A country is a distinct part of the Earth, such as a state, a nation, or other polity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, a state with limited recognition, a constituent country, or a dependent territory. 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.
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."
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). The term "country" is also used as a qualifier descriptively, such as country music or Rural lifestyle.
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. The word "country" is also used for the sense of Aboriginal title, such as the widespread use of Indian country in the United States. The term "country" in English may also be wielded to describe , or used in the form "countryside." Raymond Williams, a Welsh scholar, wrote in 1975:
The unclear definition of "country" in modern English was further commented upon by philosopher Simon Keller:
Melissa Lucashenko, an Aboriginal Australian writer, expressed the difficulty of defining "country" in a 2005 essay, "Unsettlement":
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International law defines sovereign states as not under another.
The declarative theory outlined in the 1933 Montevideo Convention describes a state in Article 1: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. 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.
In 1912, L. F. L. Oppenheim said the following, regarding constitutive theory:In 1976 the Organisation of African Unity define state recognition as:
Some countries, such as Taiwan, Sahrawi Republic and Kosovo, have limited recognition or actively disputed sovereignty from sovereign states. 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, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. The Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten.
The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.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, such as Hong Kong, Greenland, and Macau.
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. Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe, Northern Rhodesia to Zambia, Bechuanaland to Botswana, the Belgian Congo to Zaire and back again to the Congo, Dahomey to Benin, Ivory Coast to Côte d'Ivoire, Swaziland to Eswatini, Persia to Iran, East Pakistan to East Bengal and then to Bangladesh, 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. Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present
The International Organization for Standardization maintains a list of country codes as part of ISO 3166 to designate each country with a country code. The ISO 3166 standard currently comprises 249 countries, 193 of which are sovereign states that are members of the United Nations.
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 Commoner under a king, and thus necessitated flags that represented the collective citizenry, not just the power and right of a ruling family. With nationalism becoming common across Europe in the 19th century, national flags came to represent most of the states of Europe. 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.
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. 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. 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.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs annually produces the World Economic Situation and Prospects Report classifying states as developed countries, economies in transition, or developing countries. The report classifies country development based on per capita gross national income (GNI) 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.
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..
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.
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