Small state

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The island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean sea, from space. Malta from space via laser ESA378503.jpg
The island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean sea, from space.
Male, the capital of the Maldives. This island nation is made up of nearly 1200 islands in the Indian ocean, Male-total.jpg
Malé, the capital of the Maldives. This island nation is made up of nearly 1200 islands in the Indian ocean,
Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, which is the smallest state in the Americas. Stkitts-view-lookingatsea.jpg
Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, which is the smallest state in the Americas.

Small state is a generic term for a small country, that has limited land, population, or resources. The term "small state" is similar to the term microstate or ministate, a sovereign state having a very small population or land area, usually both. However, the meanings of "state" and "very small" are not well-defined in international law. [2] Two important definitions for a small state are World Bank, which defines small state as those with less than 1.5 million people, which is about 40-50 countries, and the U.N. Forum on Small States which has higher threshold and includes about 100 countries, most of which are under 5 million people.

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In practice small state is a usually inclusive to microstates;while microstates can be considered small states, not all small states are microstates. There is different criteria for defining small states.

Definitions of a Small State

Metrics for defining a small state look at aspects of country including area, population, size of the government, territory, and political situation. [3] One of the most common metrics to look at is population, which constraints other aspects, and countries with less than one million people is one common benchmark. However some institutions have used different standards, such as 1.5 million or higher, and especially if the states define themselves and want to be defined that way. [3] Two important listings of small states are the World Bank and the Forum on Small states, which includes about 50 and over 100 nations respectively.

Two thirds of U.N. members can be considered small states by some definitions, while World Bank made a list which is about 50 countries globally. [4] World Bank uses a threshold of 1.5 million population or less to describe a small state, which is about 40 nations, and there is another dozen close to 1.5 million but have similar issues as the other small states. [5]

World Bank lists the following countries as small states using their definition: [4]

If a threshold of 1.5 million people was chosen, at one time this included about 30 countries. [4]

The point at which a small state becomes a microstate, has been defined in research as being as low as 100 thousand people but up to 1.5 million, though one million is most common. [3]

The Commonwealth Secretariat defines 42 countries in the world to be small states, and further notes of these 33 of them are part of the Commonwealth of Nations. The Secretariat was founded in the 1980s to advocate for small states, noting their increased vulnerability. [6]

As member of Forum of Small States

The Forum of Small States was founded by Singapore in 1992 and has now grown to over 100 countries CIA World Factbook map of Singapore (English).png
The Forum of Small States was founded by Singapore in 1992 and has now grown to over 100 countries

One noted small states organization, is the UN group Forum of Small States, which as of the 2020s included over 100 nations. [7]

Within the United States

Small state can also be used when talking about the states that compose the United States, which is one country with internal political divisions called states but are not independent. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Country</span> Distinct territorial body or political entity

A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, states with limited recognition, constituent country, or a dependent territory. Most sovereign states, but not all countries, are members of the United Nations. There is no universal agreement on the number of "countries" in the world since several states have disputed sovereignty status, limited recognition and a number of non-sovereign entities are commonly called countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federated States of Micronesia</span> Country in Oceania

The Federated States of Micronesia, or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania. The federation consists of four states—from west to east, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae—that are spread across the western Pacific. Together, the states comprise around 607 islands that cover a longitudinal distance of almost 2,700 km (1,700 mi) just north of the equator. They lie northeast of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, south of Guam and the Marianas, west of Nauru and the Marshall Islands, east of Palau and the Philippines, about 2,900 km (1,800 mi) north of eastern Australia, 3,400 km (2,100 mi) southeast of Japan, and some 4,000 km (2,485 mi) southwest of the main islands of the Hawaiian Islands.

A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2018 "World Urbanization Prospects" report defines megacities as urban agglomerations with over 10 million inhabitants. A University of Bonn report holds that they are "usually defined as metropolitan areas with a total population of 10 million or more people". Elsewhere in other sources, from five to eight million is considered the minimum threshold, along with a population density of at least 2,000 per square kilometre. The terms conurbation, metropolis, and metroplex are also applied to the latter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan area</span> Administrative unit of a dense urban core and its satellite cities

A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which are sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metropolitan area usually comprises multiple principal cities, jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships, boroughs, cities, towns, exurbs, suburbs, counties, districts and even states and nations in areas like the eurodistricts. As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Developed country</span> Country with a developed economy and infrastructure

