Great Britain
 |
Great Britain lies between Ireland and continental Europe |
Great Britain is an island lying off the northwestern coast of mainland
Europe and to the east of
Ireland, comprising the main territory of the
United Kingdom. Great Britain is also used as a geopolitical term describing the combination of
England,
Scotland, and
Wales, which together comprise the entire island and some outlying islands. Great Britain (or simply Britain) is also widely (but incorrectly) used as a synonym for the sovereign state properly known as the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The nationality of the indigenous population of the island, being wholly contained within the
United Kingdom, is
British.
With an area of 218 595
km² (84,400
sq.mi) the island of Great Britain is the largest of the
British Isles. It is the largest island in
Europe, and
eighth largest in the world. It is the
third most populous island after
Java and
Honshu.
Great Britain stretches over approximately ten degrees of
latitude on its longer, north-south axis. Geographically, the island is marked by low, rolling countryside in the east and south, while hills and mountains predominate in the western and northern regions. Before the end of the last
ice age, Great Britain was a
peninsula of Europe; the rising sea levels caused by glacial melting at the end of the ice age caused the formation of the
English Channel, the body of water which now separates Great Britain from continental Europe at a minimum distance of 34 km (21 miles).
The
climate of Great Britain is milder than that of other regions of the
Northern Hemisphere at the same latitude, because the warm waters of the
Gulf Stream pass by the British Isles and exert a moderating influence on the weather. Cool, but not cold, temperatures, clouds more often than sun, and abundant rain are the rule in most years.
Politically,
Great Britain describes the combination of
England,
Scotland, and
Wales. It includes outlying islands such as the
Isle of Wight,
Anglesey, the
Isles of Scilly, the
Hebrides, and the island groups of
Orkney and
Shetland but does not include the
Isle of Man or the
Channel Islands.
Over the centuries, Great Britain has evolved politically from several independent countries (England, Scotland, and Wales) through two kingdoms with a shared
monarch (England and Scotland), a single all-island
Kingdom of Great Britain, to the situation following
1801, in which Great Britain together with the island of
Ireland constituted the larger
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK). The UK became the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the 1920s following the independence of five-sixths of Ireland as the
Republic of Ireland.
As recently as 9,000 years ago, Great Britain was not an island at all. The last
glacial period was ending and the southeastern part of Great Britain was still connected to the European mainland (what is now northeastern France) by a strip of low
marshes. In
Cheddar Gorge near
Bristol, the remains of animals native to mainland Europe such as
antelopes,
Brown Bears, and
Wild Horses have been found, alongside a human skeleton,
Cheddar Man, dated to about 7150 B.C. Thus, animals as well as humans must have crossed between mainland Europe and Great Britain, evidence of the existence of a crossing.
[Lacey, Robert. Great Tales from English History. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2004. ISBN 0-316-10910-X.]Albion (in
Ptolemy Alouion), is the most ancient name of Great Britain, though sometimes used to refer specifically to England.
Occasionally it instead refers to only Scotland, whose name in Gaelic is Alba (and similarly, in Irish, and Yr Alban in Welsh[1]). Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (iv.xvi.102) applies it unequivocally to Great Britain. The name Great Britain originates with the
Picts, a people present in Britain before the
Celts. The Britons and early
Welsh of the south knew them, in the P-Celtic form of "Cruithne", as Prydyn; the terms "Britain" and "Briton" come from the same root. "It was itself named Albion, while all the islands about which we shall soon briefly speak were called the Britanniae." The name Albion was taken by medieval writers from Pliny and Ptolemy.
The Roman geographer
Ptolemy called the larger island
Megale Brettania (Great Britain), and the smaller island of Ireland
Micra Bretannia (Little Britain). Hence, originally, the term Great Britain referred to the largest island in the British Isles, similar to the Canary Islands where the third largest island is called
Gran Canaria (probably thought to be the largest in Roman times), and the largest of the Comoros is
Grande Comore..
Nevertheless, it is sometimes supposed that
Great Britain is a translation of the
French term
Grande Bretagne, which is used in
France to distinguish Britain from
Brittany (in French:
Bretagne), which had been settled in late Roman times by Romano-Celtic troops from
Maximus' army and later by refugees from
Roman Britain, who were then under attack by the
Anglo-Saxons. Since the English court and aristocracy was largely French-speaking for about two centuries after the
Norman Conquest of
1066, the French term naturally passed into English usage. The
Normans being descendants of
Vikings who had occupied the area of Normandy for some time demanding land and tithes from Gaul in exchange for peace and no more invasions.
The term was used officially for the first time during the reign of
King James VI of Scotland, I of England. Though England and Scotland each remained legally in existence as separate countries with their own parliaments, on
20 October 1604 King James proclaimed himself as 'King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland', a title that continued to be used by many of his successors.
[Proclamation styling James I King of Great Britain on October 20, 1604] In
1707, an
Act of Union joined both parliaments. That Act used two different terms to describe the new all island nation, a 'United Kingdom' and the 'Kingdom of Great Britain'. However, the former term is regarded by many as having been a
description of the union rather than its name at that stage. Most reference books therefore describe the all-island kingdom that existed between
1707 and
1800 as the ''Kingdom of Great Britain."
