Eclecticology wrote: This disagreement may reflect a peculiar usage of the term "government" in the United States. I know that in the UK (so I suspect in Canada too), the "government" consists of the various ministers in the cabinet, and one gets a "new" government every time the parliamentary coalition changes. Even in the US, we apply terms this way to parliamentary systems: "The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair has fallen, and elections have been called for next Thursday." (I wish). To an American, however, the government is the whole shebang, the cabinet, the legislature (including the opposition party!), and especially the reams of bureaucracy that affect one's daily life. Just because there's been an election doesn't mean that the Department of Motor Vehicles has changed -- it's the same government. I remember hearing in junior high that the US Constitution is good because Italy (say) has had dozens of governments since the end of WWII, while we've had the same stable government since 1787. I no longer recall if I heard this from an ignoramus or a joker, but it's true only if you change the meaning of the word "government" between the two halves of the sentence. Anyway, the name "People's Republic of China" is not used by the country. It's used by the government -- this one, and previous ones back to Mao's. It's a political name that wouldn't exist without a government to attach it to. If the Chinese abolished government, it would no longer apply to anything, yet the country of China would continue to exist. Nobody would *change* the name; the Chinese people would continue to call the country "China" (Mandarin "Zhong1guo2") then as now as before. We can perhaps avoid further debate by saying that the long form is the "official political name" for a country: a name imposed on the country (and officially so) by the dominant political entity there. Similarly, the PRC's territory includes Tibet, arguably not part of China. -- Toby

Eclecticology wrote: What would you call these instead? The "state"? That would be confusing in the US, since "State" names one particular level of our government. Yes, they certainly have had a lot of governments since the end of WWII, but not in the sense that the US has had the same government since 1787. But even that term is a reference to a form of government. Had he adopted the title of "king" ("rey"), he'd have changed it. Here you seem to be using the term "country" to refer to a political entity. IME, it's a vaguer term that says more, and less, than that. Wales and Scotland are not the same country, but North and South Korea are. This is why it's meaningful to claim that Tibet and China are different countries -- and why this claim isn't quite the same as a call for Tibetan (political) independence. This probably settles the matter for purposes of Wikipedia, however much we may argue about things in the above paragraphs. (Well, it would settle it if we were the only two people in Wikipedia.) Except that "geographical territory", in this context, means "country" ^_^. -- Toby