Young Writers Society

So, I don't really need to know citizenship rules for my story, but I was wondering how I should make citizenship work in my world. So, my question to you all is how does citizenship work in and for different countries. Meaning what are requirements for citizenship and is there dual citizenship between certain countries or not.

'Basic' requirements for citizenship usually involve (aside from the obvious 'being born from parents with that nationality' clause) having lived in the country for a couple years at least, or having family with the citizenship residing there. Then, depending on the country, you might need to have to fit some other guidelines, like having work experience or skills, be in good health, within a certain age range, etc. They'll often check if you have a criminal record, etc. The best thing for you to do to get the info on this would be to brave the absolute maze that are government websites and look up their requirements.

As for dual citizenship, from what I've seen, a lot of countries allow it, but you've got a couple exceptions. For example, if, say, a Vietnamese wanted to become French, he'd have to abandon the Viet nationality and be only French, no dual citizenship allowed, while I'm pretty sure a Khmer could have both Cambodian and French nationalities at once.

Nooooo! I'm too scared to brave the maze! I actually wanted to know about the number of years ,whether or not one had to have been born to parents of a certain nationality or have been born on that country's soil to be eligible for citizenship....Does this make any sense?

In addition to all the requirements that Jagged listed, most countries also require you to pass a citizenship test, which usually consists of answering questions about the country's history.

General Path to Citizenship - US Dept. of State

Wuss :P

All those things would vary depending on country, so you'd have to adapt it to your purposes and your universe, keeping in mind the status of the country, its diplomacy, population, etc.
Number of years can also change depending on your status while a resident: taking Canada as an example, it seems that while the minimum time is three years (or four, don't have my reference at hand right now), they'll only count as half that time if you had only Temporary Resident status as opposed to Permanent Resident.
Re: born on country's soil: I was born in Vietnam but automatically had French nationality, so in this case, it wasn't required.
At the same time, I don't think I've ever heard of a non-Vietnam native to ever take the nationality, but whether that's because the government keeps it within the country/demands Vietnamese parents to allow for it (note that even having only one Vietnamese parent allows the children to get the citizenship, though they'd have to chose between it and the other parent's) or because no one in their right minds would ask for it I'm not sure (possibly it's a combination of both).

Obviously all I'm talking about is from personal experience, so those answers only work within specific contexts. Seriously, government websites will be good to find out how to get the paperwork done, and also to make you realize how much it seems like they're all trying to discourage people from applying by sheer obfuscation and hiding important stuff :P

I don't know...the US one seemed pretty clear....Are they all even in English? I don't really trust Google Translator. *has just suddenly realized that she has not made up her countries histories yet*