I have always been confused over UK, Britain, Great Britain and England - are they the same? (Geography was never my forte in secondary school) So I went to Google.
The official name of the UK is actually 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', which is made up of four constituencies - England (capital is London), Scotland (Edinburgh), Wales (Cardiff), Northern Ireland (Belfast). England, Scotland and Wales form Great Britain together, so Great Britain is basically UK minus Northern Ireland.
Naturally, the next question is, why is only Northern Ireland included in UK? What about the rest of Ireland? It turned out that before 1922, the whole of Ireland was included in UK. But after years of civil war, Ireland became a republic in 1921. Britain then negotiated with Ireland to keep the six counties in the northeast portion of Ireland, and thus, Northern Ireland was formed.
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| Map of UK. Source: indiancompass.com |
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