A country is a certain territory.
It could be said that the word country , which comes directly from the French pays , does not have its own or exclusive definition. The term is used as the most common synonym for nation state . Even the Royal Spanish Academy appeals to other concepts to define it, saying that a country is a nation , a region or a territory .
A country is, therefore, a certain geographical area and a politically independent entity , which has its own government , administration , laws , security forces and, of course, population . In any case, a State can be made up of different countries or nations, such as Spain (with the Basque Country and Catalonia , for example).
Therefore, the word country shares meaning with nation (from the Latin nātio ), especially with its acceptance as a political nation . That is, it is about the legal-political sphere and the constituent sovereignty of a State.
Division of the world into countries
Countries are divided by imaginary lines that determine their territory. These lines are known as borders and are responsible for delimiting the space in which each State has its jurisdiction.
Borders that in many cases and throughout History have brought with them the confrontation of many countries willing to expand their aforementioned borders by appropriating the territories of the annexed nations.
When a country is under the rule of a remote country (that is, it cannot decide its own government and administration), it becomes a colony .
Several nations can coexist in a country.
imperialism
Throughout history, important European powers such as Great Britain, France or Germany have acted as powers of Imperialism, obtaining colonies in various parts of the world such as, for example, Africa. Thus, the German country had Cameroon or Ghana as colonies while France did the same with Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar or Tunisia.
Spain has been another of the great colonizing powers throughout time. In this way, it not only had colonies in Africa, such as Tetouan or what is now Western Sahara, but also in other corners of the world's geography , such as America, after its discovery by Christopher Columbus.
It is worth mentioning that countries are represented by their governments in various international organizations , which can be scientific (such as the European Space Agency , for example), economic ( Mercosur ), police ( Interpol ) or political-economic (the UN , the European Union , etc.).
"El País", a Spanish newspaper
In addition to all of the above, we cannot ignore that one of the most important daily publications that Spain has is called precisely "El País." This Berlin-format newspaper belongs to the PRISA Group and is characterized by being framed, ideologically speaking, in the center-left. Hence he is in favor of progressivism and social democracy.
Great communication figures such as Miguel Ángel Aguilar, Javier Cercas, Jorge Edwards, Juan Goytisolo, Almudena Grandes, Felipe González, Elvira Lindo, Santos Juliá, Rosa Montero, Christine Ockrent and Javier Pérez-Royo have collaborated in said Spanish newspaper throughout of his extensive career, since 1976.