Terminology of the British Isles

Summary

• Geographical terms:
• * The British Isles is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Continental Europe. It includes Ireland, Great Britain, the Isle of Man, Shetland, Orkney and thousands of smaller islands. Traditionally the Channel Islands are included, though they are geographically closer to mainland continental Europe, off the French coast of Normandy. This, in part, has resulted in the term being disputed.
• ** Great Britain is the largest island of the archipelago.
• ** Ireland is the second-largest island of the archipelago and lies directly to the west of Great Britain. The island of Ireland itself has its own offshore islands.
• ** The full list of islands of the British Isles includes over 6,000 islands, of which 51 have an area larger than.
• Political terms:
• * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the parliamentary constitutional monarchy occupying the island of Great Britain, the small nearby islands, and the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland. Usually, it is shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK, or Britain. Great Britain is sometimes used as a short form and is the name used by the UK in some international organisations. The abbreviation GB is frequently used for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in international agreements, e.g. Universal Postal Union and Road Traffic Convention, as well as in the ISO 3166 country codes. England was also formerly used synecdochically to refer to the whole United Kingdom but this usage became rare early in the 20th century.
• * Ireland is the sovereign republic occupying the larger portion of the island of Ireland. To distinguish the state from the island, or to distinguish either of these from Northern Ireland, it is also called "the Republic of Ireland" or simply "the Republic". In the past, its Irish-language name, Éire, was often used in an English-language context to distinguish it from Northern Ireland and from the island of Ireland.
• * England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are the four countries of the United Kingdom, though they are also referred to, especially in sporting contexts, as the home nations of the United Kingdom.
• * England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are separate legal jurisdictions within the United Kingdom.
• * Great Britain means the countries of England, Wales and Scotland, considered as a unit.
• * The British Islands consist of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These are the polities in and near the British Isles that have the British monarch as head of state.
• Linguistic terms:
• * The two sovereign states in the region, the United Kingdom and Ireland, are frequently referred to as countries. So too are England, Wales, Scotland and, to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland.
• * British is an adjective of the United Kingdom; for example, a citizen of the UK is called a British citizen—but for citizenship purposes "British" includes the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
• * "Anglo-" is often used as an adjectival prefix referring to the United Kingdom, particularly in the field of diplomatic relations. It can also refer to the English language or to anglophone peoples, and can have a variety of other shades of meaning.
• * Wales is sometimes called the Principality of Wales, although this has no modern constitutional basis.
• * Northern Ireland is often referred to as a province or called Ulster, after the traditional Irish province of Ulster within which it is located.
• Sports:
• * Forms of national representation vary from sport to sport. England, Scotland and Wales often compete separately as nations. In some sports—such as rugby and cricket—the island of Ireland competes as a nation; in others, most notably association football, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland field separate teams. In these contexts England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland/Northern Ireland are sometimes described as the home nations.
• *Forms of representation can also vary within a sport. In women's association football, for instance, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland compete as separate nations at the FIFA Women's World Cup but join together as the Great Britain Olympic football team for the Olympics.
• * Rugby union players from both Ireland and Great Britain play for the British and Irish Lions representing the four "Home Unions" of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
• * "Great Britain" is sometimes used to mean "United Kingdom". For example, at the Olympic Games, the team called "Great Britain" marches under the letter "G" in the Parade of Nations and represents Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, since athletes from Northern Ireland have entitlement to dual nationality, they have the choice of participating in either the Great Britain team or the Republic of Ireland team. Conversely, at the Universiade, the team marches under the full name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" under the letter "U" in the Parade of Nations.
• * In the majority of individual sports, at the international level competitors are identified as GB if they are from Great Britain or Northern Ireland. A small number of sports identify participants as representing their constituent country. In the Commonwealth Games, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each compete as separate nations, as do each of the three Crown Dependencies.

