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Most words starting with Landes- that I have encountered are about regions or states. For example: Landesbank, Landesbehörde, Landesbeamte,...
But here is Landesindex: Switzerland's national consumer price index.
Is there a way to know when the attribute being described is regional or national? Or is it a country-specific thing, e.g. in Germany Landes- means regional and maybe in Switzerland it means national?
I can comment on the usage in Austria and I think most of Germany will follow the same logic. In Austria you would refer to organisations on a regional (state) level with "Landes-". In politics, you would use "Ländersache" to describe issues that are dealt with on the level of a state (or Land) as opposed to "Bundes-" or "National" on a country level. In Austria and Germany the regions are called "Bundesländer" or "Länder" whereas in Switzerland they are called "Kantone" which would explain what you referred to in your post. In other contexts you might see Austria and Germany as whole referred to as "Land" as in "im ganzen Land", so you might want to look for context as well.
Germany, Austria and Switzerland are federal states like USA or Mexico too. This means, that all of the named countries are unions of a couple of former individual countries.
The USA is well know to be a federation of 50 states, and many people might also have learned that Mexico too is a federation that consists of 31 states.
You see, that the Swiss federal states are not called "Länder" or "Bundesländer" but "Kantone", which makes it a little bit easier.
But also the federations themselves (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, USA and Mexico) are "Länder" (countries)
So, you have the situation, that in Germany and Austria the category-name is the same for the federal states as well as for the federation.
So, this all is correct:
Deutschland ist ein Land. - Germany is a country.
Das Saarland ist ein Land. - Saarland is a state.
Das Saarland ist ein Bundesland Deutschlands. - Saarland is a federal state of Germany.Österreich ist ein Land. - Austria is a country.
Das Burgenland ist ein Land. - Burgenland is a state.
Das Burgenland ist ein Bundesland Österreichs. - Burgenland is a federal state of Austria.
And so, when you talk about a Länderspiel, then this is an international match (in sports).
A Ländervergleich is an international comparison, but is also might be a comparison between federal states within one federation.
But a Länderkammer always is a federal cabinet.
So, some terms beginning with Länder- always mean something that is international, some other always mean something that belongs to federal states of a federation, and some of these terms can mean both, depending on the context.
How can you know? Do the same that native speakers do: Learn it for each word, and if you are not sure, pay attention to the context.
In Germany, as a rule of thumb, when »Land« is in the definite, especially in plural or in combined terms, it means “state”. In the indefinite, it usually means “country”. (»Staat« meanwhile never means “state” within Germany, it generally refers to country-level political structure or else to a state within the USA.)
This is not a hard rule. Especially, if you're mentioning a definite country, and saying exactly which one, then this obviously overrides it
vice versa, you can also have an indefinite collection of states, but then it's usually made explicit:
Furthermore, »Land« in the definite can also have the different meaning of countryside, i.e. somewhere rural. This is more typical in an informal or poetic context.
