a qualifier descriptively, such as country music or country living.<ref name="Cambridge Dictionary 2024 t399">Template:Cite web</ref>
Etymology
[edit]The word country comes from Old French Template:Lang, which derives from Vulgar Latin (Template:Lang) Template:Lang ("(land) lying opposite"; "(land) spread before"), derived from Template:Lang ("against, opposite"). It most likely entered the English language after the Franco-Norman invasion during the 11th century.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Better source needed
Definition of a country
[edit]In English, the word has increasingly become associated with political divisions, so that one sense, associated with the indefinite article – "a country" – is now frequently applied as a synonym for a state or a former sovereign state. It may also be used as a synonym for "nation". Taking as examples Canada, Sri Lanka, and Yugoslavia, cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote in 1997 that "it is clear that the relationships between 'country' and 'nation' are so different from one [place] to the next as to be impossible to fold into a dichotomous opposition as they are into a promiscuous fusion."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Areas much smaller than a political state may be referred to as countries, such as the West Country in England, "big sky country" (used in various contexts of the American West), "coal country" (used to describe coal-mining regions in several sovereign states) and many other terms.<ref name="oed">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The word "country" is also used for the sense of native sovereign territory, such as the widespread use of Indian country in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The term "country" in English may also be wielded to describe rural areas, or used in the form "countryside." Raymond Williams, a Welsh scholar, wrote in 1975:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The unclear definition of "country" in modern English was further commented upon by philosopher Simon Keller:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Template:BlockquoteMelissa Lucashenko, an Aboriginal Australian writer, expressed the difficulty of defining "country" in a 2005 essay, "Unsettlement":<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Template:Block quote
Statehood
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When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, or dependent territory.<ref name="Fowler Bunck 1996 pp. 381–404">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="academic.oup.com i784">Template:Cite web</ref> A sovereign state is a political entity that has supreme legitimate authority over a part of the world.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> There is no universal agreement on the number of "countries" in the world since several states have disputed sovereignty status, and a number of non-sovereign entities are commonly called countries.<ref name="Seguin 2011 f032">Template:Cite web</ref> No definition is binding on all the members of the community of nations on the criteria for statehood.<ref name="Bedjaoui 1991 p. 47">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Seguin 2011 f032"/> State practice relating to the recognition of a country typically falls somewhere between the declaratory and constitutive approaches.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Cohen 1961 p. 1127">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Kelsen 1941 pp. 605–617">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Lauterpacht 1944 pp. 385–458">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Anon. x863">Template:Cite web</ref>
International law defines sovereign states as not under another.<ref name="Lowe 2015 pp. 1–18">Template:Cite book</ref> The declarative theory outlined in the 1933 Montevideo Convention describes a state in Article 1:<ref name="Anon. e743">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica 1999 f033">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Having a permanent population
- Having a defined territory
- Having a government
- Having the ability to enter into relations with other states
The Montevideo Convention in Article 3 implies that a sovereign state can exist even if no other countries recognise it.<ref name="Anon. e743"/><ref name="Caspersen Stansfield 2012 p. 55">Template:Cite book</ref> As a restatement of customary international law, the Montevideo Convention merely codified existing legal norms and its principles,<ref name="D’Aspremont 2019 pp. 139–152">Template:Cite book</ref> and therefore does not apply merely to the signatories of international organizations (such as the United Nations),<ref name="Seguin 2011 f032"/><ref name="Crawford 2007 p. "/><ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica 1999 f033"/> but to all subjects of international law as a whole.<ref>Harris, D.J. (ed) 2004 "Cases and Materials on International Law" 6th Ed. at p. 99. Sweet and Maxwell, London</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A similar opinion has been expressed by the European Economic Community,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> reiterated by the European Union, in the principal statement of its Badinter Committee,<ref>The Badinter Arbitration Committee Template:Webarchive (full title), named for its chair, ruled on the question of whether the Republics of Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, who had formally requested recognition by the members of the European Union and by the EU itself, had met conditions specified by the Council of Ministers of the European Community on 16 December 1991. Template:Cite web</ref> and by Judge Challis Professor, James Crawford.<ref name="Crawford 2007 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref>
