Portal:Countries

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A country is an area of land, which has its own government and laws, or used to have them, such as a state, a nation, a nation state, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, a state with limited recognition, a 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 with a range between 193 to 237. This ambiguity is a result of several states having disputed sovereignty status or limited recognition, and a number of non-sovereign entities are commonly considered countries. The definition and usage of the word "country" has fluctuated and changed over time. The Economist wrote in 2010 that "any attempt to find a clear definition of a country soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies."

Areas much smaller than a political entity may be referred to as a "country", such as the West Country in England, "big sky country" (used in various contexts of the American West), "coal country" (used to describe coal-mining regions), or simply "the country" (used to describe a rural area). The term "country" is also used as a qualifier descriptively, such as country music or country living. (Full article...)

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Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru, formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies within the Micronesia subregion of Oceania, with its nearest neighbour being Banaba (part of Kiribati) about 300 kilometres (190 mi) to the east.

With an area of only 21 square kilometres (8.1 sq mi; 2,100 ha; 5,200 acres), Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world, larger than only Vatican City and Monaco, making it the smallest republic and island state, as well as the smallest member state of the Commonwealth of Nations by both area and population. Its population of about 10,800 is the world's third-smallest (not including colonies or overseas territories). Nauru is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States. (Full article...)

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A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes, coins, electronic balances in bank accounts, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various country-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Plastic pollution at a beach near Accra, Ghana (from Developing country)
Image 2Solar cookers use sunlight as energy source for outdoor cooking. (from Developing country)
Image 3
  African land part of Egypt
  Asian land part of Egypt
  The rest of Africa
  The rest of Asia
(from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 4Factory in China at Yangtze River causing air pollution (from Developing country)
Image 5Map of countries and territories by fertility rate in 2024 (from Developing country)
Image 6
  Least developed economies according to ECOSOC
  Least developed economies out of scope of the ECOSOC
  Graduated to developing economy

(from Developing country)
Image 7Percentage of people with undernutrition by country, World Food Program, 2020
  Under 2.5%
  2.5% – 5.0%
  5.0% – 14.9%
  15.0% – 24.9%
  25.0% – 34.9%
  Over 35.0%
  No data
(from Developing country)
Image 8Comparison map: Greenland, the Faroe Islands (enlarged) and Denmark differ significantly in size. The Danish Realm is spread across the North Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. (from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 9Aves Island, Venezuela (from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 10A map of World Bank high-income economies in 2023
Image 11
  Advanced/developed markets by the IMF
  Emerging/developing markets by the IMF
  Least developed countries by the UN
  Data unavailable

The latest classifications sorted by the IMF and the UN (from Developing country)
Image 12Map of the Darién Gap at the border between Colombia and Panama (from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 13San Andrés and Providencia, Colombia (from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 14Surface air temperature change over the past 50 years. (from Developing country)
Image 15
Two doubly landlocked countries
42 landlocked countries
(from Landlocked country)
Image 16Flags of the United Nations member and non-member GA observer states in front of the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland (from List of sovereign states)
Image 17Conventions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The red line shows the most common modern convention, in use since c. 1850.
  Asia
  Europe
  historically placed in either continent
(from List of transcontinental countries)
Image 18A formation of human chain at India Gate by the women from different walks of life at the launch of a National Campaign on prevention of violence against women, in New Delhi on 2 October 2009 (from Developing country)
Image 19World map representing Human Development Index categories (based on 2023 data, published in 2025)
- Very high
- High
- Medium
- Low
- No data
(from Developing country)
Image 20GDP (PPP) per capita in 2024
- >$60,000
- $50,000 – $60,000
- $40,000 – $50,000
- $30,000 – $40,000
- $20,000 – $30,000
- $10,000 – $20,000
- $5,000 – $10,000
- $2,500 – $5,000
- $1,000 – $2,500
- <$1,000
- No data
(from Developing country)
Image 21Percentage of women older than 14 who have experienced violence by an intimate partner (from Developing country)

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The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo (its name from 1971 to 1997; the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a country located on the western coast of Central Africa to the west of the Congo River. It is bordered to the west by Gabon, to the northwest by Cameroon, to the northeast by the Central African Republic, to the southeast by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south by the Angolan exclave of Cabinda, and to the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean.

The region was dominated by Bantu-speaking tribes at least 3,000 years ago, who built trade links leading into the Congo River basin. From the 13th century, the present-day territory was dominated by a confederation led by Vungu which included Kakongo and Ngoyo. The Tio Kingdom emerged in the 14th century, and Loango in the 16th century. In the late 19th century France colonised the region and incorporated it into French Equatorial Africa. The Republic of the Congo was established on 28 November 1958 and gained independence from France in 1960. It was a Marxist–Leninist state from 1969 to 1992, under the name People's Republic of the Congo (PRC). The country has had multi-party elections since 1992, but a democratically elected government was ousted in the 1997 Republic of the Congo Civil War. Denis Sassou Nguesso has been president since 1979, except for the period from 1992 to 1997. (Full article...)

