In international relations, a regional power is a state that has power within a geographic region. States which wield unrivaled power and influence within a region of the world possess regional hegemony.

Regional powers shape the polarity of a regional area. Typically, regional powers have capabilities which are important in the region but do not have capabilities at a global scale. There are slightly differing definitions of what makes a regional power. The European Consortium for Political Research defines a regional power: "A state belonging to a geographically defined region, dominating this region in economic and military terms, able to exercise hegemonic influence in the region and considerable influence on the world scale, willing to make use of power resources and recognized or even accepted as the regional leader by its neighbours".^{[dead link]}

The German Institute of Global and Area Studies states that a regional power must:

Below are states that have been described as regional powers by international relations and political science academics, analysts, or other experts. These states to some extent meet the criteria to have regional power status, as described above. Different experts have differing views on exactly which states are regional powers. States are arranged by their region, and in alphabetic order. Primary, or major, regional powers are placed in the major regions as identified by analysts. Secondary, or minor, regional powers are listed within their subregions.

Pepe Escobar (born 1954) is a journalist based in São Paulo, Brazil. He writes a column entitled The Roving Eye for Asia Times Online and is analyst and correspondent for The Real News Network. His article, 'Get Osama! Now! Or else...', was published by Asia Times Online two weeks before the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001; in it, he claimed that Al Qaeda was in tatters.

Dr. John O' Brennan is a political scientist and a frequent contributor to the international media. He lectures in European Politics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM)and is known for his research on the politics of EU enlargement policy, EU external Relations and Ireland's relationship with the European Union. He is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe at NUI Maynooth, an inter-disciplinary research centre dedicated to analysis of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and their position within Europe.

O' Brennan graduated from the University of Limerick with a First Class Honours Degree in European Studies and later spent one year as a Visiting Fellow at the Varna Economics University in Bulgaria. In 2001 he obtained a PhD in political science from the University of Limerick and began teaching European politics in the Department of Government and Society. In 2005 he spent three months as a Visiting Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris. He was also awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences for work on the European Union's eastern enlargement. In 2007 he was appointed Lecturer in European Politics and Society within the Department of Sociology at NUI Maynooth.

Janice Gross Stein, O.Ont, CM, FRSC (born 1943) is a Canadian political scientist and international relations expert.

Stein holds degrees from McGill University (undergraduate and Ph.D.), and Yale University (masters). She has been a professor at the University of Toronto since 1982, and was named a University Professor in 1996.

Stein is the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and Associate Chair and Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and Negotiation within the University of Toronto's political science department. She is a specialist in Middle East area studies; negotiation theory; foreign policy decision-making; and international conflict management, on which she has lectured at the Centre for National Security Studies in Ottawa and at the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy.

Stein is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other organizational affiliations and memberships include: