On the Concept of "Sub-State Region" as a Historic-, Linguistic-, and Cultural Community inside a Sovereign State

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In this research, applicability of the concept of "sub-state region" to the cases of Puerto Rico and Okinawa was examined. The concept of "sub-state region "is difined as "a political unit of a group of human beings with a historic-, linguistic-, and culturalcommunity based on a geographicspace, which does not prefer the establishment of an independent sovereign state and rather choose to remain, or to be integrated, under the sovereignty of other state with a different histoyic-, linguistic, and cultural background"As for the case of Puerto Rico, application of the concept is useful for understanding the political situation of this territory with a Spanish cultural background under the sovereignty of the United States. Although Puerto Rico qualifies for the formation of its own independent sovereign state, the people of Puerto Rico has shown their preference of remaining in the United States. Conventional concepts like "nation" or "ethnic group" cannot explaine this fact. Here the concept of "sub-state region" which separates the issues of "nationality" or "ethnicity" from that of sovereign state is more helpful to understand the situation. In the case of Okinawa, the same can be said.