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Welcome to the United Kingdom (and a whole
lot more) explained by me, C. G. P. Grey
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The United Kingdom, England, Great Britain?
Are these three the same place? Different
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places? Do British people secretly laugh those
who use the terms wrongly? Who knows the answers
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to these questions? I do and I’m going to
tell you right now.
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For the lost: this is the world, this is the
European continent and this is the place we
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have to untangle.
The area shown in purple is the United Kingdom.
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Part of the confusion is that the United Kingdom
is not a single country but instead is a country
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of countries.
It contains inside of it four co-equal and
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sovereign nations
The first of these is England — shown here
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in red. England is often confused with the
United Kingdom as a whole because it’s the
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largest and most populous of the nations and
contains the de facto capital city, London.
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To the north is Scotland, shown in blue and
to the west is wales, shown in white.
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And, often forgotten even by those in the
United Kingdom, is Northern Ireland shown
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in orange.
Each country has a local term for the population.
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While you can call them all ‘British’
it’s not recommended as the four countries
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generally don’t like each other.
The Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh regard
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the English as slave-driving colonial masters
— no matter that all three have their own
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devolved Parliaments and are allowed to vote
on English laws despite the reverse not being
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true — and the english generally regard
the rest as rural yokels who spend too much
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time with their sheep.
However, as the four constituent countries
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don’t have their own passports, they are
all British Citizens, like it or not.
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British Citizens of the United Kingdom — whose
full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain
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and Northern Ireland.
So where’s Great Britain hiding?
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Right here: the area covered in black in Great
Britain. Unlike England, Scotland, Wales and
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Northern Ireland, Great Britain is a geographical
term rather than a political term.
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Great Britain is the largest island among
the British Isles.
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Within the United Kingdom, the term ‘Great
Britain’ is often used to refer to England,
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Scotland and Wales alone with the intentional
exclusion of Northern Ireland.
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This is mostly, but not completely true, as
all three constituent countries have islands
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that are not part of Great Britain such as
The Isle of Wight, Isles of Scilly and Lundy
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which are part of England, the Welsh Isle
of Anglesey and the Scottish
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** Hebrides
** Shetland Islands
** Orkney
Islands
** Islands of the Clyde
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The second biggest island in the british isles
is Ireland.
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It is worth noting that Ireland is not a country.
Like Great Britain, it is a geographical,
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not political, term.
The Island of Ireland contain on it two countries,
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Northern Ireland — which we have already
discussed — and the Republic of Ireland.
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When people say they are ‘Irish’ they
are referring to the Republic of Ireland which
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is a separate country from the united kingdom.
However, both the Republic of Ireland and
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the United Kingdom are members of the European
Union even though England often likes to pretend
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that it’s an Island in the mid-atlantic
rather than 50km off the cost of France. But
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that’s a story for another time.
To review:
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The two largest islands in the British Isles
are Ireland and Great Britain. Ireland has
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on it two countries — the republic of ireland
and northern ireland, while Great Britain
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(mostly) contains three: England, Scotland
and Wales. These last three, when combined
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with northern Ireland form the United Kingdom
Finished… no
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There are still many unanswered questions.
Such as, why, when you travel to Canada is
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there British Royalty on the money?
To answer this, we need to talk about Empire.
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You can’t have gone to school in the English-speaking
world without having learned that the British
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Empire once spanned a 1/4th the worlds land
and governed nearly a 1/4th its people.
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While it is easy to remember the part of the
empire that broke away violently…
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