According to the constitutive theory, a state is a legal entity of international law if, and only if, it is recognised as sovereign by at least one other country.<ref name="academic.oup.com s696">Template:Cite web</ref> Because of this, new states could not immediately become part of the international community or be bound by international law, and recognised nations did not have to respect international law in their dealings with them.<ref name="ctos">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1912, L. F. L. Oppenheim said the following, regarding constitutive theory:
In 1976 the Organisation of African Unity define state recognition as:<ref name="Talmon 1998 p. 186">Template:Cite book</ref>
Some countries, such as Taiwan, Sahrawi Republic and Kosovo, have limited recognition or actively disputed sovereignty from sovereign states.<ref name="Kyris 2022 pp. 287–311">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Allcock Lampe Young 1998 q703">Template:Cite web</ref> Some sovereign states are unions of separate polities, each of which may also be considered a country in its own right, called constituent countries. The Danish Realm consists of Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of the Netherlands proper, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten.<ref name="den Heijer van der Wilt 2022 p. 362">Template:Cite book</ref> The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.<ref name="Barnett 2023 p. 93">Template:Cite book</ref>
Dependent territories are the territories of a sovereign state that are outside of its proper territory. These include the overseas territories of New Zealand, the dependencies of Norway, the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, the territories of the United States, the external territories of Australia, the special administrative regions of China, the autonomous regions of the Danish Realm, Åland, Overseas France, and the Caribbean Netherlands. Some dependent territories are treated as a separate "country of origin" in international trade,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> such as Hong Kong,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Greenland,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Macau.<ref name="International Trade Administration 2019 r527">Template:Cite web</ref>
Identification
[edit]Template:Further Symbols of a country may incorporate cultural, religious or political symbols of any nation that the country includes. Many categories of symbols can be seen in flags, coats of arms, or seals.<ref name="CIA x692">Template:Cite web</ref>
Name
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Most countries have a long nameTemplate:Refn and a short name.Template:Refn<ref name="United States Department of State 2024 e471">Template:Cite web</ref> The long name is typically used in formal contextsTemplate:Refn and often describes the country's form of government. The short name is the country's common name by which it is typically identified.Template:Refn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Unlike the short name, the long name can change more often when the government changes.Template:Refn For certain states, the long form and the short form are identical.Template:Refn
The name of a country can hold cultural and diplomatic significance. Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso to reflect the end of French colonization, and the name of North Macedonia was disputed for years due to a conflict with the similarly named Macedonia region in Greece.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe, Northern Rhodesia to Zambia, Bechuanaland to Botswana, the Congo to Zaire and back again to the Congo, Dahomey to Benin, Ivory Coast to Côte d'Ivoire, Swaziland to Eswatini, Persia to Iran, Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Siam to Thailand, Burma changed its English name to Myanmar, Cambodia to Kampuchea and back again to Cambodia, Byelorussia to Belarus, Kirghizia to Kyrgyzstan, Moldavia to Moldova, or Turkey to Türkiye.<ref>Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present</ref>
The International Organization for Standardization maintains a list of country codes as part of ISO 3166 to designate each country with a country code.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite web</ref> The ISO 3166 standard currently comprises 249 countries, 193 of which are sovereign states that are members of the United Nations.<ref name="Statistics Canada 2018 b784">Template:Cite web</ref>
Flags
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Originally, flags representing a country would generally be the personal flag of its rulers; however, over time, the practice of using personal banners as flags of places was abandoned in favor of flags that had some significance to the nation, often its patron saint. Early examples of these were the maritime republics such as Genoa which could be said to have a national flag as early as the 12th century.Template:Sfn However, these were still mostly used in the context of marine identification.<ref name="Devereux 1994 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref>
Although some flags date back earlier, widespread use of flags outside of military or naval context begins only with the rise of the idea of the nation state at the end of the 18th century and particularly are a product of the Age of Revolution. Revolutions such as those in France and America called for people to begin thinking of themselves as citizens as opposed to subjects under a king, and thus necessitated flags that represented the collective citizenry, not just the power and right of a ruling family.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn With nationalism becoming common across Europe in the 19th century, national flags came to represent most of the states of Europe.Template:Sfn Flags also began fostering a sense of unity between different peoples, such as the Union Jack representing a union between England and Scotland, or began to represent unity between nations in a perceived shared struggle, for example, the Pan-Slavic colors or later Pan-Arab colors.Template:Sfn
