The important thing is that it's not a state. The US and China are arguably not nation states either. Wikipedia says: nation can refer to "a people, race, or tr

The important thing is that it's not a state. The US and China are arguably not nation states either. Wikipedia says: nation can refer to "a people, race, or tribe; those having the same descent, language, and history." A nation state is where the nation and state coincide. For example, Japan is a nation state: it is a state comprised almost entirely of a single nation (the Japanese people), and almost all of the members of that nation live in the state. South Korea is not, because the Korean people are split between two states; the United States is not, because it is comprised of multiple nations/peoples/tribes.