Utopia derives from the Greek and literally means "no-place" or, as Quevedo glossed; "There is no such place. " The word was coined by Thomas More to describe an ideal society, and therefore nonexistent.

This "republic" is imagined as better than the known ones, especially the European one of the Renaissance, for which the term can be interpreted as Eutopia, also derived from the Greek; meaning "the good place", as opposed to dystopia or "bad place. " In a strict sense, the term refers to the homonymous work of Tomás Moro; Dē Optimo Rēpūblicae Statu dēque Nova Insula Ūtopia.

In it, Utopia is the name given to an island and the fictitious community that inhabits it, whose political, economic and cultural organization contrasts in many ways with the English society of the time. With this work, Moro creates the genre of political utopias and therefore in more general terms the word "utopia" is used to refer to an ideal political society, with a desirable plan, project, doctrine or system that seems very difficult to make, or imaginative representation of a future society with favorable characteristics for health, the common well-being of society, which usually contains a more or less implicit criticism of the really existing political society.

In another sense, the term "utopian" is used to refer in a pejorative way to the theories or political programs that are considered unrealizable. .