National identity

National identity comprises both political and cultural elements.^[4] As a collective phenomenon, it can arise from the presence of "common points" in people's daily lives: national symbols, language, the nation's history, national consciousness, and cultural artifacts.^[5] Subjectively, it is a feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status.^[6] In psychological terms, it is defined as an "an awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'".^[7] National identity can incorporate the population, as well as diaspora, of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity. Hyphenated ethnicities are examples of the confluence of multiple ethnic and national identities within a single person or entity.


Under international law, the term national identity, concerning states, is interchangeable with the term state's identity or sovereign identity of the state. A State's identity by definition, is related to the Constitutional name of the state used as a legal identification in international relations and an essential element of the state's international juridical personality. The sovereign identity of the nation also represents a common denominator for identification of the national culture or cultural identity, and under International Law, any external interference with the cultural identity or cultural beliefs^[8] and traditions appear to be inadmissible. Any deprivation or external modification of the cultural national identity violates basic collective human rights.^[9]


The expression of one's national identity seen in a positive light is patriotism characterized by national pride and the positive emotion of love for one's country. The extreme expression of national identity is chauvinism, which refers to the firm belief in the country's superiority and extreme loyalty toward one's country.^[1]