But the ‘British Isles’ is a geographical description and has no relevance to territories or government.
Turks & Caicos are interesting, it seems they previously came under The Bahamas but for a reason I can't find didn't opt for independence ( perhaps they had no wish to be ruled by their bigger neighbours?) In 1974 a Canadian MP put forward a plan to associate themselves with Canada, but nothing came of it...they had a degree of autonomous Govt and had a senior minister now called Prime minister...in 1980 there were moves for independence but the anti independence party won the elections...since then the two main parties seem to have settled down to running the place, only punctuated by two suspension of Govt due to allegations of corruption ...one for each party, at the last elections neither party had independence in their manifesto.
A) Forget Britain. It isn't a thing. It derives from the Roman "Britannia" which was the land mass comprising of England and Wales, given the Romans never conquered Scotland. It is now used as an abbreviation, most commonly for Great Britain. Might be a good time to do some geographic and political definitions: Geographic: British Isles - the 6000+ isles of the archipelago we live on, the main ones being Great Britain and Ireland Great Britain - the big island containing England, Scotland and Wales. Ireland - the island containing Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland Political: The 2 main British Isles are divided into 5 countries - England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland Of these, only the Republic of Ireland is a sovereign state (wikipedia for full definition). The other four form the sovereign state known as the UK (or in full the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). Then there are the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. These terms are well defined on Wikipedia B) The term "British" when referring to people, is used to describe citizens of the UK and the British Overseas Territories (which contrary to JamDrop's diagram are NOT technically part of the United Kingdom). C) See political definition above. Also includes the minor islands around Great Britain, excluding the Crown Dependencies. D) Nationality, in the legal sense, refers to citizenship of a sovereign state. English or Welsh are therefore not internationally recognised nationalities. British (as per answer B) is E) Already answered F) They are Crown Dependencies - Wikipedia G) British Overseas Territories - Wikipedia
Rev, that was a yep thanks . But I'd have to say that your British Isles definition doesn't hold in Ireland nor officially in Britain when dealing with Ireland. The rest is definitely going to be going over slowly, thanks again .
I would respectfully disagree. The Republic of Ireland is on island of Ireland which, geographically speaking is part of a group of islands, known as the British Isles. Where the Republic of Ireland is concerned, they do not use the term to avoid confusion and I would agree it should be deprecated. British means pertaining to Britain, which is no longer a thing. Politically, the term British is still used to refer to the United Kingdom and its citizens, which does not include the Republic of Ireland. Therefore the British Isles are not, by current definitions, British!
Great Britain is a geographic term as it is the biggest island in the British Isles. Ireland is the second biggest and Lewis/Harris is third biggest.
Yes, I understand all of that, I'm just saying that the term is perhaps used still in Britain, but it's definitely not used here anymore, not even in a geographical sense
I think he means geographical as in the scientific sense. Scientifically the island of Ireland is classed as the British Isles. That's just how it is, even Irish cartographers, geologists and geographers would say Ireland is part of the British isles, because it just is.
Yes, it is how it used to be, but like I said, it's not recognised here anymore, and most countries dealing with Ireland now, including Britain, don't use it officially. It's a bit archaic and leads to confusion. And it's not really to do with science. It just kept the name from of old, that's all.
We live in the Geographical feature called the British Isles which includes the whole of Ireland. Great Britain is a political entity which includes none of Ireland. The United Kingdom is short for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
My nationality is English, that's the country I was born in and where I currently live. However, I am a citizen of the UK and that's what it says on my passport. So most web sites (like airlines etc) have the UK in their drop-down list of nationalities rather than the countries England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
England, Scotland and Wales make up Greater Britain. The island of Ireland Lesser Britain. Purely a geographical, not political term. Somewhere along the line, the 'er' at the end of Greater was dropped and some folk took it to mean that Britain is great.
