A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with sets of previously independent or differently associated peoples with distinct political characteristics. Regardless of the physical geography, in the modern internationally accepted legal definition as defined by the League of Nations in 1937 and reaffirmed by the United Nations in 1945, a resident of a country is subject to the independent exercise of legal jurisdiction.
Sometimes the word country is used to refer both to sovereign states and to other political entities, while other times it refers only to states. For example, the CIA World Factbook uses the word in its "Country name" field to refer to "a wide variety of dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, uninhabited islands, and other entities in addition to the traditional countries or independent states".
Read more about Country: Etymology and Usage, Sovereignty Status
Famous quotes containing the word country:
“O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew—
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“Well, Philippe, he died because of his work. He was like an—like an explorer in a wild country where no one had ever been before. He was searching for the truth, he almost found a great truth, but for one instant he was careless.”
—James Clavell (b. 1924)
“This country is at present engaged in furnishing material for future authors; not in encouraging its living ones.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)