countries or regions from american heritage dictionary of the english language for country a a nation or state b the territory of a nation or state land c the people of a nation or state populace the land of a person's birth or citizenship and nation a relatively large group of people organized under a single usually independent government a country the government of a sovereign state thus the word country in american english at least is bound up in the notion of sovereignty the use of country in this title by a single editor is a legal artifact of the wording used to bind scotland wales etc to the united kingdom it is not a term in general use for administrative divisions but a term of sovereignty for the majority of english speakers as evidenced by the dictionary definitions of country and nation there is no insult intended for scotland et al by referring to them as regions actually i think that administrative division might be an even more accurate term for this section since non administrative divisions are covered later