Editing Nation state (section)

{{Short description|Political term for a state that is based around a nation}}
{{redirect|Sovereign nation|the use of this term by Native Americans|Tribal sovereignty in the United States}}
{{For-multi|the 2018 Israeli legislation|Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People{{!}}Nation-State Bill|the government simulation browser game|NationStates}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}}

[[File:Westfaelischer Friede in Muenster (Gerard Terborch 1648).jpg|thumb|Painting of "The Ratification of the [[Peace of Münster|Treaty of Münster]]"; this and other negotiations resulted in the 1648 [[Peace of Westphalia]], where the concept of the "nation state" was born.]]

{{Basic forms of government}}
{{Nationalism sidebar|Development}}

A '''nation state''', or '''nation-state''', is a political entity in which the [[State (polity)|state]] (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the [[nation]] (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) congruent.<ref>{{Cite book |last =Cederman |first =Lars-Erik |jstor =j.ctv1416488 |title =Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve |date =1997 |volume =39 |publisher =[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn =978-0-691-02148-5 |pages =19 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1416488 |s2cid=140438685 |quote=When the state and the nation coincide territorially and demographically, the resulting unit is a nation-state.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Brubaker |first=Rogers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PXP7DwAAQBAJ |title=Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany |date=1992 |publisher =[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn =978-0-674-25299-8 |page =28 |quote =A state is a nation-state in this minimal sense insofar as it claims (and is understood) to be a nation's state: the state 'of' and 'for' a particular, distinctive, bounded nation. |via =[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hechter |first=Michael |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=O3jnCwAAQBAJ |title=Containing Nationalism |date= 24 February 2000 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=9780191522864 |language=en |via=[[Google Books]] | quote = The model of the culturally unified nation state may have been inspired by the democratic ''[[polis]]'', which was largely ethnically homogeneous (McNeill 1986)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gellner |first=Ernest |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=XPHpUSUAsF0C |title=Nations and Nationalism |date=2008 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8014-7500-9 |language=en |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=April 2025}} "Nation state" is a more precise concept than "[[country]]" or "state", since a country or a state need not have a predominant national or [[ethnic group|ethnic]] group.

A [[nation]], sometimes used in the sense of a common [[ethnicity]], may include a [[diaspora]] or [[refugee]]s who live outside the nation-state; some dispersed nations (such as the [[Romani people|Roma nation]], for example) do not have a state where that ethnicity predominates. In a more general sense, a nation-state is simply a large, politically sovereign country or administrative territory. A nation-state may be contrasted with:
* An [[empire]], a political unit made up of several territories and peoples, typically established through conquest and marked by a dominant center and subordinate peripheries.
* A [[multinational state]], where no one ethnic or cultural group dominates (such a state may also be considered a [[multicultural]] state - depending on the degree of [[cultural assimilation]] of its various groups).
* A [[city-state]], which is both smaller than a "nation" in the sense of a "large sovereign country" and which may or may not be dominated by all or part of a single "nation" in the sense of a common ethnicity or culture.<ref name="Radan2002">{{cite book |author=Peter Radan |title =The break-up of Yugoslavia and international law |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=-e5ciqlbvcwC&pg=PA14 |access-date =25 November 2010 |year =2002 |publisher =[[Psychology Press]] |isbn =978-0-415-25352-9 |page =14 |via =[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref name="Boll2007">{{cite book |author =Alfred Michael Boll |title =Multiple nationality and international law |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=Mr6Y45439A0C&pg=PA67 |access-date =25 November 2010 |year =2007 |publisher =Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |isbn =978-90-04-14838-3 |page =67 |via =[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref name="Elazar1998">{{cite book |author =Daniel Judah Elazar |title =Covenant and civil society: the constitutional matrix of modern democracy |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=EiOpZbl0eXIC&pg=PA129 |access-date =25 November 2010 |year =1998 |publisher =Transaction Publishers |isbn =978-1-56000-311-3 |page =129 |via =[[Google Books]]}}</ref>
* A [[confederation]], a league of sovereign states, which might or might not include nation-states.
* A [[federated state]], which may or may not be a nation-state, and which is only partially self-governing within a larger [[federation]] (for example, the state boundaries of [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]] are drawn along ethnic lines, but those of the [[United States]] are not).

This article mainly discusses the more specific definition of a nation-state as a typically sovereign country dominated by a particular ethnicity.