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The question was about Smith's 'notion' of the nation. The replies have 
been about (our) notion of the nation state as it relates to Smith.  
 
One could also ask what Smith himself meant by the word 'nation'. It  
certainly doesn't mean a modern nation state in his usage, because he  
uses the word (e.g. in the preface to the Wealth of Nations) to include 
'savage nations of hunters and fishers' as well as 'civilised and  
thriving nations'. It seems at a first look to be almost  
interchangeable with 'country' and with 'society', though 'country' in  
the eighteenth century did not necessarily mean the same as nation  
state - it could refer to a region or county. When Smith uses 'nation'  
to refer to primitive peoples, the word seems to imply a wider grouping 
than 'tribe', and may perhaps refer to a cultural grouping of people  
who share a way of life. I suspect that the word did not have a fixed  
and clear-cut meaning for Smith. There is an interesting question about 
the size of the implicit unit whose wealth is discussed in the Wealth  
of Nations. 
 
Tony Brewer 
 
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