Multinational State

A multinational state or a multinational union is a sovereign entity that comprises two or more nations or states. This contrasts with a nation state, where a single nation accounts for the bulk of the population. Depending on the definition of "nation" (which touches on ethnicity, language, and political identity), a multinational state is usually multicultural or multilingual, and is geographically composed of more than one country, eg Countries of the United Kingdom.

Historical multinational states that have since split into multiple sovereign states include the Ottoman Empire, British India, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Austria-Hungary (a dual monarchy of two multinational states). Some analysts have described the European Union as a multinational state or a potential one.Kelemen, R. Daniel. (2007). In ''Making History: State of the European Union'', Vol. 8, edited by Sophie Meunier and Kate McNamara, Oxford University Press, p. 52.

Countries

Definition

Many attempts have been made to define what a multinational state is. One complicating factor is that it is possible for members of a group that could be considered a nation to identify with two different nationalities simultaneously. As Ilan Peleg wrote in ''Democratizing the Hegemonic State'':

A state may also be a society, and a multiethnic society has people belonging to more than one ethnic group, in contrast to societies that are ethnically homogeneous. By some definitions of "society" and "homogeneous", virtually all contemporary national societies are multiethnic. The scholar David Welsh argued in 1993 that fewer than 20 of the 180 sovereign states then in existence were ethnically and nationally homogeneous, if a homogeneous state was defined as one in which minorities made up less than 5 percent of the population. Sujit Choudhry therefore argues that " e age of the agriculturally homogeneous state, if ever there was one, is over".

Modern multinational states

Africa

Most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are former colonies and, as such, are not drawn along national lines, making them truly multinational states.

Ghana

There is no ethnic majority in Ghana. The plurality group, the Akan people, are a meta-ethnicity (that is, a collection of similar but distinct ethnicities). While Akan is the most-widely spoken language in Ghana, English is the official language of government

Kenya

Kenya is home to more than 70 ethnic groups, the most populous of which are the Kikuyu, at about 20 percent of the population. Together, the five largest groups—the Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya, Kamba, and Kalenjin—account for 70 percent of Kenyans.

Nigeria

The largest nation in Nigeria is the Hausa-Fulani, which accounts for 29 percent of the country's population. However, the group actually encompasses two distinct ethnicities: the Hausa and the Fulani (or Fulbe). While both ethnicities are found in large areas of West Africa, it is only in Nigeria that they are classified as a single ethnic group for political expediency. Nigeria is also made up of many other ethnic groups like the Yoruba, Igbo and Ibibio. Prior to colonialism, they were not self identified as one ethnic nationality but are so today along with the three Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo which classification does carry between each group of who is part of and not part of the group aside from them Nigeria as about 250–500 other ethnic nationalities considered minorities with some large enough to control the outcomes of elections in states such as the Igala and Urhobo. While some are so small that they only show up in one local Government area

South Africa

Present-day South Africa is the successor state to the Union of South Africa, which was formed from four British colonies in 1910.

South Africa has eleven official languages (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu) and formally recognises several other languages spoken by minority nations. Speakers of each language may be of a different nationality—for example, some members of the Ndebele and Tswana nations speak Zulu, and groups such as the Thembu and Hlubi speak Xhosa.

As is the case throughout Africa, the nations of South Africa mostly correspond to specific regions. However, large cities such as Johannesburg are home to a mixture of national groups, leading to a "melting pot" of cultures. The government has continuously attempted to unify the country's various nationalities and to foster a South African identity.

Many of the nationalities found in South Africa are also found in bordering countries, and in some cases, more members live in South Africa than in the country where the group originated. For example, there are more Sotho, Tswana, and Swazi people living in South Africa than in the bordering nation states of Lesotho, Botswana, and Eswatini, respectively. In the past, this has led to conflict. Lesotho still claims large swathes of South Africa, and attempts have been made to cede some South African territory to Botswana and Eswatini. All three states were intended to be incorporated in the Union of South Africa, but those plans never came to fruition because of power struggles within their apartheid governments.

Americas

Bolivia

Since 2010, under the presidency of Evo Morales, Bolivia has been officially defined as a plurinational state, which recognizes the national distinctiveness of various indigenous peoples.

Canada

Whether Canada should be described as "multinational" is an ongoing topic in academia and popular discourse. The current policy of the federal government is that Canada is bilingual—English and French are both official languages—and multicultural. In 2006, the House of Commons of Canada voted in favor of ''Government Business No. 11'', which states that the Québécois "form a nation within a united Canada". According to Canadian political philosopher Charles Blattberg, Canada should be seen as a multinational country. All Canadians are members of Canada as a civic or political community, a community of citizens, and this is a community that contains many other kinds within it. These include not only communities of ethnic, regional, religious, and civic (the provincial and municipal governments) sorts, but also national communities, which often include or overlap with many of the other kinds. He thus recognizes the following nations within Canada: those formed by the various First Nations, that of francophone Quebecers, that of the anglophones who identify with English Canadian culture, and perhaps that of the Acadians.

Asia

China

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is a multinational state consisting of 56 ethnic groups with the Han people the largest ethnic group in mainland China. As of 2010, 91.51% of the population were classified as Han (~1.2 billion). Besides the Han Chinese majority, 55 other ethnic (minority) groups are categorized in present China, numbering approximately 105 million people (8%), mostly concentrated in the bordering northwest, north, northeast, south and southwest but with some in central interior areas.

The major minority ethnic groups in China are Zhuang (16.9 million), Hui (10.5 million), Manchu (10.3 million), Uyghur (10 million), Miao (9.4 million), Yi (8.7 million), Tujia (8.3 million), Tibetan (6.2 million), Mongolian (5.9 million), Dong (2.8 million), Buyei (2.8 million), Yao (2.7 million), Bai (1.9 million), Korean (1.8 million), Hani (1.6 million), Li (1.4 million), Kazakh (1.4 million) and Dai (1.2 million). At least 126,000 people from Canada, the US and Europe are living in Mainland China. In addition, there are also unrecognized ethnic groups, for example: Chuanqing people (穿青人), and others, who comprise over 730,000 people.

However, the Republic of China (ROC), which ruled mainland China from 1912 to 1949 and currently governs the island of Taiwan since 1945, had recognized five main ethnic groups under Five Races Under One Union: Han, Hui, Manchu, Mongol and Tibetan. Since retreating to Taiwan, the ROC government recognizes 16 groups of Taiwanese aborigines, which constitutes a number 569,000 or 2.38% of the island's population. The PRC classifies them as ''Gaoshan''.

India

India has more than 2,000 ethnic groups and over 80,000 subcultures, and every major religion is represented, as are four major language families ( Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, and Sino-Tibetan) and a language isolate ( Nihali).

Each state and union territory of India has one or more official languages, and the Constitution of India recognizes in particular 22 " scheduled languages". It also recognizes 212 scheduled tribal groups, which together constitute about 7.5% of the country's population.

Most of its states are based on a linguistic ethnicity, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh (Hindustani), Tamil Nadu ( Tamil), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (Telugu), Karnataka ( Kannadigas), Odisha ( Odia), Jammu and Kashmir (Dogras and Kashmiris), Goa ( Konkanis), Gujarat ( Gujarati), West Bengal ( Bengali), Maharashtra (Marathi), Punjab (Punjabi), Haryana ( Haryanvi), Rajasthan ( Rajasthani), Kerala (Malayali), Manipur