Dependent territory

A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency (sometimes referred as an external territory) is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state, yet remains politically outside the controlling state's integral area.

This article is about external territories which have a greater degree of autonomy from their parent state and function as de facto independent political entities. For subnational administrative divisions which have some degree of autonomy under the national government, see Autonomous administrative division.
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A dependent territory is commonly distinguished from a country subdivision by being considered not to be a constituent part of a sovereign state. An administrative subdivision, instead, is understood to be a division of a state proper. A dependent territory, conversely, often maintains a great degree of autonomy from its controlling state. Historically, most colonies were considered to be dependent territories. Not all autonomous entities, though, are considered to be dependent territories. Most inhabited, dependent territories have their own ISO 3166 country codes.

Some political entities inhabit a special position guaranteed by an international treaty or another agreement, thereby creating a certain level of autonomy (e.g. a difference in immigration rules). Those entities are sometimes considered to be, or are at least grouped with, dependent territories, but are officially considered by their governing states to be an integral part of those states. Such an example is Åland, an autonomous region of Finland.

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