In political geography and international politics, a country is a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation and government.

In common usage, the term is used casually in the sense of both "nation" (a cultural entity; see below) and "state" (a political entity; see below). Definitions may vary. It is sometimes used to refer to both states and some other political entities.^[1], while in some occasions it refers only to state.^[2] It is not uncommon for general information or statistical publications to adopt the wider definition for purposes such as illustration and comparison.^[3]

There are dozens of non-sovereign territories (subnational entities, another form of political division or Administrative division within the expanse [realm or scope] of a larger nation-state) which constitute cohesive geographical entities, some of which are former countries, but which are not sovereign states. Most of these nowadays even have a great deal of autonomy and local governments but such do not constitute a nation as they are possessions of such states — as several states have overseas dependencies, with territory and citizenry separate from their own. Such dependencies are sometimes listed together with states on lists of countries.^[3]

Types

State

Nation-state for the history of the development of the modern nation states

List of countries

Lists by country

List of sovereign states

List of international rankings

Constituent Countries

State

Dependent area

List of dependent territories

List of subnational entities

ISO 3166-1, list of countries and corresponding international standard codes

Country calling codes, list of telephone prefixes

List of country name etymologies

List of enclaves and exclaves

Territory

Border

References

1. ^ http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aia1901230/s22.html, http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/federal%5fct/1997/912.html, http://foia.state.gov/masterdocs/09fam/0941104X1.pdf http://www.economist.com/theworldin/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3372495&d=2005 http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/84411.pdf
2. ^ About.com:"Geography: Country, State, and Nation".
3. ^ ^{a b} countryreports.org, cia.gov, guinnessworldrecords.com, guinnessworldrecords.com
4. ^ This is primarily due to the People's Republic Of China's "One-China" policy, which requires states to give no official recognition to the ROC (Taiwan) as a condition of maintaining diplomatic relations with the PRC. Despite this, the island nation of the ROC (Taiwan) is recognized as a sovereign independent state by 24 states, including the Holy See of Vatican City.

• Anderson, Benedict; 'Imagined Communities: Reflections On the origin and Spread of Nationalism'; London, Verso; 1991
• Viotti, Paul R. and Kauppi, Mark V.; 'International Relations and World Politics - Security, Economy, Identity'; Second Edition; New Jersey, Prentice Hall; 2001
• Mires, Stuart and Addison-Scott, Alexandra

External links

• Geography Site Country Profiles - Based on the CIA World Factbook
• How many countries are there?
• Demonyms - What do you call people from different countries?
• Library of Congress - Country Studies
• BBC Country Profiles
• The CIA World Factbook
• The US Department of State - Background Notes Facts and informations on countries, dependencies and areas of special sovereignty around the world
• Countries in 1900
• PopulationData.net
• United Nations statistics division
• United Nations eDocs Web Service XML data list of countries.
• United Nations - UNeDocs Code List Web Service
• Search Engine- Campos dos Goytacazes

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