Country

Acountryis an area of land with defined borders and government that operates as asovereign state. They can also be referred to asstates with limited recognition,constituent countries, ordependent territories, with their own government.[1][2][3][4]A country may consist of multiple nations, a structure known as amultinational state.[5]Countries are often distinguished asdeveloping countriesordeveloped countries.[6] There is no universal agreement on the number of "countries" in the world.[7][8]This ambiguity is a result of several countries not being recognized as sovereign states by the UN system, but are recognized by at least one UN member, known as "diplomatic recognition'. These countries often havedisputed territoriesand have onlypartial recognition.[8]A number of entities without recognition are also commonly considered a country.[8][9] Areas other than apolitical entitymay be referred to as a "country", such as theWest Countryin England, "big sky country" (used in various contexts of theAmerican West), "coal country" (used to describecoal-mining regions), or simply "the country" (used to describe arural area).[10][11]The term "country" is also used as a qualifier descriptively, such ascountry musicorcountry living.[12]