Courts covering a lot of states in European country (7)
I believe the answer is:
austria
'european country' is the definition.
(Austria is an example)
'courts covering a lot of states' is the wordplay.
'courts' becomes 'atria' (atrium is a kind of court).
'covering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'a lot of states' becomes 'us' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'atria' enclosing 'us' is 'AUSTRIA'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for austria that I've seen before include "Landlocked European country" , "Republic of central Europe" , "One state" , "The Von Trapps lived there" , "Mountainous European republic" .)