Great Britain, the UK or England?

Four names, four areas

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to give it its full name, is the political union of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The UK is the sovereign state, but the four nations in it are also countries in their own right.^[1]

Great Britain is the name for England, Scotland and Wales together, with their islands. It leaves out Northern Ireland, so it isn’t another word for the UK. That’s also why Ordnance Survey, Britain’s mapping agency, maps Great Britain but not Northern Ireland.^[1]

The British Isles is only a geographical name: the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, the Republic of Ireland included, and some 5,000 smaller islands around them. The Republic is in the British Isles, but its people aren’t British.^[1]

England, then Great Britain

Wales was joined to England by law first. The Laws in Wales Act 1535 declared Wales incorporated with England and extended English law to it.^[4]

England and Scotland stayed separate kingdoms until 1603, when Elizabeth I died childless and her crown passed to her cousin James VI, King of Scotland. The two countries now shared a monarch but nothing else.^[5] In October 1604 James decreed that he would be known as King of Great Britain rather than by the separate names of England and Scotland.^[5]

The name became a state a century later. The Acts of Union, passed by the English and Scottish parliaments, created a united kingdom called “Great Britain” on 1 May 1707, and its Parliament first met that October.^[2]

Adding Ireland, then most of it leaving

The parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland then agreed to unite their two kingdoms. The Act of Union passed in Ireland in 1800 made them one from 1 January 1801, and the new state was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.^[6][3]

In the early 1920s Ireland split. Six counties of Ulster became Northern Ireland, whose parliament was devoted to keeping the union with Great Britain.^[7] The rest of the island became the Irish Free State, whose constitution became law on 6 December 1922.^[8]

The kingdom’s name caught up in 1927. The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act renamed Parliament the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and said that in every later Act “United Kingdom” means Great Britain and Northern Ireland.^[3] That definition, dated 12 April 1927, is still in the Interpretation Act today.^[9]

““United Kingdom” means Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”^[9]

Britain, British and the islands in between

In everyday speech “Britain” and “British” are often used for the whole UK. The UK government’s own style guide prefers “UK” and “United Kingdom” to “Britain” and “British”, as in UK foreign policy, but keeps the traditional “British embassy”.^[10]

British law has one more term. The “British Islands” means the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.^[9] Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man belong to the Crown but aren’t part of the UK.^[1]