Civilization state

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A civilization state, or civilizational state,^[1] is a country that aims to represent not just a historical territory, ethnolinguistic group, or body of governance, but a unique civilization in its own right.^[2] It is distinguished from the concept of a nation state by describing a country's dominant sociopolitical modes as constituting a category larger than a single nation. When classifying states as civilization states, emphasis is often placed on a country's historical continuity and cultural unity across a large geographic region.

The term was first coined in the 1990s as a way to describe China,^[3] later India but has also been used to describe countries such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Iran^[4] and the United States.^[2][5][6]

The term has been popularized by Bruno Maçães in a series of essays since 2018.^[7]