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Top 10 WikiProject Countries Popular articles of the month

This following country-related article is a most visited articles of WikiProject Countries, See complete list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Popular pages.

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The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's third-largest land area and third-largest population, exceeding 340 million.

Paleo-Indians first migrated from North Asia to North America over 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations. Spanish colonization established Spanish Florida in 1513, the first European colony in what is now the continental United States. British colonization followed with the 1607 settlement of Virginia, the first of the Thirteen Colonies. Enslavement of Africans was practiced in all colonies by 1770 and supplied most of the labor for the Southern Colonies' plantation economy. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and lack of parliamentary representation sparked the American Revolution, leading to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international recognition of U.S. sovereignty and fueled westward expansion, dispossessing native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–South division over slavery led the Confederate States of America to attempt secession and fight the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the United States' victory and reunification, slavery was abolished nationally. By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement in World War I. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers, competing for ideological dominance and international influence during the Cold War. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the U.S. as the world's sole superpower.

The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and representative democracy with three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives (a lower house based on population) and the Senate (an upper house based on equal representation for each state). Federalism grants substantial autonomy to the 50 states. In addition, 574 Native American tribes have sovereignty rights, and there are 326 Native American reservations. Since the 1850s, the Democratic and Republican parties have dominated American politics, while American values are based on a democratic tradition inspired by the American Enlightenment movement. (Full article...)
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, predominantly in isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. Its hymns recorded the early dawnings of Hinduism in India. India's pre-existing Dravidian languages were supplanted in the northern regions. By 400 BCE, caste had emerged within Hinduism, and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires. Widespread creativity suffused this era, but the status of women declined, and untouchability became an organised belief. In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian language scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.

In the 1st millennium, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on India's southern and western coasts. In the early centuries of the 2nd millennium Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains. The resulting Delhi Sultanate drew northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam. In south India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture. In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion. The Mughal Empire ushered in two centuries of economic expansion and relative peace, and left a a rich architectural legacy. Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company turned India into a colonial economy but consolidated its sovereignty. British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly, but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and the public life took root. A nationalist movement emerged in India, the first in the non-European British Empire and an influence on other nationalist movements. Noted for nonviolent resistance after 1920, it became the primary factor in ending British rule. In 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions, a Hindu-majority dominion of India and a Muslim-majority dominion of Pakistan. A large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration accompanied the partition. (Full article...)
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Gross domestic product (GDP) is the market value of all final goods and services from a nation in a given year. Countries are sorted by nominal GDP estimates from financial and statistical institutions, which are calculated at market or government official exchange rates. Nominal GDP does not take into account differences in the cost of living in different countries, and the results can vary greatly from one year to another based on fluctuations in the exchange rates of the country's currency. Such fluctuations may change a country's ranking from one year to the next, even though they often make little or no difference in the standard of living of its population.

Comparisons of national wealth are also frequently made based on purchasing power parity (PPP), to adjust for differences in the cost of living in different countries. Other metrics, nominal GDP per capita and a corresponding GDP (PPP) per capita, are used for comparing national standard of living. On the whole, PPP per capita figures are less spread than nominal GDP per capita figures.

The rankings of national economies have changed significantly over time. For instance, the United States overtook the British Empire around 1916; Japan rose rapidly in the post-World War II period to become the world’s second-largest economy by the 1970s; China moved from ninth place in 1978 to second in 2010 following market reforms. These shifts reflect long-term changes in global economic output. (Full article...)
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a population of over 69 million in 2024. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering 94,354 square miles (244,376 km²). It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea, while maintaining sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Britain has been inhabited since the Neolithic. In AD 43 the Roman conquest of Britain began. The Roman departure between 383 and 410 was followed by Anglo-Saxon settlement beginning around 450. In 1066 the Normans conquered England. After the Wars of the Roses, the Kingdom of England began to flourish, resulting in the 16th-century annexation of Wales and the establishment of the British Empire. Over the 17th century the role of the British monarchy was reduced, particularly as a result of the English Civil War. In 1707 the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In the Georgian era the office of prime minister became established. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present United Kingdom.

