The United Kingdom, England, Great Britain ? are these three the same place? are they different places ? Do British people secretly laugh those who use the terms wrongly ? who knows the answer to these questions? I do and I'm going to tell u right now.
For the lost:this is the world, this is the European continent and this is the place we have to untangle. the area shown in purple is the United Kingdom. Part of the confusion is that the UK is not a single country but is instead a country of countries, it contains inside of it four co-equal and sovereign nations. The first of these is England-shown here is red. England is often confused with the UK as a whole because it's the largest and most populous of the nations and contains the capital city, London. to the north is Scotland, shown in blue and to the west is Wales, show is white. And often forgotten even by those who live in the UK, is Northern Ireland shown in Orange. Each country has a local term for the population. While u can call them all British it's not recommended as the four countries generally don't like each other. The Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh regard the English as slave-driving colonial masters --- no matter that all the three have their own devolved Parliaments and are allowed to vote on English laws despite the reverse not being true -- and the English generally regard the rest as rural yokels who spend too much time with their sheep. However, as the four constitent countries don't have their own passports, they are all British Citizens, like it or not, The are British Citizens of the UK whose full name by the way is the United Kingdom of great Britain and Northern Ireland.where is great Britain then ? Right here: the Rean covered in black is great Britain. Unlike England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island, Great Britain is a geographical rather than a political term. Great Britain is the largest island among the British Isles. Within the United Kingdom, the term"Great Britain" is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales alone with the intentional exclusion of Northern Ireland. This is mostly, but not completely true, as all three constituent countries have islands that are not part of Great Britain such as the Isle of Wight, part of England, the Welsh, Isle of Anglesey and the Scottish Hebrides, The Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands, Islands of the Clyde.
The second Biggest Island in the British Isles is Ireland, It is worth nothing that Ireland in not a country, like Great Britain, it is a geographical not a political term, The Island of Ireland contain on it two countries, Northern Ireland -- which we have already discussed -- and the republic of Ireland, when people say that they are Irish, they are referring to the Republic of Ireland which is separate country from the UK. However both Republic of Ireland and the UK are members of the European Union even though England often likes to pretend that it's an Island in the mid-Atlantic rather than 50 KM off the cost of Franc. But that's a story for another time.
