What Society Involves

In this respect, we can define a society in terms of the following characteristics:

• Living in a particular geographical area (marked by physical borders).
• Subject to a common form of government (monarchy, parliament, etc.).
• Aware of having a distinct identity from other groups (societies) around them.

Other features of a society we could add might be that they consist of a group of people who share:

• Common language and
• Common traditions, and customs (or culture).

In terms of the above, therefore, the definition of a society is quite broad. It is a definition that could include relatively small groups of people (tribal societies) or millions of people (modern societies such as Britain, China and America).

However, we need to add a further dimension to the definition, since the main area of interest for sociologists is not what society is (in the sense of its physical definition), but rather what the effects of living in a social group like a society might be on individual human behaviour.

This second dimension, therefore, involves defining society in terms of its possible effects.

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