Polity

A polity is a group of people who are brought together by any form of political agreement and who consider themselves as forming an autonomous unit. The political agreement uniting the group may be of different types: it can be a written constitution or even the unwritten recognition and respect of a hierarchy within the group. Depending on the size of the polity, it can be organized by a government or other, simpler forms of hierarchy. It is important to realize that the term polity can be used to refer to big entities like states, empires, and kingdoms, but also to smaller units like chiefdoms. What counts in calling a given group "a polity" is not its size nor the form of government it has. To be called "a polity" a group must be an organized and autonomous group that has exclusive rights of use of a specific portion of land.