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Terminology in detail

• Britain is a political and geographic term which can refer to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or the island of Great Britain.
• Great Britain is the largest island in Europe and the political union of three nations, these being:
• *England and Wales is a political and administrative term referring to the two home countries of England and Wales, which share the same legal system. Between 1746 and 1967 the term "England" did legally include Wales.
• **England.
• **Wales.
• *Scotland
• *The historical Kingdom of Great Britain is Britain for the period 1707–1801.
• Britannia is the Latin name for Great Britain or for the Roman province of Britain, or a poetic reference to later Britain, or a female personification of Britain.
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, usually shortened to "the United Kingdom", is the sovereign state comprising Great Britain plus Northern Ireland since 1927. The United Kingdom is often called Britain, even on official websites, where such use is described as "informal". A proposal to rename the political entity as the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ulster" was formally recommended by civil servants to the Cabinet in 1949 but ultimately rejected.
• *The historical United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was Great Britain plus Ireland, for the period 1801 to 1922, although the name change after the secession of the Irish Free State only took place in 1927.
• While "United Kingdom" is normally abbreviated UK, the official ISO 3166 two-letter country code is GB and the three letter code is GBR. Due to a pre-existing convention originating in the UK's JANET academic computer network, the UK's Internet top-level domain is .uk, a break from the TCP/IP practice of following ISO 3166.
• GB was also used on car number plates to indicate the United Kingdom until September 2021. The car sticker has been 'UK' since then.
• Ireland refers, geographically, to the island of Ireland, or to any of the following:
• *Historically:
• **The Kingdom of Ireland was Ireland for the period 1541–1801..
• **The Irish Republic, established by the Irish Declaration of Independence, was a 32-county republic encompassing the entire island, during the period 1919–1922—though its de facto rule did not encompass all of the island. During this period, according to British law, Ireland remained part of the UK though its independence was recognised by Russia.
• **Southern Ireland was a 26-county region of Ireland that was created when Ireland was partitioned under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It was superseded by:
• **The Irish Free State is Ireland excepting Northern Ireland during the period 1922–1937.
• *Present:
• **Ireland is the political entity consisting of the island of Ireland excepting Northern Ireland, 1937–present. This is the name of the state according to the Irish Constitution and the United Nations.
• ** "Republic of Ireland" is a commonly used description of Ireland excepting Northern Ireland, 1949–present. It is also the name used by the international association football team.
• **The terms Irish Republic, Southern Ireland, the Irish Free State, the Free State, the 26 Counties and Éire have been used synonymously with the Republic of Ireland. Of these, Southern Ireland and Irish Free State, in particular, are seen as outdated. Eire was the British legal spelling from the Eire Act 1938 until the Ireland Act 1949, and informally for some years after.
• **Northern Ireland. That part of the island of Ireland northeast of the line of partition of 1921, and which is still part of the United Kingdom. Various alternative names have been used or proposed for Northern Ireland. It is sometimes referred to as "the North of Ireland", "the Six Counties" or the "occupied six counties", especially by Irish Nationalists. The "Northern" in "Northern Ireland" is not completely accurate. The most northerly point on the island, Malin Head, is in the Republic of Ireland—in County Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula.
• **Ulster is the name of one of Ireland's four traditional provinces. The province contains nine northern counties, six of which make up Northern Ireland, and three of which are part of the Republic of Ireland. It is also often used by Unionists to refer to the smaller Northern Ireland. Though Ulster has not been a political entity since the ancient Gaelic provincial kingdoms, it remains associated with a geographical area and is used in sporting and cultural contexts. See Ulster.
• *In sport
• **In Gaelic games, no distinction is recognised between the GAA counties of the Republic and those of Northern Ireland. County teams play in their provincial championships and the winners of these play in the All-Ireland championship. Even within Northern Ireland, the tricolour flag of the Republic of Ireland is flown at all games. At bigger games, where an anthem is played, it is always the national anthem of the Republic. In the case of the International Rules series against Australia, an Irish national team is chosen from all 32 counties.
• **In association football, the teams correspond to political entities: Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In accordance with UEFA and FIFA's rules, each of these countries has its own football league: the Irish Football League and the League of Ireland respectively.
• **In rugby union, rugby league, field hockey, cricket, boxing, golf, athletics and others the Ireland team is drawn from the whole island. Many sports organisations are subdivided along provincial lines e.g. Gaelic Athletic Association, golf.
• "British Isles" is a term used to mean the island of Great Britain plus the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands, including the Isle of Man and, in some contexts, the Channel Islands. See Names of the British Isles for details of the conflict over use of this term.
• * Anglo-Celtic Isles is an alternative term for the archipelago more commonly referred to as the British Isles. It is intended as a geographic term free of any political implication and uses the macro-cultural grouping term Anglo-Celtic, referring to the peoples from which the majority of the island group's population are descended—the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts.
• * "Islands of the North Atlantic" is another suggested replacement term for British Isles, without the same political connotations. However, its convolution and impracticality due to implying inclusion of fellow North Atlantic islands such as Iceland have made it unworkable and it has not come into common use. The term was used as part of the Strand 3 level of negotiations for the Belfast agreement.
• * Great Britain and Ireland or Britain and Ireland are also used as alternatives to the term "British Isles".
• * On the 2011 Jersey census, "British Isles" is used to refer to the other British islands than Jersey, but does not include the Republic of Ireland.
• "British Islands" is the UK, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands.
• Brittany, itself derived from Medieval Latin Britannia, and sometimes formerly known as Little Britain, is a historical duchy in the west of France, now a French region; for this modern administrative sense, see Brittany.