Why does the U.S have so many states and Canada has fewer provinces and territories?

Question

I think there are about 50 states or so, and there are about 12 provinces and territories. What I want to know is, why don't we all have one......thing? For example, we should all have states, or all have provinces, or all have territories....Also, why does Canada have provinces AND territories? Why not just provinces? Or only territories?

Thanks

Answer 1

Naming conventions of a country's land is really entirely up to the country but this is a basic explanation of how it works.

The word "country" is actually really vague. It can mean either a "Nation" (the community) or a "State" (a government and its land). Almost all countries are "Nation States" (all the above combined together) with a few exceptions.

States can own territories which are lands owned by a country but kept separate for whatever reason they wish.

Various countries have provinces, districts, or other divisions. Historically this is often done because the country gained new land a chunk at a time and so each chunk of land got its own local government and a name.

The USA is funny because it started out as thirteen colonies, all separate from each other. They united after the Revolution as a Confederacy (just another term for alliance). That is why they are called states. The country was not truly unified until we wrote the Constitution, but the term "state" stuck with us.

The US has so many more states because we set rules on how many people needed to be in a territory before they could apply to become states. The smaller the territory was sliced up, the easier it was to become a state. Also we acquired land slowly bit by bit and did not just carve out the whole turkey in one sitting.

Canada has far fewer people and a lot more trees so there is little reason to make smaller states.

The German translation of of its sixteen "Länder" also happens to be "state" for some odd reason.

Switzerland is divided into Cantons. This is entirely just to make the division of local government easier.

The United Kingdom is a state with four countries within it: Britain, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scottland.

Taiwan is considered a runaway "province" of China.

Many countries still have territories that are not part of the country. The United States has Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

If you want an analogy it is like this. You own a house that you live in. This is your actual country and the rooms in your house are your provinces. You also own a storage shed on the other side of town, a beach house, and a log cabin. Those three are your territories. You own them and control them to some extent but you don't live in them and you might have someone else taking care of them for you. If your family grows too big then you add rooms (or states) to your house or you send them off to live in your beach house and eventually your beach house may become a permanent place to live (and become part of your country like Hawaii).