Britain, England, Britain, great Britain, all four words can refer to the country of "Britain" to some extent, but their specific meanings are very different.
Without further ado, let's talk about what is the connection and difference between these four words, and more importantly, whether these four words can be mixed. In addition to introducing the meaning of the words, this article also includes the popularization of British history, political system, and law, which is slightly hardcore.
This article will be published in two parts, the first part on the meaning of "Britain" and "England", and the second part on the meaning of "Britain" and the question of whether the four words can be mixed. Welcome to read the next article!
Geography: The British Isles and "Great Britain"
Whether it is history or politics, we must first start with geography. In fact, if we only look at Britain, Great Britain, England, and The United Kingdom as the names of the four geographical regions, then the relationship between them is quite clear, that is, the relationship between inclusion and inclusion, as follows:
But the meaning of these four words is far from simple, which is what confuses us the most. Let's start with the largest category, the "British Isles" in the Atlantic Ocean.
Located off the sea in northwestern Europe, the British Isles consists of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, Man, The Isle of Scilly, the Channel Islands (including Guernsey, Jersey, Sark and Alderney), and more than 6,000 other small islands with a total area of more than 300,000 square kilometers.
Source: Wikipedia
As can be seen from the map, there are two large islands in the British Isles, the largest island in the east is called "Britain", and the smaller island in the west is called "Ireland", which is the main body of the two countries of today' Britain and Ireland.
Ireland (orange-green-white flag) and British (rice flag) are on the territory of the two islands
Perhaps because these two islands are too large relative to other small islands, the English words "British Island" and "Irish Island" do not have the suffix "island". So in Chinese we did not translate it as "The Island of Britain" and "The Island of Ireland", but simply referred to it as "Britain" and "Ireland". This term will continue to be used later in this article, but the term "Isle of Britain" will still be used when emphasizing the geographical concept of the island in particular.
In essence, therefore, the term "Britain" is a geographical concept that refers to the largest island in the British Isles, the main part of the United Kingdom. According to research, the word "Britannia" originally originated from the Latin word "Britannia" during the Roman Empire, when Britannia was a province of the Roman Empire, roughly including the land of present-day England and Wales.
The Romans landed on the coast of Kent
As for the relationship between "Britain" and "Great Britain", although it seems that "Great Britain" is more powerful... But the two words are actually synonymous, referring to the island of Britain. However, the word "Great Britain" has more political connotations than "Britain", which is related to British history.
In 1707, the Kingdom of England, which had previously merged Wales, signed the Act of Union with the Kingdom of Scotland, "united" to form a kingdom encompassing the entire isle of Britain. The conceited King James I wanted to prove himself not only as king of the old "Roman Britain" (including england and Wales only), but also of the entire Isle of Britain, so he gave himself the title of "King of Great Britain". Thus, the "Kingdom of Great Britain", which included England, Scotland and Wales, was born.
Thus, "Great Britain" began to refer to a kingdom and a regime. After the Kingdom of Great Britain "united" Ireland and renamed it "United Kingdom", the term "Great Britain" referred more to the entire island of Great Britain as opposed to the island of Ireland, which we will mention later.
Flag of the Kingdom of Great Britain (note the difference from the current Flag of the United Kingdom)
Of course, as the occupant of most of the island of Ireland, another large island in the British Isles, the Republic of Ireland has always been obsessed with the term "British Isles": why should it be named "British Isles" ("British Isles" is British Island in English, where British is britain, the adjective for "Britain")"? Where does this put us in Ireland? The Irish government prefers to use the phrase "Britain and Ireland", which includes the two largest islands of the British Isles. However, this statement is not widely circulated.
Now that we've figured out what "Britain" and "Great Britain" are, let's move on to see what the difference is between "England" and "Britain.".
Two. England: One of the three major regions of "Britain"
The island of Britain can be divided into three regions, which I believe are already familiar to everyone, namely England, Scotland and Wales. When people say "Britain" or "Great Britain" now, they often do not simply refer to the island in the geographical sense, but to the collection of the three major regions of the island in the political sense.
Why the British Isles eventually formed three regions is closely related to British history, a brief account. In the first century BC, the Roman Empire began to conquer Britain, but they never conquered the northernmost Scotland, and the celts, the original inhabitants of Britain, fled to Scotland, and their descendants were Scots. After the fall of the Roman Empire, an Anglo-Saxon group of Germans crossed the sea and set foot on the British Isles, and a branch of the local Celts, the Britons, fled to the mountains of Wales to resist the Invasion of the Anthaes. Eventually the Ansars occupied only England, and their descendants were Englishmen, while the descendants of the Butuit were Welsh.
The history of England above is a bit too brief, but in any case, the hidden dangers of the division of the three lands of Britain were also planted at that time. It is this tortuous history that has led to great differences in nationalities, languages, religions and cultures in England, Wales and Scotland, and this difference has become wider and wider in the course of history, which is the root of today's British separatism.
Scottish independence referendum in 2014
Back to England. Although England is only one of the three regions of Britain, it occupies five-eighths of Britain's area and has a much larger population than Scotland and Wales. And because of its greater power, England has dominated Both Britain and Britain, both historically and now.
In the Middle Ages, the british islets of England, Scotland and Wales, of which the Kingdom of England is the most powerful. These three countries were constantly conquering and falling between them, but in the end, the kingdom of England, which was more powerful in terms of territory, population and strength, prevailed.
In 1707, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, which had previously merged Wales (Wales did not have a unified Kingdom of Wales, and England was one of many small kingdoms that conquered Wales in succession), signed the Union Act and established the "Kingdom of Great Britain", and Great Britain finally became a country.
Act of Union of 1707
We have mentioned this before, but here I would like to draw attention to the fact that the kingdom of Great Britain was formed not by traditional war conquest or annexation, but by the signing of the Union Act between other kingdoms and the Kingdom of England to form a nation. This "union", although peaceful, was not necessarily voluntary, for England was the most powerful of the three regions, and it could coerce and induce others to "unite" with itself by various means.
Thus, the resentment of the natives after the "union" of the kingdom, the repressed national sentiment, the exclusion and suppression of weaker areas in England, and the legal "union" (which by extension means that such "union" can also be dissolved) all set the stage for the division of Britain today. We'll mention this later.
Welsh Independence Parade
In the next article, let's talk about "Britain", what does the word we usually use most often means, and whether these four words can be mixed. Welcome to the author to watch the next !!!!!!
I am Anatomic Orange, a master's degree in European international relations. Welcome to like, follow, comment!