A Brief note on Nation-States Examples

The state and the country are one and the same in a nation state. It is a more precise concept than “country” because a country does not have to have a dominant ethnic group.

A nation in the sense of a shared ethnicity may include a diaspora or refugees residing outside of the nation state; in this sense, some nations lack a state where that ethnicity predominates. In a larger sense, a nation state is simply a big, politically sovereign country or administrative region. A nation state is comparable to:

• No single ethnic group is dominant in a multicultural state (such a state may also be considered a multicultural state depending on the degree of cultural assimilation of various groups)
• A city-state that is smaller than a “nation” in the sense of a “big sovereign country,” but that is dominated by all or part of a single “nation” in the sense of ethnicity. This type of city-state is known as a “nation-state”
• A single monarch or governing state rules over a collection of countries (possibly non-sovereign entities) and nationalities
• A confederation is a collection of sovereign countries that may or may not include nation-states

A federated state that is only partially self-governing and may or may not be a nation-state inside a broader federation (for example, the state boundaries of Bosnia and the political boundaries of Bosnia are based on ethnic lines, but those of the United States are not.)

This article focuses on a nation-state, which is defined as a traditionally sovereign country dominated by a single ethnic group.

Complexity

The relationship between a state and a nation (in the ethnic sense) can be difficult. The presence of a state can encourage ethnogenesis, and a group with a pre-existing ethnic identity may have an impact on territorial boundary drawing or political legitimacy struggles.

This meaning of “nation-state” is not universally accepted. Professor Valery Tishkov adds, “All attempts to get a terminological agreement on the term “nation” failed.”

Walker Connor investigates the meanings of the terms “nation,” “(sovereign) state,” “nation state,” and “nationalism.” The tendency to conflate the terms nation and state, as well as the treatment of all states as if they were nation states, is also highlighted by Connor, who coined the term “ethnonationalism.”

Examples of nation-states

• France

The French Republic (French: République française) is a transcontinental nation that stretches across Western Europe, the Americas, and the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

[XIII] The city-state stretches from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, as well as from the Mediterranean to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and numerous islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Because of its various coastline locations, France has the world’s largest exclusive economic zone. France shares borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in Europe, and the Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas, through its overseas territories of French Guiana and Saint Martin. Its eighteen integral areas have a total size of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and a population of roughly 67 million people (as of May 2021). France is a semi-presidential unitary republic with Paris as its capital and most important cultural and commercial centre. Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, and Nice are among the other significant cities.

• Egypt

Egypt (Arabic: The Mediterranean Sea borders it on the north, the Gaza Strip (Palestine) and Israel on the northeast, the Red Sea on the east, Sudan on the south, and Libya on the west. The Gulf of Aqaba separates Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia in the northeast. Egypt’s capital and largest city is Cairo, whereas Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, is a significant industrial and tourist hub on the Mediterranean coast. With a population of about 100 million people, Egypt is the world’s 14th most populated country.

Egypt has one of the oldest histories of any country, with the Nile Delta reaching back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion, and central government all developed in Ancient Egypt, making it the cradle of civilization.

• Germany

One of the countries that make up Central Europe is the Federal Republic of Germany. It is the country with the second most people in all of Europe, and it is the largest member state of the European Union (after Russia). With a total area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 square miles) and a population of around 83 million people scattered among its 16 constituent states, In the north, Germany is bounded by the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, and in the south, Germany is surrounded by the Alps. Denmark borders Germany on the north, Poland and the Czech Republic on the east, Austria and Switzerland on the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands on the west. The country’s capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial capital is Frankfurt; Ruhr is the country’s largest metropolitan area.

Various Germanic tribes have inhabited modern-day northern Germany since classical antiquity. Germania was a territory that existed before the year 100. In the 10th century, Germany was an important part of the Holy Roman Empire. In the sixteenth century, Northern Germany became the epicentre of the Protestant Reformation. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 to 1815, the German Confederation was formed. Germany became a nation-state in 1871, when the majority of German states joined the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was superseded by the semi-presidential Weimar Republic.

Conclusion

The state and the country are combined in a nation state. It is more precise since a country does not require a dominating ethnic group.

Some nations, in the sense of ethnicity, lack a state where that ethnicity is the majority. A nation state is a large, autonomous country or administrative unit.

A federated state that is partially self-governing and may or may not be a nation-state (for example, the state boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina are drawn along ethnic lines, but those of the United States are not).

A sovereign, ethnically dominant country is defined as a nation-state in this article.