'Country' began as Latin for 'the land spread before you' — both nation and rural landscape.
A nation with its own government and territory; also, rural land as opposed to a city or town.
From Old French 'contrée' (12th century), itself from Medieval Latin 'contrāta (terra),' meaning 'the land lying opposite' or 'the land spread before one.' This was formed from the Latin preposition 'contrā' ('against, opposite'), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱom-trō. The semantic development moved from 'the land spread out before the
The word 'country' literally means 'the land opposite you' — it started as a description of whatever terrain you happened to be looking at. The fact that it now means an entire nation with borders and a government is a remarkable journey from a humble spatial metaphor about the view from where you stand.