subnational

adjective

sub·​na·​tion·​al ˌsəb-ˈnash-nəl 

-ˈna-shə-nᵊl

variants or sub-national

: existing or occurring below a national level : relating to or being a group or region within a nation

a subnational government

members of a subnational culture

Nations with differing political and economic systems are flourishing. Sub-national groups, with varied and contradictory agendas, are on the rise.

—Fareed Zakaria

Examples of subnational in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The state will also launch an international climate partnership among subnational jurisdictions with similar Mediterranean climates and will participate in a local climate action summit. —Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 29 Nov. 2023

On a subnational level, too, leftists outside the United States have put sloganeering aside to pursue concrete goals in office and show what their ideals can look like in real life. —Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 21 Mar. 2024

These are standalone projects that operate independently in the voluntary carbon offset market, outside of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s REDD+ framework for national and subnational projects. —Keerti Gopal, Ars Technica, 26 Aug. 2023

California delegates to the U.N. Climate Summit this week are pushing for subnational governments — states, provinces and cities — to have a more prominent role in future climate negotiations, The Hill reports. —Soumya Karlamangla, New York Times, 29 Nov. 2023

And guess what jurisdictions are included in just assessing what the appropriate guidance should be, the U.S. subnational states. —Tax Notes Staff, Forbes, 28 Nov. 2023

That doesn’t mean subnational ties are immune from turmoil. —Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Nov. 2023

What are other examples of subnational collaborations on climate? —Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Nov. 2023

The multilateral method of the 2020s must operate across a variety of public and private networks: regional, subnational, national, transnational, and global. —Robert B. Zoellick, Foreign Affairs, 22 Feb. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1840, in the meaning defined above