Autonomous regions exist in many different contexts around the world. While some countries decide to embrace autonomy fully by giving it to all sub-national regions, other instances have to do with indigenous or multi-ethnic self-determiniation, geographically separate territories or an area's wish for greater independence or even secession - sometimes in combination. Colonialism continues to play a role in many autonomy contexts today.
Large present-day countries emerging from former empires like China and Russia have embraced autonomy in order to govern their multi-ethnic constitutents, which has not always been free of controvercy as degrees of self-determination continue to vary and peoples might generally object to being governed without having much of an outlet for these qualms in current international law.
Emerging from the context of European and American colonialism are a lot of other examples of autonomously governed territories. While many former colonies of these countries gained independence, some have achieved full autonomy, while again others were fully integrated into the colonizing (or another) state. To be classified as decolonialized by the UN and be removed from the list of non-self-governing territories, it is sufficient to have achieved one of the three. This has led to disagreements over the years, with two French territories successfully lobbying to be put back on the list, the autonomous West Papua region of Indonesia and the partly autonomous Rapa Nui islands (Easter Islands) inquiring why they weren't included in the first place and questions of indigenous self-determination being discussed in Hawaii, which was delisted as non-self-governing upon statehood in 1959.
This shows that even full autonomy isn't always satisfactory for the territories in question, despite several having chosen it over independence or integration over the years. In and outside of colonial contexts, autonomy has been a compromise offered by central governments that frequently did not stop the strive for secession. This is the case in Cameroon, which recently granted some autonomy to English-speaking parts, or Papua New Guinea, where autonomous island Bougainville has continued to strive for independence. In many places, questions around the status and future of autonomous regions have remained open for many years, like in Iraq's Kurdistan and Tanzania's Zanzibar. Gridlock around autonomy is evident in de-facto states like Somalia's Somaliland, Moldova's Transnistria or Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Also worth mentioning in the context of secession is Scotland, like Wales and Northern Ireland officially a United Kingdom constituent country with devolution, which outside of the typical colonial contexts sees itself nevertheless faced with the desire of many of its citizens for independence beyond autonomy. As the autonomy of Northern Ireland is governed by the Good Friday Agreement, the United Kingdom is the only country on the map with all three types of autonomy contexts. The country also has many dependent overseas territories, most of which continue to be listed as non-self-governing, meaning the level of autonomy they have achieved is limited.
The same applies for U.S. territories Guam, American Samoa and the United States Virgin Islands, while in the case of Puerto Rico, the non-self-governing designation was removed, which - again - doesn't mean that questions about independence or statehood have ceased.
