The United Kingdom, Great Britain, Scotland: deciphering what it all means

There is often great confusion over the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England. Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are often a part of this confusion as well, as they were in my last post. So, I thought I'd clear up all confusion once and for all.

1. United Kingdom

This is defined as "a country and a sovereign state." Its official name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is also defined as "a political union made up of four constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland."

The Act of Union 1800 actually joined the entire island of Ireland with the island of Great Britain, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This union lasted until 1922, when the Irish Free State (later called the Republic of Ireland, comprising all of the island of Ireland except Northern Ireland) broke off from the United Kingdom.

2. Great Britain

As noted in the official name of the United Kingdom, Great Britain is just a part of the greater United Kingdom. It is actually the largest island in the British Isles, comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales. Only Northern Ireland is not a part of Great Britain (as is obvious in the United Kingdom's name). Northern Ireland is part of the island of Ireland (not to be confused with the country, the Republic of Ireland).

The political union known as the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed with the Acts of Union 1707. This seems to be where the terminology of the country of "Great Britain" began. Technically, it is now the United Kingdom, not Great Britain. Great Britain is simply an island, not a country.

But, while England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all compete at the Olympics under one banner, that banner is "Great Britain". Last year, one medal went to "Great Britain". The country's official Olympic website encourages support for "Team GB".

Whether they're holding onto "Great Britain" because of the uncertainty of things in Ireland or not is beyond me. Maybe it's sort of like us calling the United States of America simply America. Yes, there's North and South America, but who wants to use 9 syllables to say their country's name (or in the United Kingdom's case, 14 syllables). Still, don't you feel just a little sorry for the poor folks in Northern Ireland?

Well, I do.

In any event, Wikipedia offers this:

In everyday speech and non-official writing in all English-speaking and most other countries, "Great Britain", and simply "Britain", are much more commonly used than "United Kingdom" to designate the sovereign state officially known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (see United Kingdom). In addition, "Great Britain" and/or the abbreviation "GB" (or "GBR") are officially used for the entire UK by the Universal Postal Union, the International Olympic Committee, NATO, the International Organization for Standardization, and other organisations.

So, make what sense you can of it, but it is what it is.

Wikipedia also has this to offer on the terminology:

"Great Britain" is used as an abbreviation for the country formally known as the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

The United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland in addition to the three countries that make up Great Britain. The three countries that make up Great Britain itself collectively include over 100 other islands.

The correct international foreign vehicle identification code for the whole of the United Kingdom is GB as are the ISO 3166 geocodes GB and GBR.

The same abbreviation, 'GB', is used informally, for example, in the Olympic Games, where the United Kingdom team may refer to themselves as 'Team GB'. A common alternative abbreviation is UK for United Kingdom, though this can potentially be confused with Ukraine. On the Internet, .uk is used as a country code top-level domain. A .gb top-level domain was also used to a limited extent in the past, but this is now defunct.

There is a similar situation with the terms Britain and British, which are used to relate to the whole of the United Kingdom, as well as overseas territories and Crown dependencies and not just the islands of Great Britain. This usage is well-established and generally considered to be correct. Examples of this are "British monarchs", "British culture" and "British citizens" - which would generally be considered to embrace the whole of the United Kingdom. As if this was not confusion enough, the term "British" also has specific historical and archaeological usage, referring to the Celtic Brython peoples on the island prior to and during the Roman occupation.

The colloquial term 'British Isles', usually refers to Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and all other islands as listed above. The Channel Islands are not included in this designation, as they are located approximately 12 miles off the coast of northwestern France and are geologically related to mainland France.

The legal term 'British Islands' refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland together with the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey as well as the Isle of Man.

In rugby league the RFL fields its representative side under the name Great Britain.

Okay, now that you're sufficiently confused as to what the "United Kingdom" and "Great Britain" mean in the context in which they're used, what about the "four constituent countries"? What exactly is their status?

3. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

These have been referred to as "constituent countries," "constituent nations," "component countries," "constituent parts," and "home nations."

Rather than regurgitate information on this strange conglomerate that's already out there, I've tapped Wikipedia's wealth of knowledge, which can be found here.

(I have bolded things I thought were more pertinent for the skim readers out there. I'm not sure why...if you're skim reading, you've probably quit reading by now anyway.)

The word country does not necessarily connote political independence, so that it may, according to context, be used to refer either to the UK or one of its constituents. Thus, for example, the website of the British Prime Minister refers to "Countries within a country", stating "The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland". This article discusses the use of the phrase 'constituent countries' within that context, but it should be remembered that the phrase necessarily takes its meaning from its surrounding context which may be different.

Although the term constituent countries is sometimes used by official government bodies in the UK, such as the Office for National Statistics, it is rarely used otherwise. Far more frequently, they are simply referred to as countries; thus the UK Government's 2001 Census asked residents of the UK their "country of birth" with tick box options of: England; Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland; Republic of Ireland and Elsewhere; and the Office for National Statistics states authoritatively in its Glossary that "In the context of the UK, each of the 4 main subdivisions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) is referred to as a country".

The British Embassy in the United States uses the word countries on its website, rather than constituent countries: "The United Kingdom is made up of the countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."

All four have always had and continue to have distinctive variations in legislative and administrative status and England and Scotland were originally independent states. All four are still generally regarded as possessing distinct nationalities (an attribute of civil society), although they have no distinct citizenships (an attribute of the state). To varying degrees, their inhabitants may view themselves, for example, as English/Irish (Unionists may use 'Northern Irish')/Scottish/Welsh or as British by nationality, or frequently indeed as both.

Northern Ireland was the first part of the UK to have a devolved government, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, until the Parliament of Northern Ireland was suspended in 1972. Subsequent attempts at reinstating a form of devolved government in Northern Ireland have stalled, and the area is currently governed directly by the UK government. The complex history of Northern Ireland has led to differing views as to its status, but almost nobody in day-to-day speech, and even in more semi-official or official usage, refers to it as a "country". The term "Province" is used more often by unionist and British commentators, but not by nationalists, who use the term when referring to all of the nine counties in the province of Ulster, rather than just the six counties which are still part of the United Kingdom.

Scotland and Wales adopted devolved governments in the 1990s, but have long been described as countries in their own right. Although England lacks a devolved government of its own, and no real legal existence, except as part of "England and Wales", it is almost universally thought of as a country and a nation.

All four constituent countries of the United Kingdom have political parties campaigning for further self-government or independence. In the case of Northern Ireland, both the desire for union with the Republic of Ireland and a small movement for independence from both the Republic and the UK have existed. There is a movement for self-government in Cornwall which has campaigned for Cornwall to be recognised as a constituent country of the UK, rather than its current status as an English county.
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All citizens of the United Kingdom, from whichever constituent country, are British citizens (although many people in Northern Ireland are entitled to, and often do, hold Irish citizenship) and are also citizens of the European Union.

If you've made it this far, frankly, I'm very impressed. I hope you've learned something.

Nah...your'e probably just more confused. Yeah, me too.