In
geography, a
country
is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political
division or the territory of a
state, or to a smaller, or former,
political division of a geographical
region. Usually, but not always, a country coincides with a
sovereign territory and is
associated with a
state,
nation and
government.
The country can also mean the
countryside, as opposed to the
city.
In common usage, the term country is used in the sense of both
nations and states, with definitions varying. In some cases it is
used to refer both to states and to other political entities, while
in some occasions it refers only to states It is not uncommon for
general information or statistical publications to adopt the wider
definition for purposes such as illustration and comparison.
Some
cohesive geographical entities, which were formerly sovereign
states, are commonly regarded and referred to still as countries;
such as England
, Scotland
and Wales
– in the
United
Kingdom
. Historically, the countries of the former
Soviet
Union
and Yugoslavia were
others. Former states such as Bavaria
(now part of
Germany) and Piedmont (now part of Italy)
would not normally be referred to as "countries" in contemporary
English. The degree of autonomy of non-state countries
varies widely.
Some are possessions of states, as several
states have overseas dependencies (such as the British Virgin
Islands
, Saint Pierre and Miquelon
, and American Samoa
), with territory and citizenry distinct from their
own. Such dependent territories are sometimes
listed together with independent states on lists of countries, and
may be treated as a "country of
origin" in international trade, as Hong Kong
is. Some countries are divided among several
states, such as Silesia and Kurdistan
.
Etymology and development of the word
Country has developed from the
Latin
contra, meaning "against", used in the sense of "that
which lies against, or opposite to, the view", i.e. the landscape
spread out to the view. From this came the
Late Latin term
contrata, which became
the modern
Italian contrada. The term appears in
Middle English from the 13th century, already
in several different senses.
In English the word has increasingly become associated with
political divisions, so that one sense, associated with the
indefinite article - "a country"
- is now a
synonym for
state, in the sense of sovereign territory.
Areas much
smaller than a political state may be called by names such as the
West Country in England, the Black Country
(a heavily industrialized part of England),
"Constable Country" (a part of East Anglia
painted by John
Constable), the "big country" (used in various contexts of the
American West), "coal country" (used
of parts of the US and elsewhere) and many other
terms.
The equivalent terms in French and
Romance languages (
pays and
variants) and the
Germanic
Languagess (
Land and variants) have not carried the
process of being identified with political sovereign states as far
as the English "country", and in many European countries the words
are used for sub-divisions of the national territory, as in the
German Länder, as well as a less
formal term for a sovereign state.
France has very many "pays" that are
officially recognised at some level, and are either natural regions, like the Pays de Bray
, or reflect old political or economic unities, like
the Pays de la
Loire
. At the same time Wales, the United States,
and Brazil are also "pays" in everyday French speech.
A version of "country" can be found in the modern French language
as
contrée, based on the word
cuntrée in
Old French, that is used similarly to the word
"pays" to define regions and unities, but can also be used to
describe a political state in some particular cases. The modern
Italian
contrada is a word with its meaning varying
locally, but usually meaning a
ward or similar small division of
a town, or a village or hamlet in the countryside.
See also
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