What's difference between 国籍 and 民族?

Question

I'm revising vocabulary for HSK4 and I found many words with similar meanings. A pair I found today was: 国籍 and 民族. What's the difference between them?

Answer 1

• 国籍 = nationality (as based on what nation you are from)
• 民族 = ethnic group

For the majority of Chinese people their:

• 国籍 = 中国 (Chinese)
• 民族 = 汉 (Han)

Answer 2

"Nationality":

... establish[es a] person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state

A "nation":

... is a stable community of humans formed on the basis of a common language, territory, history, ethnicity, or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture

I think this is where the confusion comes in between the two Chinese terms.

• 民族 is sometimes confusingly translated as "nationality" in the sense of belonging to a nation in that broader sense (though the usual English word for this is actual "ethnicity" or "ethnic group").
• 国籍 is what's usually referred to as "nationality" in English - being a national of a country or territory. This has legal meaning and would be written on passports and other official documents.

Answer 3

国籍（nationality）指的是哪国人，对于中国人国籍是中国；民族（nation）指的是你所在的民族，比如中国有56个民族，其中汉族是人数最多的民族.