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Country

In Political geography|geography and International politics|politics, a '''country''' () is a political division of a geographical entity. Frequently, but not always, a country is considered a Sovereign territory and is associated with the notations of State, Nation and Government. Formal recognition as a state requires the fulfillment of the constitutive theory of statehood, which requires that for a state to be to be recognized as a sovereign state, it must receive recognition from other states, which, in turn, are themselves recognized by other states. In common usage, the term country is used casually in the sense of both nations and states, with definitions varying. In some cases it is used to refer to both states and 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. The current criteria for the classification of a entity as a country is the Constitutive theory of statehood. This theory merely sets the recognition by other countries as a determining factor, although countries may abuse this system to only recognize countries when it is to their advantage. A previous criteria suggested, but never gained consensus was the Montevideo Convention which had more definite criteria, but was easily exploited. In ancient history, Ancient civilizations|civilizations did not have definite boundaries as countries have today, and their borders could be more accurately described as frontiers. Sumer#Early Dynastic Period|Early dynastic Sumer, and Ancient Egypt#Early Dynastic Period|early dynastic Egypt were the first civilizations to define their borders.

Criteria

For an entity to be classified as a country, it must fulfill the constitutive theory of statehood, this internationally recognized convention requires that for an entity to be recognized as a country, it must be recognized by the global community.

Constitutive theory of statehood

The constitutive theory was developed in the 19th century to define what is and is not a State. With this theory, the obligation to obey international law depends on a entities recognition by Countries. Because of this, new States could not immediately become part of the international community or be bound by international law and recognized nations did not have to respect international law in their dealings with them. One of the major criticisms of this law is the confusion caused when some States recognize a new State, but other States do not, a situation the theory does not deal with. Hersch Lauterpacht, one of the theories main proponents, suggested that it is a State's duty to grant recognition as a possible solution. However, a State may use any criteria when judging if they should give recognition and they have no obligation to use such a criteria. Many countries many only recognize a State if it is to their advantage.

Montevideo Convention

One of the criteria most commonly cited by micronations in regards to their eligibility to become countries is the Montevideo Convention. The Montevideo Convention was signed on December 26 1933 by the United States, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, Panama, Bolivia, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Cuba but contrary to the belief of many who wish to exploit it, it never received international consensus. The Montevideo Convention has four conditions that an entity must meet to become a country, a country must possess:
- a permanent population
- defined territory
- Government
- capacity to enter into relations with other states Because of these easy to meet criteria, the Montevideo Convention was never accepted by the international community, countries instead use the constitutive theory of statehood as a benchmark.

History

Ancient

The first countries of sorts, was those of early dynastic Sumer, and early dynastic Egypt, which arose from the Uruk period and Predynastic Egypt respectively at approximately 3000BC. Early dynastic Egypt was based around the Nile River in the north-east parts of Africa, the country's boundaries were based around the Nile and other places where oasises existed. Early dynastic Sumer was located in southern Mesopotamia with it's borders extending from the Persian Gulf to parts of the Euphrates River|Euphrates and Tigris River|Tigris rivers. By 2500 BCE the Indian civilization, located in the Indus Valley had formed. This basic country extended 600KM inland from the Arabian Sea. 336 BCE saw the rise of Alexander the Great, who created an empire from Greece to India, the boundaries of which, extended hundreds of kilometers. The Roman Empire (509 BCE-476 CE) was the first civilization to define their borders, although they could be more accurately described as a frontier; instead of the empire defining its borders with precision, the borders were allowed to trail off and were, in many cases, indirectly ruled by others.

References

- Anderson, Benedict; 'Imagined Communities: Reflections On the origin and Spread of Nationalism'; London, Verso; 1991
- Viotti, Paul R. and Kauppi, Mark V.; 'International Relations and World Politics - Security, Economy, Identity'; Second Edition; New Jersey, Prentice Hall; 2001

External links

- Country Holidays List of all country Holidays
- List of countries List of countries in various formats (CSV, TXT, HTML) for use in databases and applications
- List of nationalities List of nationalities in various formats (CSV, TXT, HTML) for use in databases and applications
- Geography Site Country Profiles - Based on the ''CIA World Factbook''
- How many countries are there?
- Demonyms - What do you call people from different countries?
- Library of Congress - Country Studies
- BBC Country Profiles
- The CIA World Factbook
- The US Department of State - Background Notes Facts and information on countries, dependencies and areas of special sovereignty around the world
- PopulationData.net
- United Nations statistics division
- Average Latitude & Longitude of Countries Category:Countries| Category:Human geography be-x-old:Краіна simple:Country

Related Images

- European topographical map
- Same map as above, but showing countries instead of topographies

Sources: StartLearningNow, Wikipedia | Usage license: GNU FDL

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