4.1 Introduction to Political Geography

A state is an independent country. It has a defined territory, a permanent population, a government and sovereignty, meaning no outside power controls it. Recognition by other states matters too. The United Nations has 193 member states. In everyday speech people say “country” for a state; inside the U.S., “state” also means one of the 50 states, which are not sovereign.

A nation is a group of people who share a culture, such as a language, religion, history or ethnicity, and who see themselves as one people, often with ties to a homeland. A nation is about identity; a state is about political control of territory.

• Nation-state: a state whose population is mostly one nation. Japan and Iceland are common examples, though even they have minorities, like the Ainu and Ryukyuan peoples and Korean residents in Japan.
• Stateless nation: a nation without a state of its own. The Kurds, numbering in the tens of millions across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, are the classic example. The Roma, spread across Europe, are another.
• Multinational state: a state containing two or more nations. The United Kingdom includes the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish. Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, and Russia's census counts close to 200 ethnic groups.
• Multistate nation: a nation spread across more than one state. Koreans live in both North and South Korea. Many Hungarians live in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia as well as Hungary. The Kurds are also a multistate nation.

An autonomous or semiautonomous region has its own government for many local matters but isn't fully independent. Examples include Greenland, which has broad self-rule within the Kingdom of Denmark; Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China since 1997; Nunavut, an Inuit-majority territory created in Canada in 1999; and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

In the U.S., Native American reservations are lands governed by tribal nations. The federal government recognizes more than 570 tribes, which have their own governments, courts and laws, though Congress and federal law still limit their powers.

Some places meet most requirements of a state but lack wide recognition. Taiwan has its own government, military and elections, but the People's Republic of China claims it as part of China, and only about a dozen countries formally recognize Taiwan. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Many countries, including the U.S. and most EU members, recognize it, but Serbia and others, including Russia and China, do not. On the exam, describe such cases as disputed and give each side's position.