What's a country?
During the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of State, some conference which aimed to define what qualifies as statehood, the following points were agreed upon:- The person of international law (the state), must have a permanent population,
- a defined territory,
- a government
- and hold the capacity to enter into relations with other states
Characteristics of a country
Most nation-states have ..one or more nations (group of people with shared identity, culture, language or history)
national symbol(s)
institutions (family, government, economy, education, and religion)
legislative, executive, and judicial branches
a power ideology (secular vs. religious, authoritarian vs. libertarian, monarchy vs. republic)
a legal system
a source of power (democracy, oligarchy, autocracy)
administrative divisions
geography