States are political entities that incorporate within their established borders one or more nationalities. Each state can be categorized according to its physical characteristics, including its shape. Those categories include compact, fragmented, elongated, prorupted, and perforated, as well as other defining characteristics like the dominance of desert or major boundaries that run along large bodies of water (i.e., countries with long coastlines). In the cases of Nepal, Colombia, Nicaragua, Portugal and France, the categories, unsurprisingly, vary depending upon each state's shape. Portugal is categorized as an elongated state along with more obvious examples like Vietnam and Chile, which are long, slender territories. Nepal has been categorized as rectangular, but elongated is a more established term for countries of its shape, so that is where is it could be categorized for purposes of this exercise.
France would appear to be compact given that its center is relatively equidistant from its borders. It is, however, more properly categorized as fragmented because of its island territories in South America and the Caribbean, specifically, the territories of French Guyana and Corsica, which are physically detached from France "proper." Colombia is a prorupted state, as it combines the characteristics of a compact state with an extension in its northern-most provinces.
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