Which Countries Are Federal States? 

I'm finally doing a Q&A, so if you have any questions you'd like me to answer, just leave a reply here!

I love that he got a map of Brazil with one of the states written "Mysterious Empty Land", which is a national meme referring to an Isolated state in the amazon. It is a running joke that no one ever get to meet an inhabitant of that state, so we say that it is just a myth. If anything, they are probably just Bolivians in disguise. XD

Fun fact: every country has that meme where a national subdivision "doesn't exist".

Small correction: Switzerland isn't actually a confederation but more of a federation like Germany or the US. The name Confederation or Eidgenossenschaft is only kept due to Switzerlands history.

Yes, do videos on territorial evolution for different countries please. That sounds sooo cool

"Vazio misterioso?" I see you are a man of culture.

Any foreigner to a federal country: the states are just provinces to me.

Brazil is even weirder, the Municipalities are also treated as their own autonomous regions, which kinda means we have more than 5000 states

I live in Alabama and the reason the constitution is so long is because counties have very little autonomy and every little change has to be an amendment to the state constitution, literally every time ive voted theres always been at least one amendment on the ballot

As an Australian "Jervis Bay Territory" is literally a coastal exclave of the Australian Capital Territory. Because Canberra (the capital city) and the ACT are landlocked, Jervis Bay serves as a 'home port' for Canberra. It does not have any self government. Most Australians won't even realise Jervis Bay Territory exists, but it certainly isn't a federal territory by itself, the way ACT and NT are.

9:56-58 “make Africa’s terrestrial lines seem like they were carefully studied” is tragically hilarious.

World: Either one or the other Spain: Que seamos los dos dice

The EU is currently a confederation with federal elements. So its not a gathering of states. It was an international organization in its very early years but has evolved. The EU itself can set laws in some areas with direct effect on EU citizens without having to be transferred into national law. This clearly is a federal element.

British India was a combination of areas directly ruled by the British and the princely states, whose borders were a result of centuries of conflict with, expansion and territorial losses to each other. The current map of India, on the other hand, is a result of the linguistic reorganisation of states, which took place in the 1950s, I think.

Fun fact: India started with 14 states and states continued to break on ligustic lines till 28 states today. (Only 2 states were added through conquest).

You made some mistakes with Russia and Belgium: Belgium has 3 regions AND 3 people groups with their own parliament and laws (Flemish, wallonian and german speaking community). And only Flanders has significant independence movement. Wallonia is for the union while the german speaking community wants a seperation of the Wallonian Region and create their own region. Russia has NOT 86 federal subjects - it's much more complicated Oblast: Has administrative autonomy Republic: Has their own laws. Laws of inner politics can differ strong from the rest of russia. Krais: Same rights as a oblast but biger territory Federal cities: Under direct control of the federal gouvernment. Okrug: Very low population density and same rights as Oblast Autonomous oblast: Jewish autonomy

I think most countries in Africa should be federal, considering our diverse ethnic groups within countries (doubt this will solve our issues, but can be a great start).

I know Switzerland has sill confederation in his official name, but they also became a federal state with the ratification of the Swiss constitution ( Bundesverfassung) in 1848

In México there are 32 states, the capital (México City) changed from a D.C. to a State in 2018, the states are also divided into municipalities that are also governed by a "municipality president"

I love how he got the Acre joke, it's simply perfect, really well done video!

Empty and mysterious. Acre is still another dimension. Entendi muito bem a referência. :)

Americans seeing the title: Somebody else has states? *Impossible.*

Could you make a video about electoral systems, so ways of voting?

I love how General Knowledge tries to pronounce all the possible non-english names of the regions and countries :)

Spain acts de facto as a federation, being every region autonomous (these are called Autonomous Communities) and controlling public services, welfare, legislation and their fiscal system

Belgium is actually even more confusing then the 2 regions Flanders and Wallonia and the Brussels Capital Region... On the same level there are also the 3 (language) communities. the Dutchspeaking (Flanders+Brussels), the Frenchspeaking (Wallonia+Brussels) and the Germanspeaking (Eastkantons/Ostbelgien) community. The regions rule overall over economic or region bound matters (climate, infrastructure, mobilty etc.) where the communities rule over social matters. (education, health, culture etc.)