As Europeans colonized significant portions of the world, they exported ideas of nationhood and national symbols, including flags, with the adoption of a flag becoming seen as integral to the nation-building process.Template:Sfn Political change, social reform, and revolutions combined with a growing sense of nationhood among ordinary people in the 19th and 20th centuries led to the birth of new nations and flags around the globe.Template:Sfn With so many flags being created, interest in these designs began to develop and the study of flags, vexillology, at both professional and amateur levels, emerged. After World War II, Western vexillology went through a phase of rapid development, with many research facilities and publications being established.Template:Sfn
National anthems
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A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Though the custom of an officially adopted national anthem became popular only in the 19th century, some national anthems predate this period, often existing as patriotic songs long before designation as national anthem.Template:Citation needed Several countries remain without an official national anthem. In these cases, there are established de facto anthems played at sporting events or diplomatic receptions. These include the United Kingdom ("God Save the King") and Sweden (Template:Lang). Some sovereign states that are made up of multiple countries or constituencies have associated musical compositions for each of them (such as with the United Kingdom, Russia, and the Soviet Union). These are sometimes referred to as national anthems even though they are not sovereign states (for example, "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" is used for Wales, part of the United Kingdom).<ref name="Harrison 2022 x303">Template:Cite web</ref>
Other symbols
[edit]Patriotism
[edit]Template:Main Template:See also A positive emotional connection to a country a person belongs to is called patriotism. Patriotism is a sense of love for, devotion to, and sense of attachment to one's country. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings, and language relating to one's homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political, or historical aspects. It encompasses a set of concepts closely related to nationalism, mostly civic nationalism and sometimes cultural nationalism.<ref name="books.google.com">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Economy
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Several organizations seek to identify trends to produce economy country classifications. Countries are often distinguished as developing countries or developed countries.<ref name="Paprotny 2020 pp. 193–225">Template:Cite journal</ref>
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs annually produces the World Economic Situation and Prospects Report classifing states as developed countries, economies in transition, or developing countries. The report classifies country development based on per capita gross national income (GNI)<ref name="Nations 2020 k704">Template:Cite web</ref> and identifies subgroups within broad categories based on geographical location or ad hoc criteria. Geographic regions with developing economies are Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Economies in transition are in the former Soviet Union and South-Eastern Europe. Regions with developed countries are in Northern America, Europe, and Asia and the Pacific. The majority of economies in transition and developing countries are found in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.<ref name="UNCTAD 2023 e635">Template:Cite web</ref>
The World Bank also classifies countries based on GNI per capita. The World Bank Atlas method classifies countries as low-income economies, lower-middle-income economies, upper-middle-income economies, or high-income economies. For the 2020 fiscal year, the World Bank defines low-income economies as countries with a GNI per capita of $1,025 or less in 2018; lower-middle-income economies as countries with a GNI per capita between $1,026 and $3,995; upper-middle-income economies as countries with a GNI per capita between $3,996 and $12,375; high-income economies as countries with a GNI per capita of $12,376 or more..<ref name="World Bank Data Help Desk 2022 x420"/>
It also identifies regional trends. The World Bank defines its regions as East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Lastly, the World Bank distinguishes countries based on its operational policies. The three categories include International Development Association (IDA) countries, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) countries, and Blend countries.<ref name="World Bank Data Help Desk 2022 x420">Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
[edit]- Country (identity)
- Lists by country
- List of former sovereign states
- Lists of sovereign states and dependent territories
- List of sovereign states and dependent territories by continent
- List of transcontinental countries
- List of sovereign states
- Micronation
- Quasi-state
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]Works cited
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Further reading
[edit]- Defining what makes a country The Economist
External links
[edit]- The CIA World Factbook
- Country Studies from the United States Library of Congress
- Foreign Information by Country and Country & Territory Guides from GovPubs at UCB Libraries
- United Nations statistics division
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