Cultural Geography:
Cultural Diversity
A society's culture include its social institutions like its political structure, but as we have just learned it is much more than that. One country can be made up of people from many different cultures and one cultural group can exist in more than one country. Therefore political geographers have developed a vocabulary to help distinguish between a cultural group (called a nation) and a country (called a State).
What is a "Nation"?
DEFINITION: a group of tightly knit people who speak a single
language, have a common history, share the same cultural background,
and who may united by common political institutions
EXAMPLES:
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DEFINITION: a politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by a significant portion of the international community
A "State"" is approximately synonomous with a "country"
NOT: Illinois, Chihuahua (Mexico) , Tamil Nadu (India), and Mato Grasso (Brasil) which are political units within countries
The United Nations has establish the convention of using "State" to mean country, and "state" to apply to the internal political units of the US, Mexico, India, and Brazil.
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DEFINITION:
EXAMPLES:
Few States are 100% nation-states and there is no exact criteria. Most would agree that Japan is a nation-state, and Lesotho, Africa. The "opposite" of a nation-state would be a multinational state or a State made up of many nations. Examples would include: Nigeria, and Liberia in Africa.
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There are nations (cultural groups) without States. Sometimes these cultural groups are scattered among several States and sometimes they are a minority in one State. Sometimes these stateless nations are unwelcome and are a cource of conflict. Some of the most well known include the Kurds in Southwest Asia and the Gypsies/Romani of Eastern Europe.
"Stateless Nations
The following is from the Encyclopedia of World: Problems and
Human Potential
[http://www.uia.org/uiademo/ndx/proindex.htm]
[http://www.uia.org/uiademo/pro/e7906.htm]
Nature: World is populated by more than 1,600 stateless nations, most of which are in one way or another engaged in national movements.
Incidence: The classic instance of a stateless nation has been the Jewish people who for long centuries have suffered for lack of a homeland which was only finally made available to them in 1948. Other examples include many indigenous peoples that have been manoeuvred into minority status in their home countries by colonial powers. A further example is the gypsy people or Roma people of Europd ( romani-pop.htm). The Kurds, numbering an estimated 20 million Kurds, are commonly seen as the world's largest nation without a state. About 10 million are in Turkey, 4 million in Iraq, 5 million in Iran and a million in Syria. There may be another million in the former Soviet Union. About 400,000 of the 1.8 million guest workers from Turkey living in Germany are of Kurdish origin.
Background: Kurds believe they are descended from Noah. They speak several sub-dialects of Persian. They have never had an independent state, although in the Middle Ages many Kurdish princes had their own fiefdoms. President Woodrow Wilson of the USA promised the Kurds a state in 1918 but was frustrated by the British, French and Turks. The present Federal Government of Iraqi Kurdistan is the closest to a state yet. The population is landlocked between empires in Iran and Anatolia. Its 3.5 million people have a prime minister, a government, foreign embassies, an army of sorts, borders, even passport stamps; but they have no currency, no flag and no international recognition.
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Additional Reading
Now read: http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa042798.htm.
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Try this Nation-State Quiz
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