In everyday American speech, a "state" is Ohio or Texas, and "nation" and "country" mean the same thing. Political geographers use these words more carefully, because the difference explains many of the world's borders and many of its tensions. You met the idea of shared culture in culture traits, and the world's count of countries in World Geography.
Key idea
A state is a political unit: a territory with a permanent population, a government and borders, that runs its own affairs (a country). A nation is a people who share a culture and see themselves as one group. A nation-state is a state whose people are mostly one nation.
Why it works
The two ideas come from different places. A state is a legal fact: the Montevideo Convention of 1933 lists four tests, a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to deal with other states. A nation is a feeling of belonging, built from a shared language, history, religion or customs. Because borders were often drawn by rulers, wars and treaties rather than by the people living there, the two do not always line up.
| Word | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| State | A sovereign country with a government and borders | France; Brazil; Kenya |
| Nation | A people with a shared identity, with or without a state | The Japanese; the Kurds; the Cherokee |
| Nation-state | A state where most people belong to one nation | Iceland and Japan come close |
| U.S. "state" | A part of a federal country, not sovereign | Ohio; Texas |
Worked example: Is Japan a nation-state?
Japan is a sovereign country, and most of its people share the Japanese language and a sense of common history. Is it a state, a nation or a nation-state?
- Japan has a government, borders and a permanent population, and it deals with other countries: it is a state.
- Most people in Japan see themselves as one people, the Japanese: that is a nation.
- The state and the nation largely match.
- Smaller groups, such as the Ainu and the Ryukyuan peoples, also live there, so it is close to, not perfectly, a nation-state.
Answer: Close to a nation-state: one state whose people are mostly one nation.
Worked example: The word "state" in two senses
A news story says "the state of Ohio" and a geography book says "the state of Brazil." Do they mean the same thing?
- Ohio is one of the 50 parts of the United States. It shares power with the national government and does not deal with foreign countries on its own.
- Brazil is a sovereign country, a member of the United Nations.
- In political geography, only Brazil is a state; Ohio is a state in the U.S. sense, a part of a federal country.
Answer: No. Brazil is a sovereign state; Ohio is a unit inside one.
Common mistake
Reading "state" as a U.S. state and "nation" as a country. In this unit, a state is a sovereign country and a nation is a people. A nation can live in one state, be split across several, or have no state at all, as the next topic shows.
By the count used across this course, there are 195 countries: the 193 members of the United Nations and the 2 observer states, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. A few other places, such as Taiwan and Kosovo, govern themselves and are recognized by some countries but not by others; Sovereignty explains why.