Why do some states call themselve's "commonwealths"?
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Four states in the United States officially designate themselves "commonwealths": Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.\n\nIn these cases, this is merely a name and has no constitutional impact. They thus emphasize that they have a "government based on the common consent of the people", instead of a government legitimized through their earlier Royal Colony status that was derived from the King of England.
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The four US states that are officially commonwealths are Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia.\n\nThere is no legal distinction between these 4 commonwealths and the other 46 states.\n\nAs you may know, another use of the term "commonwealth" describes US dependencies like Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. In that sense, commonwealths are self-governing and autonomous, and voluntarily associated with the U.S. (though some residents of P.R. may beg to differ with the word "voluntary".)
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It has very much to do with how the United States was formed - from small units to a larger country instead of the conventional way where a nation is split into multiple provinces. This division of a nation into a central and local government is known as FEDERALISM.\n\nTake China for example, which uses provinces. The nation was united under emperor Qin Shi Huang and divided into multiple provinces, in order to more efficiently govern the nation. Here, the central government did the dividing, and hence kept as much power as possible to themselves.\n\nIn contrast, the United States (the name itself is suggestive) upon its formation consisted of 13 colonies, which united under a common cause to achieve independence. None of these states wanted to give up their power, contributing to the failure of the first union under the Articles of Confederation.\n\nThis was finally solved under the Constitution, which we continue to live under today. The basic model, however, persists, where the states have their own sphere of power that the central government (often misleadingly called the "federal government") cannot infringe upon. This does not exist under the province system where the central government is supreme in all matters.
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Some states hold the property.
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None of the answers so far have been right.  England is a nation, like scotland, wales, and north ireland.  Each of these belongs to the state of the United Kingdom.  Great Britain refers not to the state itself, but the large island which includes england, scotland, and wales, but not north ireland, which is on the irish island.  The commonwealth is a group of countries which the british monarchy used to control in colonial times, including australia, new zealand, india, canada, etc.
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There are four states that are Commonwealths; Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.\nCommonwealth" is also used in the U.S. to describe the political relationship between the United States and the overseas unincorporated territories of Puerto Rico and of the Northern Mariana Islands.\n\nToday the term is more general and means a political community.\nThe type of community indicated by the term commonwealth varies. For instance, in different contexts it might indicate:\na political unit founded in law by agreement of the people for the common good;\na federated union of constituent states;\na community of sovereign states;\na republic;\na democratic constitutional monarchy;\na Co-operative Commonwealth is a society based on cooperative and socialist principles.
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When you subtract the Commonwealth of Virginia, Commonwealth of Kentucky, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it leaves us with 46 Great States in the union.
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technically, there is only one "United States" but you are right in that there are several countries with translations equating. Most, however, are "the United State of..." Any country in itself can be called a state, and thus would be a United State.
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CommonWealth organization is a assosiation of the ex-British colonies who were under the rule of Queen of England in the past and now these countries are free.\nCommonwealth charter does not allow guests status to other countries.\n(Please pick any one as ur Best answer)
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The full title is State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and actually contains an island called, amazingly, Rhode Island (although the more common name for it is Aquidneck Island). And it's called an island because there's more islands in Rhode Island than there are in Hawaii.
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None, as the Commonwealth of Independent States was simply a name given to the former USSR when then country started to split apart in the early 1990's.
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Federal goverrnment oversees the states. Imagine each state as it's own country then giving them a higher authority to answer to.
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The British Commonwealth
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Some Jurisdictions exchange information, others do not.  Also when you say "Washington", no one knows whether you mean the State or D.C.
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The Commonwealth refers to countries that were once under British rule, but are independent today. One interesting fact is that the sport of Cricket is very popular in most Commonwealth countries. More information in the source below.
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Good question - something I've wondered about but have never been able to find an answer to.  What I have noticed in my travels is that (at least it seems so) that commonwealth governments get into your personal business more then others.
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The reason why different groups of people claimed lands as their own and ultimately leading to the term 'country' is b/c humans, just like animals, are territorial... possessive. We want to be able to call something our own.