A country is a political state, nation, or territory which is controlled. It is often referred to as the land of an individual's birth, residence, or citizenship.

A country may be an independent sovereign state or part of a larger state,^[1] as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, a physical territory with a government, or a geographic region associated with sets of previously independent or differently associated people with distinct political characteristics. It is not inherently sovereign.

Countries can refer both to sovereign states and to other political entities, such as Vatican City,^[2] while other times it can refer only to states.^[3] For example, the CIA World Factbook uses the word in its "Country name" field to refer to "a wide variety of dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, uninhabited islands, and other entities in addition to the traditional countries or independent states".^{[4][note 1]}

The largest country in the world is Russia, while the most populous is China, followed by India, the United States of America, Indonesia and Pakistan.^[13] The newest country with widespread international recognition as a sovereign state is South Sudan, followed by Timor-Leste.