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A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal. [1]
In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, i.e. an area that is under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state.
As a subdivision, a territory in most countries is an organized division of an area that is controlled by a country but is not formally developed into, [1] or incorporated into, a political unit of that country, which political units are of equal status to one another and are often referred to by words such as "provinces", "regions", or "states". In its narrower sense, it is "a geographic region, such as a colonial possession, that is dependent on an external government." [2]
The origins of the word "territory" begin with the Proto-Indo-European root ters ('to dry'). [3] From this emerged the Latin word terra ('earth, land') and later the Latin word territorium ('land around a town'). [4] [5] Territory made its debut as a word in Middle English during the 14th century. At this point the suffix -orium, which denotes place, was replaced with -ory which also expresses place. [6]
Examples for different types of territory include the following:
Overseas territory is a broad designation for a territorial entity that is separated from the country that governs it by an ocean. An overseas territory may be either a constituent part of the governing state or a dependent territory.
Examples include:
The Netherlands Antilles, also known as the Dutch Antilles, was a constituent Caribbean country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands consisting of the islands of Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten in the Lesser Antilles, and Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire in the Leeward Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies, and it was dissolved in 2010, when like Aruba in 1986, Sint Maarten and Curaçao gained status of constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Bonaire gained status of special municipality of Netherlands as the Caribbean Netherlands. The neighboring Dutch colony of Surinam in continental South America, did not become part of the Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status. People from this former territory continue to be called Antilleans in the Netherlands.
Administrative divisions are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divided. Such a unit usually has an administrative authority with the power to take administrative or policy decisions for its area.
A federation is an entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision, neither by the component states nor the federal political body without constitutional amendment.
A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state and remains politically outside the controlling state's integral area. As such, a dependent territory includes a range of non-integrated not fully to non-independent territory types, from associated states to non-self-governing territories.
An autonomous administrative division is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy — self-governance — under the national government. Autonomous areas are distinct from other constituent units of a federation in that they possess unique powers for their given circumstances. Typically, it is either geographically distinct from the rest of the state or populated by a national minority, which may exercise home rule. Decentralization of self-governing powers and functions to such divisions is a way for a national government to try to increase democratic participation or administrative efficiency or to defuse internal conflicts. States that include autonomous areas may be federacies, federations, or confederations. Autonomous areas can be divided into territorial autonomies, subregional territorial autonomies, and local autonomies.
A regional state, or a regionalised unitary state, is a term used to denote a type of state that is formally unitary but where a high degree of political power has been highly decentralised to regional governments. This contrasts with a state organized on principles of federalism where the powers of the regions are enshrined in constitutional law. In many cases, the regions are based on long standing cultural or regional divisions.
A federacy is a form of government where one or several substate units enjoy considerably more independence than the majority of the substate units. To some extent, such an arrangement can be considered to be similar to asymmetric federalism.
A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman provincia, which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term province has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city".
The Kingdom of the Netherlands, commonly known simply as the Netherlands, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united under the monarch of the Netherlands, who functions as head of state. The realm is not a federation; it is a unitary monarchy with its largest subdivision, the eponymous Netherlands, predominantly located in Northwestern Europe and with several smaller island territories located in the Caribbean.
The Dutch Caribbean are the New World territories, colonies, and countries of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea, mainly the northern and southwestern regions of the Lesser Antilles archipelago.
The borders of Venezuela are the international borders that Venezuela shares with neighboring countries. Venezuela borders with 14 countries totaling 5,161 kilometers which includes territories of France, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (Montserrat) and the United States. Venezuela has the seventh largest number of land and maritime borders after France, China, the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States and Italy.