Love the use of countryballs in the beginning

Historically, the Netherlands started as a sort of federal republic (with a neutral seat of government in The Hague and a union of originally Seven Provinces (gewesten), of which Holland was the largest and richest one. They fought together in defence against Spain but almost everything was decided per province (coins and weights etc were all different e.g., and the local languages varied greatly ) Later the central “Staaten Generaal” financed a common bible translation which helped unify the federal structure into the (eventual) monarchy it became today. Napoleonic times also helped a lot with unification (a Bataafse Republiek existed as a French vassal state from about 1800-1815 and the first house of Orange king was installed in 1815….)..

India - 28 States - 8 Union Territories - 10 Autonomous Councils

Spain: "I get the best of both worlds 🎵🎶"

9:27 Acre: Vazio Misterioso? KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Growing up half German / half American, federalism in my personal political philosophy was always the norm for me... I still really like the Swiss model though, and in countries like India, Pakistan, Australia or Brazil it just makes sense.

Federal country maps are so fun to remember and analyze

Tks for both the content as well as the framework of analysis, in just 17:22 minutes! The audience: Tks for helping me critic & contextualize the subject!

I am from the governorate of Erbil in Iraq Yes it’s true all 18 governorates are autonomous but for Erbil Duhok and Sulaymaniya it’s a bit more complicated they’re like double autonomous because they’re part of the Semi autonomous region of Kurdistan

German here , everything you said is right but the Holy Roman Empire and the German confederation or union wasn't a real confederation . All nations were fully independent so it was more like the European Union without any power . The north German federation was just Prussia dominating the smaller German nations. And we don't call them areas but rather Bundesländer which is translated to Union countries

In Spain we take that to another level: First, there's the country. The country divides in North and South Then, we have Autonomous Communities which also divide in provinces. Each province divides in regions and regions in mayors' counties. PD: In schools, you have to mearn the 20 autonomies and the 51 provinces with it's position.

Indian federalism has nothing directly to do with kingdoms. In fact almost all Princely States were either broken up or subsumed into new states based along linguistic lines in 1956. The sheer diversity and size of the regions within India makes anything other than federalism and democracy quite impractical in the long run.

Fun fact : James Madison the person who helped to make USA a federal country and his father was born in the year 1723 and this video is 17:23 long lol

The major difference between a federal state and a regionalized unitary state is that power in a federal state cannot be redistributed between central and local governments without the consent of the latter. In an unitary State, regions, no matter how autonomous they are, only have the power the central government grants them, and the central government can always take it away from them unilaterally. Hence, no matter how devolved the UK becomes, it will always be a unitary State because there exists no limit on the power of the British Parliament to modify or abolish the regional assemblies.

Switzerland is no confederation anymore since 1848. It just uses their old name "Confoederatio helvetica" for some occasions.

9:30 caramba, nem aqui deixam de zuar o Acre! 😹😹😹 Boa referência, gajo! 😊

7:03 „it’s a shame we don’t talk about these gigantic african countries more“ 7:30 now let’s go to mexico

Malaysia have 13 state, have own flag, state anthem, state emblem, history, sultan/governor and parliament, one more thing is each state have own dialect.

Although Brazil is a Federal Republic, in the past the Federal State resembled much more of a Unitary State with an extremely strong Central Government based in Rio de Janeiro that made the units of the federation (unidades da federação), which are the 26 states, Very subservient to the Centralism of Rio de Janeiro. They try to mitigate this with the construction of the new Capital Brasilia and gradually the Brazilian Federal Republic started to become more and more... well, Federal! Apart from its old Unitary aspect.

Mexico City changed its status to a Federal state some years ago; it isn't a federal district anymore. There are 32 federal states in Mexico

The Indian map you used is pre 2014 I think cuz telangana(a new state formed after 2014) is not present and the state of Jammu&Kashmir is seperated into two Union territories (Jammu&Kashmir,Ladakh)

3:51 Seeing the EU without the UK hits different.

Maybe this might help with German pronunciation in the future: When an "s" is followed by a "t" or "p" at the beginning of a syllable, the "s" is pronounced as "sh" instead -> "Sh"tadt-"sh"taa-ten. (there are a few exceptions, which usually come from foreign words, i.e. "Stil" -> style, but that is rare) The "ch" sound is neither a "k" nor a "tsh" as most English speakers pronounce it. In fact it doesn't exist in English, and personally I don't know any language, in which it does but you may imagine a hissing cat. In phonetics it is either [x]/[χ] (low pitched) or [ç] (high pitched) but the pitch comes naturally because you can't go into a high [ç] from a preceding low "oh" or "oo" anyways. The "ä" isn't an "ah" either, it's more of a sound in between "ah" and "eh". The pronunciation of "ai" in "fair" comes close.

