An overview of countries that operate as federal states

Federalism. A federation, also known as a federal state, is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government. Federated states do not have standing as entities in the international community. They aren't a country, they're part of a country. So what's the difference? In what way is the state of California in the US different from the district of Lisbon in Portugal? In federal system's political authority is divided between two autonomous sets of governments, one national and the other subnational. While a district or region of a country that isn't a federal state doesn't possess this same amount of self-governance and shared power at a local level, countries that aren't federal are called unitary, which is a state governed as a single entity in which the central government is ultimately supreme. Both have pros and cons and the best regime for one country might not necessarily be the best for another. For instance, larger countries tend to be federal to better manage their overwhelming territory, like Russia or Australia, something that might not make sense for smaller nations. Unitary states have the advantages of being able to act quickly because decisions are made by one single body and they can be less costly not having multiple levels of bureaucracy, while federal states have a better grasp on local needs because power is closer to the people and it might discourage abuse of power because that same power is distributed amongst more ruling bodies. Worldwide, this is how countries divide themselves between federations and unitary countries. In yellow, the federations and in blue, the unitary. Of the eight largest countries in the world by area, seven, Russia, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Australia, India and Argentina are organized on a federal basis. Only China, the third largest, is a unitary state. The concepts used to define these different regimes are a little confusing, so let's clarify. A country that uses federalism is known as a federation or federal state, composed by self-governing provinces, states, or regions who are federated under a central federal government with whom they share power. A country that uses a unitary government style is known as such. It also has provinces, districts, or regions, but they aren't self-governing and the vast majority of power is concentrated within the central government. But it's not black or white. There are shades of gray. A country doesn't need to be a full federation or a full unitary state. There's a spectrum that ranges from increased separation to increased integration. At one end is a large unitary state, and at the other, many small separate states under a union, but mostly with their own sovereignty. Unitarism, decentralization, devolution, federalism, confederalism, international organization, and a gathering of many small separate states are different options. And in fact, all of them, other than full-on unitary, have some degree of larger autonomy. Like the UK, which is somewhat of an example of devolution, in which the central UK government has devolved some of its powers to local authorities, such as the ones in Scotland or Wales. And even within each of these, there's a sub-spectrum. For instance, in this map of Europe, we can see which states are unitary and which are federal. But within the unitary ones, some are fully centralized, like Portugal or Ireland, some are unitary but decentralized, like Slovenia or the Nordic countries, and some are unitary but regionalized, like Spain, France, or the UK as well. Where the central government is the main holder of power, if you will, but has started sharing it further with regional administrations. Whether this is a sign of moving towards federalism or if they'll choose to leave it at this is something that might vary from country to country. The European Union as a whole is a really interesting example. It's composed of many large, mostly unitary states and some federal ones. But the EU itself would be seen as a gathering of separate states at the other end of the spectrum, but also somewhat of a confederation and many people want it to be a full-on federation. However, this isn't what this video is about. I'm not going to get into each of these different forms of government and respective political systems. What I want to do is simple. Since we've already gotten a general idea of how federal states are different than unitary ones and how both of them generally work, I want to go through the world and describe which countries are in fact federations and how they specifically work, at least in very broad terms. When it comes to the numbers, here's how it is. Of the 193 member countries of the UN, 27 are federations. The rest are unitary states, although as we just saw with Europe's example, they vary in how unitary they are. But let's focus on the federations. I want to go from the biggest to the smallest, not in terms of size, but in terms of their federal subdivisions. The biggest federal country in the world is Russia. It divides its territory into many different types of federated units. 46 oblasts, which are provinces, 22 republics, 9 krais, which are territories, 4 okrugs, which are regions with substantial ethnic groups, 3 federal cities, and 1 autonomous oblast. In this map, we can see them separated by color, ranging from the small but still very important federal cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Sevastopol in red, to the gigantic republics and provinces of Siberia in orange, and green. A total of 85 federated units. Every federal subject has its own head, a parliament, a constitutional court, as well as its own constitution and legislation. In the majority of cases of federal countries, this is what happens. The next biggest one are the United States of America, which have 50 states, plus a federal district, and 16 territories. When it comes to the states, they're more equal in size, at least the difference isn't as major as Russia's, and they have a uniform approach to the divisions. Sure, you