A
stateless nation is an
ethnic group, religious group, linguistic group or other cohesive group which is not the majority population in any
nation state. The term implies that the group "should have" such a state, and thus expresses
irredentism. This is orthogonal to
statelessness in the sense of an individual's complete lack of a legal nationality: members of stateless ethnic groups may be citizens/nationals of the country in which they live, or they may be denied citizenship by that country. Stateless nations are usually not represented as a nation in international sports such as
FIFA,
Olympics or in international communities such as the
United Nations. Nations without state are classified as
fourth world nations.