Knowledge Articles | England and UK and Britain

England and UK and Britain

People often ignore minute geographical differences and get mixed up with various entities. Such minute mistakes might not affect our daily life, but are certainly interesting to note. Moreover, people might get hurt when you address them with your ignorance. For example, when you are from Andhra Pradesh and if people address you as North Indian... it's natural for you to get hurt. Coming to the point, have you ever felt that the nouns England, UK, Britain and Great Britain are different from each other. And here are the differences...

- United Kingdom refers to four sovereign nations together. There four nations are England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. To be precise the official name of this combo is called 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'

- Great Britain indicates the major island that's consisting of England, Scotland and Wales. Britain is often termed as a place with just England and Wales. And there is another term called British Isles which is a huge entity. British Isles refers to a group of almost 6000 islands that lie close to each other such as Great Britain and Ireland.

- Now you are certainly sure that England is different from UK and Britain. It's just one of the four sovereign states that form UK. These four states are so independent that they are often treated as different countries.

- It's almost clear by now that various terms denote various geographical entities. So if you call a person from Scotland as English... he might definitely get hurt. Because it's reasonable to call people from Scotland as Scottish; Wales and Welsh; Northern Ireland as Irish and of course England as English.