State vs. Nation
Difference Between State and Nation
Most of the people and even the leaders are calling their country as the nation or the state. Though, this is not absolutely wrong as a nation is often regarded as a member state often in the world body like the UN, we must remember that we treat the state and nations as different entities particularly in political science. For one, being considered as a State, the capital S is used instead of lowercase s to distinguish the status of ordinary word referring to the condition of an entity or object.
Group of people having common culture can be termed as nation. A bonding is there because of common history and geographical boundaries. In a nation there can be people who have different culture and values. Some nations are multicultural like India.
On the other hand, a state is a part of nation having sovereign government. There are states that are nations as well and in such circumstances they are called nation states. The situation is difficult when a state overlaps the boundaries of several nations and it is often in case of civil wars. A state can become a nation if other countries recognize it as sovereign.
There is another state (with a lower case s) which is a part of a country and almost every country in the world is divided into many states. Some examples are the states of the United States and the states of India.