Okay, so what I have in my fantasy world so far are 3 (well, 4 if you consider the Elves and Dark Elves two different races) races, each living in a realm or village with their own people. Would that section of the world (the four races that live fairly close to one another) be considered a country, I'm assuming? I wondered if each area where the races live would be a country, but that also didn't quite make sense.
Is it "normal" (considering fantasy worlds aren't quite normal) for different races to live together in one country, since they have different cultures and languages (eventually I'll make up languages)? And if I made a different country, should I do anything to make it different from any other countries in that world?

Do I even need countries in my world, or just have them split up into their various groups and not worry about countries?

Well I assumed I needed the countries, but I was trying to figure out how to split the land into countries. The differences between the cultures won't be a problem as much as trying to figure out what in the world I'm doing :P

Greetings,

Insightful question! I love figuring this sort of stuff out. There are several things that need to be considered.

1) What is a nation?

2) What sort of cultural boundaries are there?

3) What sort of geographical boundaries are there?

4) What sort of relations do the different people groups have?

These four should get you started. From what I can tell, you need at least four nations: one nation for each race (yes, black elves being separate). Geographical boundaries play a very small role in deciding nations (boundaries being their only real thing).

A nation is a group of people (that is supposed to use one language, biblically) that is ruled by a common system of government. In other words, a nation is defined by its ruling powers. Rebellions of course make it difficult, but we can set that aside. So if part of the relations of two people groups is that they war constantly, then they are essentially different countries. Exceptions apply.

If you have two people groups who live separately and have very distinct cultures, although they may be under the same ruling government, they count as two separate nations many times, although they are really only provinces of an empire. Rome was an example of that.

Does that make sense?

Thanks.

I thought about it a little earlier (well, I wasn't really thinking about it, but I came up with the idea out of nowhere... that's usually what happens when I'm trying to figure something out), and it seemed to make sense that each race had essentially their own nation/country. I may adjust distances and such a bit, but I need to work on that anyway as I'm editing my story (which I am thoroughly enjoying doing).

If you need geographical boundaries and they don't seem to fit, you could make more than one nation out of a race. I don't think that the different races should have to live in different nations because of there languages, the US isn't like that. Even if it is Biblical for a nation to have the same language, I'm assuming it is not a perfect world. Anyway one race can learn another's language.
No offense meant to Sir Emeth by the whole language thing

I agree with Sir Emeth that you need to consider the government of your peoplegroups and that will determine information about your countries. Countries pretty much only exist because someone in authority has claimed a portion of land and said. "This is mine. I control it. I make the laws, I tax the people (paramount in pretty much all governments) and I'm not going to let anybody impinge upon my property."

Do you see your any of your races as being willing to have another race as overlord? If they aren't going to be happy with this, then yeah, each of your races will need to have their own political boundaries.

Good luck in deciding all those details and building them into at least a skeleton on which to hang your world.

It's important to remember that "government exists by the consent of the governed." If your people don't want to be governed, they don't have to be, especially in a fantasy world.

No offense at all. I agree totally, and I am surprised that I didn't make it more clear what I meant. Sorry, and thank you for clarifying.

Government ought to exist by the consent of the governed, in that Biblical government is that way. But you can have people who are unrighteously governed by a forceful tyrant (which really is not a true government at all if you want to be semantically picky). Besides, tyrannical nations make for involved and suspenseful plots.

True. I find it helpful to start with a map and work from there to define countries.