Nation

A community understood as sharing a political identity, often grounded in history, culture, language, or territory. A nation may exist without governing its own state.

Nation-state: A sovereign state whose boundaries and political identity are closely associated with a nation. It joins national identity to state sovereignty, though the two boundaries rarely align perfectly.
Nationalism: A political principle that treats the nation as a primary source of collective identity and political legitimacy. Nationalism made the nation a central claim to political authority and self-rule.
National identity: A person's or group's sense of belonging to a nation and identifying with its history, symbols, or political community. It is the personal and collective identification through which a nation is experienced.
Civic nationalism: A form of nationalism that grounds national membership primarily in shared political principles and citizenship. It defines the nation through political commitment rather than descent or cultural sameness.
Self-determination: The principle that a people should be able to determine its political status and pursue its development. National movements have used it to claim autonomy, independence, or a change of borders.
State: A political organization that governs a territory and population through institutions and claims sovereignty. A state is a governing structure; a nation is a community that may lack one.
Benedict Anderson: A political scientist and historian known for analyzing nationalism and national identity. His account explains how print culture helped strangers imagine themselves as one national community.
National myth: A widely shared story about a nation's origins, character, or defining historical experience. Such stories make a diverse population's shared past feel coherent.
Ethnic nationalism: A form of nationalism that grounds national membership primarily in ancestry, ethnicity, or inherited culture. It makes descent or shared heritage central to defining national membership.
Decolonization: The process by which colonized territories gained independence from imperial powers. National movements helped turn anti-colonial struggles into claims for independent states.

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