In ST:TNG there was the episode where Crusher and Picard are kidnapped by one government on a planet while the Federation is trying to cut a deal with the other government. They also end up being given (IIRG) a drug that allows them to read each other’s thoughts and discover interesting “feelings” they have for each other.
And, of course, the ST:TOS with the Yangs and the Kohms. The Omega Glory.
In the Buck Rogers comic strip, Mars is divided. The Tiger Men control the northern hemisphere, while the Golden People have a number of independent states in the southern hemisphere.
In the Flash Gordon comic strip, Mongo has many small kingdoms. Emperor Ming claims to rule them all, but unless he has an army nearby, they are not particularly obedient. On Mongo, political allegiance tends to consist of personal loyalty to an individual leader, more than abstract loyalty to a state. On Flash’s second trip to Mongo, he lands on a different continent, where the local governments don’t even seem to be aware of Ming’s existence.
I came to mention Barsoom and some of Jack Vance’s worlds, but I see they have already been brought up. I’ll add in the planet Gor which, like Barsoom, was made up of numerous independent city-states and other cultures, many of which were constantly feuding. Also, many of Laumer’s Retief stories were based on the CDT (Earth’s diplomatic corps) trying to mediate conflicts between local governments which were very poorly trying to share a planet.
This reminds me of in Star Trek when they landed on other planets. It always seemed that other planets were forest planets or desert planets or ice planets. Apparently there are no planets like Earth that have different climates on the same planet.
The same happened in Stargate, although they did have an interesting time when they landed on an ice planet. That happened to be Earth’s Antarctica.
In the Looking Glass military SF series by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor, they meet several alien races. A race of felinoids that was enslaved by the bad guys had been low tech with multiple nations and empires on their planet before being defeated. Another race they meet in the second book is low tech and has several competing empires, which have to deal with meeting the higher tech humans. The other races met so far are all pretty much one world governments.
There was one episode of the original Battlestar Galactica where a planet(Terra?) was divided between an Eastern and Western Alliance. It was used as an analogy of Earth, with a nuclear war ensuing during the episode, and The Galactica destroys all the missiles in the ionosphere.
Slight nitpick - some levels are controlled by the Aultridia.
Bank’s Inversions also has nation states.
In comic books, the world of Rogue Trooper is divided between the North and South hemisphere polities.
China Miéville’s world of Bas Lag has several nations.
At least **Stargate: SG1 **had the excuse that they were more or less confined to the general area around wherever the local Stargate was located. But t hat was still a hilarious reveal.
However, it still plays into the cliche somewhat because SG1 assumed it was an ice planet based on their limited viewpoint rather than hypothesizing that they might just have ended up in a polar area of some other planet.
See Single Biome Planet.
Does The Butter Battle Book count?
Also, the civilization on the planet will have a single monolithic culture, where almost everybody has the same values, mores, tastes in art and music, and so on. For example, proud warrior races, and intellectual peace-loving races.
Except for Alexander. He was a Wussy Klingon. Wesley scared him, fer Pike’s sake.
See Planet of Hats.