Mexico: We are a Federal Republic. Also Mexico: Let's centralize everything in the capital like an Unitary country does! That's stupid.

0:02 The one with the Friends parody.

I can't wait to see the Philippines in this list. Different leaders have long since planned to make us federal, none of which pushed through.

Can you explain Spain divisions? I'm pretty sure it's the most Federal-like Unitary state

In Australia a key difference between the states and territories is that territory laws can be vetoed by the federal parliament, while state laws cannot. They have done this most recently on same sex marriage and euthanasia legislation.

GK: These city-states are known as city-states Me: Hmm, enlightening.

I just love how Acre is marked as Misterious Emptyness. Even the gringos heard the reputation of the state

As a Brazilian Lawyer, I missed in this video a importante information about Brazil: Brazilian Federation is the only one in the world which has 3 levels of autonomous entitities: Federal Union, State and Municipality. Sure many Federal and Unitary States have municipalities, but not with full autonomy as in Brazil. In Brazil all municipalities makes their own Law, creates e charges their own taxes and elects representatives for executive and legislative powers. Another point important to emphasize about the differences between Federal and Unitary States is that autonomy means self organization self administration and self legislation which implies financial autonomy (having your own resources mostly coming from taxation). The range of autonomy may vary from place to place but normally sub national entities needs constitutions needs to be compatible with some limitations imposed by the national constitution. In Brazil’s case the power is too centralized in Federal Union which is very criticized because the freedom to create to experiment and to innovate in sub national level isn’t much.

I’m from Federal Country called Malaysia.

The Jervis Bay Territory isn't really recognized too much in Australia, and is more or less administered by the Australian Capital Territory. I, an Australian, had personally never even heard of it until this video.

About the German states. I am not sure if anybody mentioned it but they are more commonly called "Bundesländer"

10:10 Switzerland is by definition a federation because confederancies arent countries. they changed that in the 19th century but just never chnged their name

4:07 Volt Europa moment

Fun fact: In Germany (or at least at my school) federalism is one of six signs of a democracy and not having federalism was a sign of a dictatorship at analysing constitutions. For example Nazi-Germany, old East Germany, China, North Korea or the USSR were/are unitary states while modern Germany, old west Germany or the USA were/are federal states. It's funny to see how many states don't fulfill all of them cause federalism is missing (and of course not all of them are dictatorships because they fulfill the rest of these signs for democracy)

In argentina we had a war between unitarians and federalists.

You are the first man in RU-vid whom I heard pronouncing the word Pakistan right

Argentina's Federalism has a complex story. There was a large civil war shortly after our independence between unitarians (Mostly Buenos Aires, not wanting to lose the citiy's port) and federalists (Rest of the country, who believed export fees should be shared as a nation). In 1852 the Buenos Aires province (not the same as the city of Buenos Aires) declares independence from the rest of the country and in 1853 the other provinces create the first Constitution, the first article of which is still the same since then: 1.- The argentinian nation adopts as its goverment the republican, representative and FEDERAL methods. Fast forward to 1862. Antoher war between Buenos Aires and Argentina. Buenos Aires actually wins and reunites the country under the condition that they'll have the nation's capital. (That sounded a lot like Hamilton...) In the late 1880s president Nicolas Avellaneda declared Buenos Aires as _federal capital_ basically making it its own autonomous entity. The Buenos Aires province rebeled against the president, not wanting to lose the new capital entity's port (that meant losing all maritime commerce fees). The rebelion didn't last long. Now we're a federal country, but if you take a close look at our infrastructure (roads and trains mostly) you'll notice that almost all of it either comes from or goes to Buenos Aires city. This is because our railroads were constructed by british companies, trying to profit of the huge cereal, meat and leather exports market, by offering direct transportation to the same port that caused the first civil war. And... Here we are. A federal country with an unitarian infrastructure.

10:59 Somaliland is not a separatist region. It already separated in 1991 and to this day operates as an independent country. It has its own currency, its own government, its own military, and its own foreign relations with a few other countries.

I like federalism but i feel it only works in countries with many areas on similar levels of development(my country doesn't fill this rule, so federalism kinda sucks here), of course when this is not the case it could be more or less solved by giving high autonomy to some places (like Russia if i'm correct).

