nation
Sign in to saveA nation is a type of social organization where a collective identity—a national identity—has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory, or society. Some nations are constructed around ethnicity (see ethnic nationalism) while others are bound by political constitutions (see civic nationalism).
AI overview
A nation is a group of people who share a common identity based on things like language, history, culture, ethnicity, or territory. Nations matter because they form the basis for how people organize themselves politically and socially—some nations emphasize shared ethnic or cultural heritage, while others unite people around shared political values and institutions.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
12 sectionsContents
- Etymology and terminology
- Nations in History
- The existence of earlier nations
- Criticisms
- Use of term ''nationes'' by medieval universities and other medieval institutions
- Early modern nations
- Social science
- Debate about a potential future of nations
- See also
- References
- Sources
- Further reading
A nation is a type of social organization where a collective identity—a national identity—has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory, or society. Some nations are constructed around ethnicity (see ethnic nationalism) while others are bound by political constitutions (see civic nationalism).
A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group. Benedict Anderson defines a nation as "an imagined political community […] imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion", while Anthony D. Smith defines nations as cultural-political communities that have become conscious of their autonomy, unity and particular interests. ''Black's Law Dictionary also defines nation as a community of people inhabiting a defined territory and organized under an independent government. Thus, nation can be synonymous with state or country. Indeed, according to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, what distinguishes nations from other forms of collective identity, like ethnicity, is this very relationship with the state.