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Revision as of 18:15, 28 January 2009 by 86.143.227.151 (talk) (→Ancient)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) For other uses, see Country (disambiguation).
European topographical map
Same map as above, but showing countries instead of topographies

Country (/ˈkən-trē/) may refer to the territory of a state, or sometimes to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region. In another meaning of the word, the country (or countryside) is also a term used to refer to rural areas. Usually, but not always, a country coincides with a sovereign territory and is associated with a state, nation and government.

In common usage, the term country is widely 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 entities which constitute cohesive geographical entities, and may be former states, but which are not presently sovereign states (such as England, Scotland and Wales), are commonly regarded and referred to as countries. Another example is the Basque Country, which has a number of possible meanings, but none coinciding with the borders of a state. Here it is the distinctiveness of the Basque nation which has preserved the use of the word; other former states such as Bavaria (now part of Germany) and Piedmont (now part of Italy) would not normally be referred to as "countries" in English. The degree of autonomy of such non-state countries varies widely. Some are possessions of states, as several states have overseas dependencies (such as the British Virgin Islands, Netherlands Antilles, 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.

In ancient history, civilizations did not have definite boundaries as countries have today, and their borders could be more accurately described as frontiers. Early dynastic Sumer, and early dynastic Egypt were the first civilizations to define their borders.

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, for example in the phrase "country of origin". But several other senses of the word remain, including "country" as the opposite of "town", a term for rural areas in general, as in country music. This is used with a generalized definite article - "the country". 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 other Romance languages (pays and variants) and the Germanic languages (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 the United States and Brazil are also "pays" in everyday French speech.

Although a version of "country", as cuntrée, existed in Old French, it has not survived into the modern language, whereas 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.

History

Ancient

Main article: Ancient history
Boundaries of the Roman Empire

The first countries of sorts were 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 of Africa, the country's boundaries being based around the Nile and stretching to areas where oases existed. Early dynastic Sumer was located in southern Mesopotamia with its borders extending from the Persian Gulf to parts of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

By 2500 BCE the Indian civilization, located in the Indus Valley had formed. The civilization's boundaries extended 600KM inland from the Arabian Sea.

336 BCE saw the rise of Alexander the Great, who forged an empire from various vassal states stretching from modern Greece to the Indian subcontinent, bringing Medeterrainian nations into contact with those of central and southern Asia, much as the Persian Empire had before him. The boundaries of this empire extended hundreds of kilometers.

The Roman Empire (509 BCE-476 CE) was the first western civilization known to accurately define their borders, although these borders could be more accurately described as frontiers; instead of the empire defining its borders with precision, the borders were allowed to trail off and were, in many cases, part of territory indirectly ruled by others. Roman and Greek ideals of nationhood can be seen to have strongly influenced Western views on the subject, with the basis of many governmental systems being on authority or ideas borrowed from Rome or the Greek city-states. Notably, the European states of the Dark ages and Middle ages gained their authority from the Roman Catholic religion, and modern democracies are based in part on the example of Ancient Athens.

Middle ages

Main article: Middle ages
The Tang dynasty in 700 CE

China entered the Sui Dynasty, this saw a change in government and an expansion in the country's borders as the many separate bureaucracies unified under one banner. This evolved into the the Tang Dynasty when Li Yuan took control of China in 626. By now, the Chinese borders had expanded from eastern China, up north into the Tang Empire. The Tang Empire fell apart in 907 and split into ten regional kingdoms and five dynasties with vague borders. 53 years after the separation of the Tang Empire, China entered the Song Dynasty under the rule of Chao K'uang, although the borders of this country expanded, they were never as large as those of the Tang dynasty and were constantly being redefined due to attacks from the neighboring Tartar people known is the Khitan tribes.

In Western Europe, briefly mostly united into a single state under Charlemagne around 800CE, a few countries, including England, Scotland, Iceland and Norway, had already effectively become nation states by 1,000CE, with a kingdom largely co-terminus with a people mostly sharing a language and culture.

The Carolingian Empire under Charlemagne around 800 CE, with modern borders in orange.

For most of the continent, the peoples were emerging around ethnic, linguistic and geographical groups, but this was not reflected in political entities. In particular, France, Italy and Germany, though recognised by other nations as countries where the French, Italians and Germans lived, did not exist as states largely matching the countries for centuries, and struggles to form and define the borders of them as states were a major cause of wars in Europe until the 20th century. In the course of this process, some countries, such as Poland under the Partitions and France in the High Middle Ages, almost ceased to exist as states for periods. The Low Countries, in the Middle Ages as distinct a country as France, became permanently divided, today into Belgium and the Netherlands. Spain was formed as a nation state by the dynastic union of small Christian kingdoms, augmented by the final campaigns of the Reconquista against Al-Andaluz, the vanished country of Islamic Iberia.

In 1299 CE, the Aztec empire arose in lower Mexico, this empire lasted over 500 years and at their prime, held over 5,000 square kilometers of land.

The Aztec Empire in 1519 CE

200 years after the Aztec and Toltec empires began, northern Asia saw the rise of the Mongol empire, by the late 13th century, the Empire extended across Europe and Asia. In 1299, the Ottomans entered the scene, exploiting the current chaos in Europe, these Turkish nomads took control of much of central Europe over a period of 370 years.

While Europe and Central Asia were experiencing takeovers, Russia took control of their land in 1613, after many years of control by the Tartars. After gaining independence, Russia began to expand their borders under the leadership of many tsars. Notably, Catherine the Great seized the vast western part of Ukraine from the Polish, expanding Russia's size massively, it grew to lengths close to its size today.

See also


References

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