I've been longing for a video like this. I wanna know how Federal USA is different from Federal Nigeria with regards to the power of the state.

About Switzerland: there is sometimes a dispute if Switzerland has 23 or 26 cantons. There are 20 "normal" cantons and 6 half-cantons (Basel-Stadt&Basel-Landschaft, Nidwalden&Obwalden and Appenzell Innerrhoden&Appenzell Ausserehoden)

"The us states are more equal in size" Wassup Alaska, this is Vermont, new Hampshire, New Jersy, Rhode island...

Thank you for displaying Malaysia. Our system is unique in a way. More educational videos please!

Hi. The last canton formed in Switzerland (Jura) was in 1979 not 1999. As for Belgium, there is also de german minority with certain rights, but they're very small.

I was hoping you’d go deeper on explaining Argentina. 😕

I want to add that in practice whether a country is federal or unitary is only loosely correlated to the autonomy of their sub-national units. A nominally unitary nation could give their local governments a wide-ranging authority over local affairs while a nominally federated state could be very hierarchical, with the local governments having no real independence. For example, contrast Russia (federal) with Indonesia (unitary). Despite their federated status, the governor of a Russian state will have less leeway than the governor of an Indonesian province.

I thinks it’s interesting how it seems like the America’s are the most federal continents. That might just be perspective though, seeing as the 5 biggest countries are almost all the federal ones and most of the others aren’t.

In Germany, the states are doesn't called "Flächenländer", they are called Bundesländer.

9:50 The portugueses arrived in Brazil in 1500

The official name of Switzerland is "swiss confederation", but it's a federation, just like the US. The two "almost confederations" in the world would probably be the European union and Belgium, each in a very different way.

I'm honored that this video started with the great state of Bahia in the limelight 😄👍

The UK is a unitary state with quite extensive powers devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK has no written constitution, so these powers are not constitutionally guaranteed, they can be withdrawn by a simple vote in the Westminster Parliament. Scotland, which was in early modern politically sophisticated times a sovereign country, has its own government, whereas Wales and Northern Ireland have assemblies. England has no government of its own, and, uniquely, members of Parliament from the other three countries vote on English-only legislation, while, say, Scottish-only legislation is voted on only in Edinburgh by Members of the Scottish Parliament. The reason for this peculiar arrangement for England is that it is so much larger than the other 3 countries - 89% of all residents live in England and currently Boris Johnson’s members of Parliament can outvote not only all other parties, but his English members alone can outvote all other parties and thus the three other nations. It’s for this reason that there is, and always has been, a wish in each of the other three countries, to break away, strongest by far in Scotland, which has a population similar in size to Denmark and greater than that of Norway.

9:29 As someone from the Vazio Misterioso I see what you did there LOL

Did you intentionally use a joke map for Brazil where the state of Acre is referred to as "mysterious void" or was it an accident?

saber que um portugues faz este tipo de videos é incrivel, dá orgulho de ver!

1:42 I think Spain is a federation, each autonomous region administrates itself.

Ah unfortunately you fell into the trap of the Swiss Confederacy lol. The thing is, Switzerland was historically a Confederation, i.e. a sort of alliance of States that had some common institutions but were mostly independant (somewhat similarly to the EU nowadays, although the EU is kind of a mix between confederation and federation). At some point (idk the exact date), what was a Confederation (an alliance of independant states) became a federation (one single contry with a Federal state and several Federated states)... but they kept the name of "Swiss Confederation", albeit not being technically a confederation anymore (on the map of Europe you showed at 3:18 you can see that that's the case). So no, Switzerland isn't a Confederation, it's called that way because it used to be.

Brazil actually divides it's regions based on a mix between economic and cultural differences, the north being the states influenced by the Amazon rainforest, central-west influenced by agriculture, south is influenced by the climate and it's population, southeast is influenced by it's strong economical influence and it's strong culture, and northeast is devided by it's population and historical influence. It's not 100% accurate, but that's what i remember seeing in school. Edit: the regions are also influenced by Climate, rivers, forests, etc, it's really complicated.

