Country

Mapmundi with the current political division by countries.

A country (from French pays)is a territory with its own geographical and cultural characteristics, which may or may not constitute a sovereign State or a political entity within a State. It is also used as a synonym for State, a set of political institutions endowed with territory, population and sovereignty.

Sometimes, parts of a state with a distinctive history or culture are called countries, especially by the natives of the place, such as Scotland, Wales, England or Northern Ireland, countries that make up the United Kingdom. It can also refer to regions or even regions without great cultural differences with those of the surroundings. This use occurs especially when speaking of the natural regions of France —the Pays d'Auge, Pays de Buch, Pays de Caux, Pays de Sault, Pays de la Loire, the French Basque Country, etc.— since the word "country" It comes from the French pays, a language in which the term also has this polysemy. In turn, the French term comes from the Latin pagus.

Nation

Nation has two meanings: the political nation, in the legal-political scene, is the political subject in which the constituent power of a State resides; The cultural nation, a more subjective and ambiguous socio-ideological concept than the previous one, can be defined as a human community with certain common cultural characteristics that are endowed with an ethical-political sense. The word nation is used in everyday life with multiple meanings: state, country, territory or its inhabitants, ethnic group and others.

In Spain there is the case of historical nationalities, national reality, national character or, simply, nationality; they are terms coined ad hoc for the politics of this country, used to designate those autonomous communities with a differentiated collective, linguistic and/or cultural identity, according to their autonomous statutes, from the rest of the State. In addition, the word país is also used in the name of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. On the other hand, the Catalan-speaking regions (including Andorra) are often called the Catalan Countries. Finally, both in current political discourse and in popular speech in Galicia, the term country is widely used to refer to this historical community. An example of this use is found in the labeling of certain products of Galician origin (e.g. country cheese, country wine).

Status

A State is a set of institutions that have the authority to establish the norms that regulate a society, having internal and external sovereignty over a defined territory. The State includes the control of institutions such as the Armed Forces, public administration, the courts and the police.

Nation State

According to some schools of political science, a nation-state is characterized by having a clearly defined territory, a constant, if not fixed, population, and a government. Other minor attributes are a standing army and a body of diplomatic representation, that is, a foreign policy.

The Nation State was created, historically, through the Treaty of Westphalia, at the end of the 30 Years War (1648). Through this treaty, the old feudal order ends and the territorial and population organizations defined around a government that recognizes its spatial limits, and therefore, of power, are given way.

Form of government

The form of government is a term that refers to the set of political institutions through which a state is organized to exercise its powers over a political community. There are different ways of governing a state, such as a monarchy, republic or others such as a one-party system or a military dictatorship.

International Organizations

Various international organizations, that is, groups made up of various states, have been created throughout the 20th century. International organizations can be of various types:

• Scientific, such as the European Space Agency
• Economics such as APEC or NAFTA and Mercosur
• Linguistics, such as the Community of Portuguese Language Countries
• Police, like Interpol
• Political-economics, such as the UN, the European Union or the African Union

Constituent country

Constituent country is a term sometimes used, usually by official institutions, in contexts in which a number of countries make up a large entity or grouping; thus the OECD has used the term referring to the former Yugoslavia, and European institutions such as the Council of Europe frequently use it in reference to the European Union.

Dependent Territory

Dependent territories are territories that for different reasons do not have full independence or sovereignty privileges and, therefore, are governed by other states, called metropolises. Many of these territories can be considered as colonies.

The dependent territories have an administrative system different from that of the metropolis or the units that make up the metropolis. They generally enjoy fewer administrative and political rights than a national subunit. This type of administration varies according to the level of dependency of the territory. Thus there are completely uninhabited territories.

Most of these dependent states are sparsely populated islands that cannot sustain self-government.

Border

Borders are invisible lines that mark the territory of a country and that separate it from the neighboring country or countries. In this way, the space in which a country exercises its sovereignty is delimited.

Contested Territory

Territorial claims that fall over Antarctica.

A disputed territory is a territory whose sovereignty is coveted by two or more countries. Normally the administration of the territory is carried out by one of the countries that claims sovereignty, while the other country does not recognize sovereignty over the territory of the other country. This does not usually occur in land or sea areas over which neither has effective control, such as Antarctica, or only partially. It can also be considered as a disputed territory those areas that are administered by two different governments, and therefore are divided; an example is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Cyprus.