The UK became the first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the Pax Britannica between 1815 and 1914. The British Empire was the leading economic power for most of the 19th century, a position supported by its agricultural prosperity, its role as a dominant trading nation, a massive industrial capacity, significant technological achievements, and the rise of 19th-century London as the world's principal financial centre. At its height in the 1920s, the empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and in the Second World War damaged Britain's economic power, and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. (Full article...)
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It borders Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east and Egypt to the southwest. Israel occupies the Palestinian territories of the West Bank in the east and the Gaza Strip in the southwest, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights in the northeast. Israel's western coast lies on the Mediterranean Sea, the southern tip reaches the Red Sea, and the east includes the Earth's lowest point near the Dead Sea. Jerusalem is the government seat and proclaimed capital, while Tel Aviv is Israel's largest urban area and economic centre.

The Land of Israel is synonymous with Palestine or the Holy Land. In antiquity it was home to the Canaanites and later the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Its location at a continental crossroads brought demographic shifts under various empires. Nineteenth-century European antisemitism fuelled the Zionist movement for a Jewish homeland. Britain endorsed this goal in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and ruled Mandatory Palestine from 1920. Jewish immigration and British policies intensified Arab-Jewish tensions, and the 1947 United Nations (UN) Partition Plan led to a civil war.

Israel declared independence at the end of the British Mandate on 14 May 1948, and neighbouring Arab states invaded the next day. A 1949 armistice left Israel with territory beyond the UN plan; no Arab state was created, as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank came under Egyptian and Jordanian control. Most Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the Nakba, leaving a minority in Israel, while the country's population grew in later decades as Jews fled or were expelled from the Muslim world. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Egyptian Sinai, and the Syrian Golan Heights, later annexing East Jerusalem and the Golan—actions that, along with settlement expansion, are considered violations of international law. Peace was signed with Egypt in 1979 (Sinai returned in 1982) and with Jordan in 1994. The 1993 Oslo Accords with the Palestinians established mutual recognition and limited self-rule, and the 2020 Abraham Accords normalised ties with more Arab states. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict remains unresolved, with wars and clashes with Palestinian militant groups. Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism, along with accusations from human rights organisations and UN officials that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians during the Gaza war. (Full article...)
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Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. It encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the Palestinian territories. The territories share the vast majority of their borders with Israel, with the West Bank bordering Jordan to the east and the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt to the southwest. It has a total land area of 6,020 square kilometres (2,320 sq mi) while its population exceeds five million. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, while Ramallah serves as its de facto administrative center. Gaza was its largest city prior to evacuations in 2023.

Situated at a continental crossroad, the Palestine region was ruled by various empires and experienced various demographic changes from antiquity to the modern era. It was treading ground for the Nile and Mesopotamian armies and merchants from North Africa, China and India. The region has religious significance. The ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict dates back to the rise of the Zionist movement, supported by the United Kingdom during World War I. The war saw Britain occupying Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, where it set up Mandatory Palestine under the auspices of the League of Nations. Increased Jewish immigration led to intercommunal conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, which escalated into a civil war in 1947 after a proposed partitioning by the United Nations was rejected by the Palestinians and other Arab nations.

The 1948 Palestine war saw the forcible displacement of a majority of the Arab population, and consequently the establishment of Israel; these events are referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba ('catastrophe'). In the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which had been held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared independence in 1988. In 1993, the PLO signed the Oslo Accords with Israel, creating limited PLO governance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip through the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel withdrew from Gaza in its unilateral disengagement in 2005, but the territory is still considered to be under military occupation and has been blockaded by Israel. In 2007, internal divisions between political factions led to a takeover of Gaza by Hamas. Since then, the West Bank has been governed in part by the Fatah-led PA, while the Gaza Strip has remained under the control of Hamas. (Full article...)
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Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands alongside 14,121 smaller islands. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions, and around 75% of its terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. With a population of over 123 million as of 2025, it is the world's 11th most populous country. Tokyo is the country's capital and largest city.

The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the beginning of the Japanese Paleolithic dating to c. 36,000 BC. Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military aristocrats known as shōgun and feudal lords called daimyō, enforced by warrior nobility named samurai. After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, an American fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868.

The Meiji period saw Japan pursue rapid industrialization, modernization, militarism, and overseas colonization. The country annexed Korea in 1910, invaded China in 1937, and attacked the U.S. and European colonial powers in 1941, thus entering World War II as an Axis power. After being defeated in the Pacific War and suffering the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under Allied occupation. It underwent rapid economic growth in the following decades and became one of the first major non-NATO allies of the U.S. Since the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, it has experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation referred to as the Lost Decades. (Full article...)
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China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17% of the world population. China borders fourteen countries by land across an area of 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), making it the third-largest country by area. The country is divided into 33 province-level divisions: 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the capital, while Shanghai is the most populous city by urban area and largest financial center.

