Civilization state

A civilization state, or civilizational state, is a country that aims to represent not just a historical territory, ethnolinguistic group, or body of governance, but a unique civilization in its own right. It is distinguished from the concept of a nation state by describing a country's dominant sociopolitical modes as constituting a category larger than a single nation. When classifying states as civilization states, emphasis is often placed on a country's historical continuity and cultural unity across a large geographic region.

The term was first coined in the 1990s as a way to describe China, later India but has also been used to describe nations such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States.

The term has been popularized by Bruno Maçães in a series of essays since 2018.