What are nations and states A nation is a population with a certain sense of it self a cohesiveness a shared history and culture and often (but not always) a common language A state is a government structure usually sovereign and powerful enough to enforce its writ (Notice that here we use state in its original sense the 50 U.S. states are not states in this sense of the word.) With the addition of South Sudan in 2011 there are 194 states in the world