Outside the UK, "country" usually means "independent state".

The UK usage is more local than anything else, because if you're going to call Wales a country you'd really need to call things like Bavaria or Texas countries.

To be fair, there’s a lot of Texans who would like to call Texas a country as well.

Right and you've illustrated my point - outside the UK country means "independent state".

Inside the UK it seems to mean "Independent state + Wales + Scotland".

Do you mean to say that referring to countries as regions is incorrect? I thought “region” was a pretty generic term for geographic area, regardless of political boundaries