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.