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Do all states have a unitary system of government?
Does a country have a unitary or a federal system?
What is the difference between a federation and a unitary state?
Is a state a federal or unitary state?
Depending on how a constitution organizes power between the central and subnational governments, a country may be said to possess either a unitary or a federal system ( see also federalism ). In a unitary system the only level of government besides the central is the local or municipal government.
The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states , 126 are governed as centralized unitary states, and an additional 40 are regionalized unitary states.
Unitary states stand in contrast to federations, also known as federal states. A large majority of the UN member countries , 166 out of 193, have a unitary system of government. [2]
unitary state, a system of political organization in which most or all of the governing power resides in a centralized government, in contrast to a federal state. A brief treatment of the unitary state follows. For additional discussion, see Political system: Unitary nation-states; federation; confederation.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Updated on February 02, 2022. A unitary state, or unitary government, is a governing system in which a single central government has total power over all of its other political subdivisions. A unitary state is the opposite of a federation, where governmental powers and responsibilities are divided.
The United States is one example of a federal republic. The U.S. Constitution grants specific powers to the national government while retaining other powers for the states. For example, the federal government can negotiate treaties with other countries while state and local authorities cannot.
Of the eight largest countries in the world by area, seven—Russia, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Australia, India, and Argentina—are organized on a federal basis. (China, the third largest, is a unitary state.)