In
1801, under a new
Act of Union, this kingdom merged with the
Kingdom of Ireland, over which the monarch of Great Britain had ruled. The new kingdom was from then onwards unambiguously called the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In
1922, 26 of Ireland's
32 counties were given independence to form a separate
Irish Free State. The remaining truncated kingdom has therefore since then been known as the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Usage of the term Great Britain
Great Britain is also widely used as a synonym for the political state properly known as the
United Kingdom (see below).
This common usage is technically inaccurate as the United Kingdom includes
Northern Ireland, in addition to the three countries that make up Great Britain, as shown by its full name "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", and also because the three countries that make up Great Britain itself collectively include over 100 other islands, such as the
Isles of Scilly,
St Michael's Mount, the
Isle of Wight,
Lindisfarne,
Lundy,
Mersea Island,
the Isle of Sheppey, the
Isle of Portland, and
Steepholm in England;
Anglesey,
Bardsey Island,
Skomer,
Skokholm,
Caldey Island and
Ramsey Island and
Flatholm in Wales; and the Isles of
Arran,
Bute,
the Cumbraes, the
Inner Hebrides (including
Skye,
Mull,
Islay,
Jura,
Coll,
Tiree,
Rum,
Eigg,
Muck,
Colonsay and
Oronsay), the
Outer Hebrides (principally comprising
Lewis,
Harris,
Benbecula,
North Uist,
South Uist and
Barra), the
Orkney Islands,
Shetland Islands, the
Monach Islands, the
Flannan Islands and the
St. Kilda group in Scotland. The
islet of
Rockall, over 180 miles west of St. Kilda (towards Iceland) is included, though other nations dispute the UK's claim on this territory.
The
British themselves occasionally use the abbreviation
GB, such as in the
Olympic Games where the British team is sometimes informally referred to as 'Team GB', even though the team sent is technically represents the 'UK'. When London won the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games, the International Olympic Commission insisted that a
'Great Britain' team be assembled for the football event, which does not actually exist under the current FIFA structure. The UK also uses the
international foreign vehicle identification code of
GB. The
UK short-code can be confused with
Ukraine. This is discussed further under
Britain.
There is similar situation with the terms
Britain and
British, which are used to relate to the whole of the UK and not just the island of Great Britain. This usage is generally considered to be correct. Examples of this are "British monarchs", "British culture" and "British citizens" - which would generally be considered to embrace the whole of the United Kingdom. As if this was not confusion enough, the term "British" also has specific historical and archaeological usage, referring to the Celtic tribes present on the island prior to and during the
Roman occupation.
The designation '
British Isles', when used in the United Kingdom, usually refers to Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and all other islands as listed above. The Channel Islands are often not included in this designation, as they are located approximately 20 km off the coast of northwestern France and are geologically related to mainland France.
In
rugby league the
RFL fields its representative side under the name
Great Britain.
Nomenclature
The name
Britain is derived from the name
Britannia, used by the Romans from
circa 55 BC. The etymology of this term has been the subject of (sometimes fanciful) speculation, but is generally thought to derive from pre-Roman Celts. Possibilities are the Celtic word,
Pritani, "painted", a reference to the inhabitants of the islands' use of body-paint and tattoos. Alternitavely, links have been made with the name of the
Picts tribe who inhabited the north of Great Britain. (see
Britain for further discussion of etymology).
Where is 'Little' Britain?
In
Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Regum Britanniae (
circa 1136), the island of Great Britain was referred to as
Britannia major ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from
Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"), the Gaulish region which approximates to modern
Brittany. The term "Bretayne the grete" was used by chroniclers as early as
1338, but it was not used officially until
King James I proclaimed himself "King of Great Britain" on
20 October 1604 to avoid the more cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland".
In
Irish,
Wales is referred to as
An Bhreatain Bheag which means 'Little Britain' although the closely related
Scottish Gaelic uses this term -
"A'Bhreatainn Bheag" - to refer to
Brittany in
France.
Little Britain is also the name of a
BBC radio and television sketch show.
*
Kingdom of England*
Kingdom of Scotland*
Wales*
Ireland**
Republic of Ireland**
Northern Ireland*
Isle of Man*
Channel Islands*
Albion*
United Kingdom*
UK topics*
British Isles*
Britain*
History of Britain*
History of England*
History of Scotland*
History of Wales*
British Empire*
Commonwealth of Nations formerly called the British Commonwealth
*
Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542 merging Kingdom of England and
Principality of Wales
*
Act of Union 1707 merging Scotland and England to form Great Britain
*
Act of Union 1800 merging Great Britain and Ireland to form the United Kingdom
*
Anglo-Irish Treaty facilitating the Irish Free State's exit from the United Kingdom
*
SS Great Britain*
.gb ccTLD
*
New Britain an island of Papua New Guinea
*
New Britain, Connecticut*
Coast – the BBC explores the coast of Great Britain
*
Know Britain – one explanation of the terms "Great Britain", "United Kingdom" and so on
*
Administrative map of Great Britain – from the
Ordnance Survey; various formats
*
BBC Nations*
The British Isles