still have the federal district and the territories, but it's mostly just the states existing as equals. Like Russia and many others, there's a federal head, in this case the governor of each state, and then a state legislator and also state constitutions. In fact, interestingly, American state constitutions tend to be much longer than the national one, which is around 4,500 words long. Most state constitutions are over 8,500 words, almost twice the size, because they have to be more detailed regarding the day to day relationship between government and the people. The shortest is Vermont's with 8,294 words and the longest is Alabama's, which has 345,000 words. This seems kind of impossible, but everywhere that I looked it up on said that this was the case. Interestingly as well, the US also have a rule that the United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republic form of government. So, Hawaii couldn't suddenly decide, hey, let's be a monarchy again, but stay in the US. Something that isn't the case for all federal countries, as we'll see ahead. One that I had no idea was a federation is Nigeria, having 36 states and a federal district. Nigeria has a gigantic population of over 200 million people. This might be just me, but I feel like we don't pay enough attention to these gigantic African countries. It's interesting because they started with only three states in 1960, then going to four, 12, 19, 21, 30, and finally 36, further dividing their land as they developed its administration. Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, comes next, with 31 states and the capital of Mexico City. When Mexico got its independence from the Spanish, it was first an empire. After the fall of the empire, it became a federal republic. The founding plan of the republic was enacted, and in its sixth article it says, The component parts of the republic are free, sovereign, and independent states, in that which touches internal administration and government. All the free states were invited to the union and formed the federation, except for the former captaincy general of Guatemala, which formed their own country, also a federation. India is also a federal country, counting with 28 states and 8 union territories, one of which is the national capital territory of Delhi, I assume somewhat of a federal district. They are divided into six regions. Northern, Western, Southern, Central, Eastern, and Northeastern. But as far as I could find out, these aren't an administrative level. There's no regional governor or something. They're just a way of organizing the areas the 28 states are in, which do in fact have their own local administrations, as is the case with their neighbor, Pakistan. Although they organize their territory in a smaller number of units, four provinces, as well as two autonomous territories and one capital, the provinces of Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Kiber, Pakhtunkhwa, and the federally administered Islamabad Capital Territory. They then have the two autonomous territories in the disputed territory of Kashmir, which India also administers in their side, and Gilgit-Baltistan. Prior and during the times of British colonialism, the British Raj, which included India and Pakistan amongst other regions, had a lot of princely states, states with internal autonomy but under British rule and with no autonomy in external affairs. Now, I really don't know if this is the case, but it makes sense that it might have paved the way for the current federal system in both countries, as the people were used to and there was a tradition of separate smaller states having internal autonomy within a larger country. Brazil follows just behind, with 26 states and a federal district as well. In the style of India, the country is divided into regions, five in this case. North, Northeast, Central West, Southeast, and South. But again, the level at which local administrations first come in is the state. Brazil's territorial evolution is very interesting, as is most countries. If you want, I can start making videos about that topic. When the Portuguese arrived in 1534, they established colonial captaincies. Straight, horizontal, and vertical lines, which make Africa's colonial borders seem like they were carefully studied. As Brazil grew, first as a colony and then as its own country, more territorial divisions came to be, in order to better organize and rule over the vast territory. Back in Europe, Switzerland is, as far as I know, the only confederation in the world. It doesn't have states, but cantons, 26 of them. It evolved from the historical Swiss Confederacy, which existed from 1300 to 1798, with some exceptions in between. They started off as only 13, each of them as former sovereign states. They then expanded to 19 in 1803, 22 in 1815, and kept increasing the number until 1999, in which they grew to the current 26. Argentina, Venezuela, Iraq, Somalia, and both Sudans are also federal countries, with the number of states that we see on screen, although some of them refer to the federal units as provinces or regions. Argentina has an autonomous city in the capital of Buenos Aires, as does Venezuela with its federal district and a federal dependency, which encompasses most of its offshore islands. Iraq has 18 provinces, known as governorates. Somalia has 18 regions, some of which are separatists, mainly Somaliland. North Sudan has 18 states and South Sudan 10. The most well-known federal country of Europe, at least for me, is Germany, which has 16 states when you include the city-states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. These city-states are known as Stadtstätten. The remaining 13 ones are called Flachenlander, which roughly means area states. Germany, I would say, has a history of existing in some type of union of smaller states. All we need to do is look at the absolute territorial organization mess that was the Holy Roman Empire. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, 39 states formed the New German Confederation. The following North German Confederation and German Empire also had a similar type of territorial organization. And even after the land losses of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the remaining states continued as republics of a new German federation. Austria shares the same HRE and German Confederation past, which perhaps explains, following a federal model today as well. In addition, their existence as leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was also subdivided into administrative regions, although not semi-autonomous states in most cases. Today, Austria is a federal republic, made up of nine states. Another interesting example in Europe is Bosnia. The political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina were created by the Dayton Agreement, which recognized a second tier of government in the country, comprising two entities. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, with mostly Bosniaks and Croats, and the Republic Sprska, which has mostly Serbs, each governing roughly one half of the state's territory. The Federation of Bosnia itself has a federal structure and consists of 10 autonomous cantons. Still in Europe, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy. It's divided into three highly autonomous regions, Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels. It's interesting how the logic behind federal systems can be different. Many of them choose it because of the vastness of their territory, and others, like Belgium, choose it due to the significant cultural differences between parts of their territory and population. Russia, for instance, would, I think, be an example of a combination of both. In Belgium, both Flanders and Wallonia have significant independence movements, which might eventually lead to a separation of the country, choosing a federal system that grants semi-independence through autonomy might be a way to avoid that. All the way back in America, Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. In 1867, 3 provinces of British North America, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the province of Canada, which included Ontario and Quebec, were united to form a 4-provinces federated colony, the Canadian Confederation. Over its history, the number of provinces has grown from the original four to ten. The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that provinces receive their power and authority from the Constitution Act of 1867, whereas the territorial governments have powers delegated to them by the Parliament of Canada. So, essentially, a change to the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces requires a constitutional amendment, and a similar change affecting the territories can just be performed unilaterally by the Parliament of Canada. Pretty much the provinces have their autonomy guaranteed and territories not so much. The same goes for Australia which has 6 states as well as 3 internal territories and 7 external which aren't self-governing so don't really matter for this. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia are the states and the Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory and the Northern Territory are the internal territories. Each state of Australia is a successor to an historical Australian colony under British governance. The Capital Territory and Northern Territory, for the most part, operate indistinguishably from states, despite their different status. Moving to Asia, Malaysia, which consists of 13 states and 3 federal territories. Malaysia is first divided into two areas, West and East, separated by water. Within each of the areas are various states, which all have equal autonomy. Although East Malaysia in the island of Borneo only has two large states, while West Malaysia has 11 smaller ones. Oddly, nine of the 13 states are monarchies of their own, eight of which having a sultan and one a raja, showing us that federations are a good solution when a region is full of historically divided regions, like we saw with Germany, kind of. The three federal territories are Kuala Lumpur, Labuan, and Putrajaya. A fun fact, Singapore used to be a state within the Malaysian Federation, leaving in 1965, and Brunei has been invited to join, but so far has refused. And in Africa, Ethiopia, having 10 regions and 2 chartered cities. The basis for Ethiopia's divisions are apparently ethno-linguistic criteria, rather than the physical geography of the territory or its history. Something that's really smart, and should probably be taken into account for territorial reformations throughout most of Africa, trying to make up for the mistakes made by the Europeans when dividing the continent during colonial times. The two cities are the country's capital of Addis Ababa and Dirdawa. Other smaller nations like Nepal, the UAE, Micronesia, Comoros, Kitsunevis are also federal countries with smaller divisions, each divided into a few states, islands, communities, etc. Nepal has 7 provinces, the UAE has 7 emirates, Micronesia has 4 states, Comoros 3 islands and St. Kitsunevis 2 islands. essentially units that represent and directly rule a specific region of the country sharing power with the national government. And so, those are the federal states of the world, meaning the countries in which the central government shares a significant part of the ruling power with its local authorities, having a greater deal of autonomy and usually serving as a tool to solve some type of problem, be it the administration of a very large territory by allowing it to be somewhat separately ruled in more detail or by offering people of different cultures with significant differences, the opportunity to have more autonomy within a united country, from the most well-known cases of the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Russia, India, or Australia, to the lesser-known cases of Ethiopia, Bosnia, Belgium, or Switzerland, amongst many more. If I forgot any other federal countries, just let me know in the comments. Thanks so much for watching this video, subscribe if you want, and I'll see you next time for more general knowledge.