Alabama's constitution is that long because It has to explain Sibling love to its people!

when you realize most british colonies are federal countries

Australia's Jervis Bay Territory is funny - it's basically an exclave of the Australian Capital Territory (car numberplates there are ACT with a 'Jervis Bay Territory' overprint) but it now has status as a separate territory. It was originally meant to be a port for Canberra, with a rail link under Federal control, but this was never built. Only about 300 people live there - mainly Navy personnel and their families. (There's a big naval presence all around the bay, in JBT and NSW.) It also has a national park, with the beaches there reputedly the whitest sand in the world!

A tip for your channel to become more international: Put subtitles in English. Although automatic subtitles work well, they have a delay that interferes with the understanding of the video. In addition, with English subtitles, it is better for the automatic translator to do better translations. From a subscriber from Brazil

The UK is a bit of a funny one and depends on which country of the UK you live, but essentially: - If you're in the country of England, then it's a Unitary system, with Westminster holding most of the power. - If you're in the country of Scotland, then Scotland itself is a Unitary system, with Edinburgh holding most of the power (devolving some to Local Authorities), but with the UK government acting like a federal government, where some limited issues are reserved to Westminster (such as defence and foreign affairs) but everything else lies in Edinburgh (health, education, social security, etc). - If you live in the country of Wales, then its similar to Scotland, but Wales is slightly different in that more matters are reserved to Westminster, however Cardif does have a wide range of power; Notably, Wales shares the same legal system with England (called England & Wales), while Scotland has its own separate legal system (called Scots Law). - If you live in Northern Ireleand, it is also like Scotland, but from their point of view the UK is more like a conferderate system, because Northern Ireleand can willingly leave the UK and unite with the Republic of Ireleand under its won authority, thanks to the Good Friday Agreement. - That's not even to mention the Overseas Terrirories and Crown Dependencies, which operate like self-governing autonimous entities, not really part of the UK, but relying on it in some limited capacities. So, yeah, not at all straightforward, and it's not wonder that even people in the UK don't fully understand where power lies.

5:39 "in the majority of cases of federal countries - this is what happens" man that tells plently

As a German, I don't think I'd ever heard the term "Flächenländer" before

I would say that the most basic difference between unitary countries and federal countries is in how the sovereignity of those countries theoretically rested on. As sovereignity is the way for the state to derive their legitimacy from, and therefore their all governmental authorities. Unitary state rest on their sovereignity directly to the central state, hence all of governmental authorities are originally rested on the central government. It is at the central government's disposal to devolve several of their authorities to the regional governments according to their respective constitution or other laws. Meanwhile, federal countries derive their original sovereignity from the federal states themselves and agree among themselves to form a federal government to which several authorities are to be given. Such authorities will be later differentiated as federal authorities and state authorities. It does not matter whether the countries themselves are democracies, not fully democracies, pretend to be one, or even not democracies at all, as the matter of unitary vs federal countries are, at the most basic, the matter on how the sovereignity of the state itself to be derived on. It is also does not matter on how the local government to be actually implemented. You can find an extremely devolved unitary countries such as the UK (that have 'countries' like Scotland, Wales, and NI with devolved governments), Spain (autonomous communities) or even Indonesia (in the case of special autonomies of Aceh and the two Papua provinces). Meanwhile, you can also find federal countries that may still feel the huge swing of the federal government over the state government such as Russia, which does not compare to other federal governments that probably more suited to the western conceivement of federalism, such as Australia, Canada, and the US. I would also like to add that the matter of the availability of a state or region or province to separate itself from the mother country also does not always suit to the notion of federalism, as the federal constitution or the supreme court's ruling may prohibit such possibility of separation (as in the case of post- Civil War US) or may not prohibit (as in the case of the Soviet Union).

Hot take: We need to change the title of USA to United Federation of North America or something like that. And each US state should be designated as its own country under one gov. US states land mass and economy wise are equal to countries. Also I hate when folks use the title “America” for USA. It’s disrespectful to central and South America. The correct term is “North America”.

9:42 Either you're Brazilian or got a joke map by mistake. In any case I'm please with the "vazio misterioso"

I have missed videos like this thank you for posting this love u

This channel is great, it's opened my eyes to the world and gives more understanding about countries I didn't really know much about.

In Southeast asia...... Indonesia:Unitary Philippines:Unitary Laos:Unitary Singapore:Unitary Brunei:Unitary Timor-leste:Unitary Myanmar:Unitary Vietnam:Unitary Cambodia:Unitary Thailand:Unitary Malaysia:The only southeast asia is the Federal States because their unique government works. Me:*mind blow*