Citizenship is alegalrelationship between a person and acountry. Usually the country is the one they were born in, lives in, supports, and in return gets protection. A person is usually a citizen of the country where he or she is born, but sometimes a person will apply fornaturalization, to become a citizen in another country. There are countries which allow dual (two) citizenship, and countries which do not.
A citizen is a member of asovereign group of people that have certain rights.Governments protect these rights or take advantage of them. Some Governments mayexile people from citizenship laws on such matter vary between countries.
- People born in the country may be citizens byJus soli, right of soil. Those having citizen parents may benatural born citizens.
- Some countries also recogniseJus sanguinis, the right of members of the nationaldiaspora to be citizens. Jus sanguinis comes from Latin meaning "right of blood" which basically means one can inherit citizenship by descent from a parent and in some cases a grandparent or even more distantancestors.
- Foreigners can also benaturalized as citizens.Naturalization makes them citizens of their new country. Many countries require that they give up their citizenship of their old country, but some countries have permanent citizenship; you can't quit such a citizenship.
- People who are citizens of more than one country, with approval of both Governments, aredual citizens. They may legally enter and live in either country.
- A person who has no citizenship is called astateless person. There are many causes of statelessness: wars, refugees, people whose birth was never registered, people born in a territory which is not recognised as a state, and so on. Some countries are very generous in giving stateless people citizenship, and some are not. The problem is well-known, but there is no general solution.
- Citizenship may be permanent. Some countries remove citizenship for various reasons, and some citizensrenounce their citizenship.
- Some countries also give citizenship to people who invest money in the country. This is called citizenship by investment. A person can become a citizen if they buy a house, start a business, or give money to the government. These rules are different in each country. People who get citizenship this way can live, work, and travel like other citizens.