A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are the gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. Different definitions of developed countries are provided by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; moreover, HDI ranking is used to reflect the composite index of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. In 2023, 40 countries fit all four criteria, while an additional 19 countries fit three out of four.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microstate</span> Sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area

A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or land area, usually both. However, the meanings of "state" and "very small" are not well-defined in international law. Some recent attempts to define microstates have focused on identifying qualitative features that are linked to their size and population, such as partial delegation of their sovereignty to larger states, such as for international defense.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poverty threshold</span> Minimum income deemed adequate to live in a specific country or place

The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for the average adult. The cost of housing, such as the rent for an apartment, usually makes up the largest proportion of this estimate, so economists track the real estate market and other housing cost indicators as a major influence on the poverty line. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.

An associated state is the minor partner or dependent territory in a formal, free relationship between a political territory and a major party—usually a larger nation.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank, the OECD, European Union, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Island country</span> State whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or a part of an island

An island country, island state, or island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically more stable than many continental states but are vulnerable to conquest by naval superpowers. Indonesia is the largest and most populated island country in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urban area</span> Human settlement with high population density and infrastructure of built environment

An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. This is the core of a metropolitan statistical area in the United States, if it contains a population of more than 50,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European microstates</span> European sovereign states having very small population or very small land area

A European microstate or European ministate is a very small sovereign state in Europe. In modern usage, it typically refers to the six smallest states in Europe by area: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City. Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Vatican City are monarchies. These states trace their status back to the first millennium or the early second millennium except for Liechtenstein, created in the 17th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle East and North Africa</span> Geographic region

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East and North Africa together. However, it is widely considered to be a more defined and apolitical alternative to the concept of the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world. The region has no standardized definition and groupings may vary, but the term typically includes countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE, and Yemen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poverty in India</span>

Poverty in India remains a major challenge despite overall reductions in the last several decades as its economy grows. According to an International Monetary Fund paper, extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as living on US$1.9 or less in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, in India was as low as 0.8% in 2019, and the country managed to keep it at that level in 2020 despite the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak. According to the World Bank, India experienced a significant decline in the prevalence of extreme poverty from 22.5% in 2011 to 10.2% in 2019. A working paper of the bank said rural poverty declined from 26.3% in 2011 to 11.6% in 2019. The decline in urban areas was from 14.2% to 6.3% in the same period. The poverty level in rural and urban areas went down by 14.7 and 7.9 percentage points, respectively. According to United Nations Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner, India lifted 271 million people out of extreme poverty in a 10-year time period from 2005–2006 to 2015–2016. A 2020 study from the World Economic Forum found "Some 220 million Indians sustained on an expenditure level of less than Rs 32 / day—the poverty line for rural India—by the last headcount of the poor in India in 2013."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Bank high-income economy</span> Income classification for countries

A high-income economy is defined by the World Bank as a country with a gross national income per capita of US$14,005 or more in 2023, calculated using the Atlas method. While the term "high-income" is often used interchangeably with "First World" and "developed country," the technical definitions of these terms differ. The term "first world" commonly refers to countries that aligned themselves with the U.S. and NATO during the Cold War. Several institutions, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or International Monetary Fund (IMF), take factors other than high per capita income into account when classifying countries as "developed" or "advanced economies." According to the United Nations, for example, some high-income countries may also be developing countries. The GCC countries, for example, are classified as developing high-income countries. Thus, a high-income country may be classified as either developed or developing. Although Vatican City is a sovereign state, it is not classified by the World Bank under this definition.

References

  1. Warrington, E. (1994). "Lilliputs Revisited". Asian Journal of Public Administration, 16(1).
  2. 1 2 3 "On the Identification and Definition of Microstates | Columbia | Journal of International Affairs".
  3. 1 2 3 "Diplomacy of small states". Archived from the original on 2022-02-27. Retrieved 2024-08-30.
  4. "Overview". World Bank. Archived from the original on 2024-08-31. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  5. "Members of the Forum of Small States (FOSS)" (PDF). "Ministry of Public Administration, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago". May 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-03-28. Retrieved 2024-08-30., accessed= 28 Mar 2024
  6. "What is the smallest state in the US? These are the 10 smallest states across America. Portrait of Mythili Devarakonda Mythili Devarakonda USA TODAY". Archived from the original on 2024-09-01. Retrieved 2024-08-30.