China saw the first humans in the region arriving during the Paleolithic era. By the 2nd millennium BCE dynastic states had emerged in the Yellow River basin. The 8th–3rd centuries BCE saw a breakdown in the authority of the Zhou dynasty, accompanied by the emergence of administrative and military techniques, literature and philosophy. In 221 BCE, China was unified under an emperor, ushering in two millennia of imperial dynasties. With the invention of gunpowder and paper, the establishment of the Silk Road, and the Great Wall, Chinese culture flourished and has heavily influenced its neighbors and lands further afield. China began to cede parts of the country in the 19th century, to European powers by a series of unequal treaties. The 1911 Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China was established the following year. The country was unstable and fragmented during the Warlord Era, which ended upon the Northern Expedition conducted by the Kuomintang to reunify the country.

The Chinese Civil War began in 1927, when Kuomintang forces purged members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China was invaded by the Empire of Japan in 1937, leading the CCP and Kuomintang to form the Second United Front to fight the Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War ended in a Chinese victory; however, the CCP and the Kuomintang resumed their civil war. In 1949, the CCP proclaimed the People's Republic of China and forced the Kuomintang-led government to retreat to the island of Taiwan. The country was split, with both sides claiming to be the legitimate government. Following the implementation of land reforms, attempts by the CCP to realize communism failed: the Great Leap Forward was responsible for the Great Chinese Famine which resulted in millions of deaths, and the Cultural Revolution was a period of turmoil and persecution. The reform and opening up that began in 1978 moved the country away from a socialist planned economy towards a market-based economy, spurring an economic boom. A movement for political liberalization stalled after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. (Full article...)
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Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. Its territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. The country is about one degree of latitude (137 kilometres or 85 miles) north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bordering the Strait of Malacca to the west, the Singapore Strait to the south along with the Riau Islands in Indonesia, the South China Sea to the east and the Straits of Johor along with the State of Johor in Malaysia to the north.

In its early history, Singapore was a maritime emporium known as Temasek; subsequently, it was a major constituent of several successive thalassocratic empires. Its contemporary era began in 1819, when Stamford Raffles established Singapore as an entrepôt trading post of the British Empire. In 1867, Singapore came under direct British control as part of the Straits Settlements. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by Japan in 1942 and returned to Britain as a Crown colony following Japan's surrender in 1945. Singapore gained self-governance in 1959 and in 1963 became part of the new federation of Malaysia, alongside Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak. Ideological differences led to Singapore's expulsion from the federation two years later; it became an independent sovereign country in 1965. After early years of turbulence and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation rapidly developed to become one of the Four Asian Tigers.

As a highly developed country, Singapore has the highest PPP-adjusted GDP per capita in the world and is the only country in Asia with a AAA sovereign credit rating from all major rating agencies. Identified as a tax haven, it is a major aviation, financial and maritime shipping hub and has consistently been ranked as one of the most expensive cities for expatriates and foreign workers. Singapore ranks highly in key social indicators: education, healthcare, housing, peacefulness, passport strength, personal safety and infrastructure, with a high home-ownership rate. Singaporeans enjoy one of the longest life expectancies, fastest Internet connection speeds, lowest infant mortality rates and lowest levels of corruption in the world. Singapore is organised into five regions, 55 planning areas and hundreds of subzones. It has the third highest population density of any country, although there are numerous green and recreational spaces as a result of urban planning. With a multicultural population and in recognition of the cultural identities of the country's major ethnic groups, Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. English is the common language, with exclusive use in numerous public services. Multi-racialism is enshrined in the constitution and continues to shape national policies. (Full article...)
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Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world, spanning eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries. With a population of over 140 million, Russia is the most populous country in Europe and the ninth-most populous country in the world. It is a highly urbanised country, with sixteen of its urban areas having more than 1 million inhabitants. Moscow, the most populous metropolitan area in Europe, is the capital and largest city of Russia; and Saint Petersburg is its second-largest city and cultural centre.

Human settlement on the territory of modern Russia dates back to the Lower Paleolithic. The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated; the Grand Duchy of Moscow led the unification of Russian lands, leading to the proclamation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. The Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, amidst the deaths of millions under Joseph Stalin's rule, and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front—rising as a global superpower. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for ideological dominance and international influence. The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.

In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the Russian Federation. Following the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, the Soviet government structure was abolished and a new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system. Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and has transformed from an authoritarian regime to an autocratic dictatorship. Post-Soviet Russia has been militarily involved in numerous conflicts, including its war with Georgia in 2008 and its war with Ukraine since 2014. The latter has involved the internationally unrecognised annexations of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea in 2014 and four other regions in 2022, during an ongoing war. (Full article...)