Useful Notes / Britain Versus the UK

"I have great respect for the UK. The United Kingdom. People call it Britain. Some of them call it Great Britain. They used to call it England."

—Donald Trump^note Shockingly, this is about half correct. None of them are synonymous, but people do call various parts of the UK by all these names. And if you read on, you'll learn that England was possibly formerly a correct synonym for the UK, though this might just be because people never used to care about who lived in the rest.

What's the difference between England...Britain...Great Britain...The UK...The United Kingdom...The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland...The British Isles...?

This may sound strange and contrary, but there is no nation in the world called "Great Britain". No, really, there isn't. There isn't even one called "Britain" either – though there kind of is. It's complicated.

There was once a nation-state of just Great Britain, but not for over 200 years now; there has been no nation-state called England for over 300 ^note  but English law differs in numerous respects from Scottish law, as does the education system The United Kingdom as it exists in modern times is a compound of four member countries. Yet it is a matter of much frustration to many of their residents – in particular those from the nation's smaller constituent countries, but to English people too – that the terms "Britain", "Great Britain" and "United Kingdom" remain not only often synonymous with each other but, most annoyingly, with "England" in the minds of foreigners (and many ignorant natives...). The distinctions between all these frequently overlapping and vaguely similar-sounding names can be lost on many people, meaning the different terms are frequently used interchangeably, but the political and cultural structure of the kingdom is rather more complicated than that.

The geopolitical makeup of the United Kingdom and surrounding islands: geographic terms are written in green italics, political in red, legal in grey. See here for more of an explanation. Yeah, simple as that.

Before we delve into details, CGP Grey has a good (if slightly wrong) summary of the issue, as well as an introduction to the relationship between all of these, the Crown, the Crown Dependencies, the Overseas Territories, the Commonwealth Realms, and God. Yes, God.

Hmmm, right – so lay it out for me simply, will you?
At present, it is thus (see the image at right for a visual representation):

• The British Isles (a geographical term) are a collection of islands off the north-west coast of continental Europe, upon which sit two sovereign states – the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – and also the Isle of Man (see below), which has a peculiar status all its own.^note Stretching the remit somewhat, out into the north Atlantic, arguably incorporates the Faroe Isles (part of Denmark) too – but let's not make things any more complicated than they're about to get already.
  As a geographic term, it includes the area of the Republic of Ireland (which is not 'British'), without implying any territorial claims. However, most Irish people (except Unionists) dislike the term, for understandable reasons. The Irish government has gone so for to legally recognise the term and instead prefers the term "Great Britain and Ireland" Clunky replacement terms such as the "North-West European Archipelago" have been suggested, but haven't caught on. Modern use in socio-geographical contexts (e.g. in textbooks) may simply refer to the group neutrally under the compound name of its two principal landmasses Great Britain and Ireland, although this neglects those many smaller islands traditionally included in the "British Isles". Politicians when talking of matters concerning both nations generally just say these islands.
• Great Britain (a geographical term) is the largest of those islands, upon which sit the countries of: England (taking up the centre down to the bottom); Wales (the fat, slightly pointy protrusion on the lower middle-left, sticking out to the west); and Scotland (taking up the top of the island). The numerous small islands scattered around its coastline – the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, the Isles of the Clyde, the Northern Isles, etc. – are all (bar the Isle of Man) part of these three and are usually lumped in with GB for convenience.
  To call someone "Great British" is practically unknown. The only context in which a collective term for the three GB countries is really necessary is Northern Ireland, where Great Britons are often called "Mainlanders" ^* Itself a heavily loaded term , since it implies Ireland is merely a subordinate part of Britain rather than a geographical entity in its own right.
• Ireland (a geographical term) is another island, comprising: the Republic of Ireland (which is also often called simply Ireland, the correct short form), an independent nation; and Northern Ireland, part of the UK.
• Northern Ireland (a political term) takes up, as the name implies, (part of) the northeast of Ireland. It is often referred to as Ulster, though this can be politically sensitive as not all of the old Irish province of that name is actually inside Northern Ireland (although all of Northern Ireland is part of historic Ulster, three of Ulster's nine historic counties are in the Republic).^note To wit, Counties Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal are in the Republic, while Counties Antrim, (London)Derry, Down, Armagh, Tyrone, and Fermanagh are in NI and thus the UK. The island's northernmost point Malin Head is also, ironically, in the Republic. The people of Northern Ireland are divided about 60/40 between Unionists, mainly Protestant, who feel they are Brits;and Nationalists, mainly Catholic, who feel they are Irish, and currently the ruling coalition mandatorily incorporates parts of both sides. Anyone born in NI can choose to have British, Irish, or dual citizenship since the Good Friday Agreement to stop everyone killing each other. ^note Northern Irish athletes with dual citizenship can elect to represent either the UK or the Republic of Ireland at the Olympic Games, for example.
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (a political term, one of the longest nation titles in the world but known as the United Kingdom for short or UK for shortest) comprises the island of Great Britain and its associated islands, and Northern Ireland. It has over 60 million people within its four constituent countries (though only England and Scotland are consistently referred to as 'countries'; Wales is still sometimes described as a 'principality' and Northern Ireland tends to be called a 'province'), and is a nation state and a fairly major player in world affairs.
  The UK was created in 1707, as "The United Kingdom of Great Britain", after the Act of Union between England and Scotland – Wales does not get a mention as it had long since been legally annexed by England, in the 1530s. It became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" upon the Union with Ireland in 1801. The change to the present name came following the treaty creating the separate Irish Free State in 1922; the latter is now known as the Republic of Ireland (see below).
• "Britain" (a geographical or political term, depending) has two meanings; (i) colloquially, as an abbreviation for Great Britain, and (ii) more formally, though confusingly, as a catch-all abbreviation for the United Kingdom. "British" does officially denote someone from any part of the UK, although some may object to being so-called: thus, a Northern Irish person is legally British (politics aside), even though not from Great Britain. This is because there is no precise single word to describe "a citizen of the United Kingdom", so "British" is the most convenient shorthand; a more accurate term would be "UK-er" or "Kingdomite", say, but there is no such term in practice. ^note  This unsatisfactory linguistic situation mirrors the way the Americas cover much more than just one country, yet "American" is generally used for people/things from the USA in the absence of a more literal term like "USA-er" (In English anyway. The Spanish word for "USA citizen" is "Estadounidense", but needless to say this hasn't caught on in the US itself).
• The British Islands (a rarely used legal term) refers to the UK, the Isle of Man, and The Channel Islands, the last of which are not part of the geographic British Isles.
• The Republic of Ireland (a political term) takes up the majority of the island of Ireland and is a separate country from Northern Ireland. It is no longer part of the UK, which has caused what might charitably be called "a spot of bother" or two in the past. "Ireland", confusing though this is, is the correct official name of the country, though 'Republic of Ireland' (with a capital R, sometimes abbreviated ROI) is frequently used to differentiate the state from the island. Use of the term "Éire" (Irish for "Ireland") should be avoided unless you are conversing in Irish. Its use in English is generally regarded as a holdover from the British government of the day's refusal to acknowledge the official name as "Ireland" (it doesn't help that most of these uses remove the accent, spelling it as "Eire"... which is Irish for burden).

I said simply, you know.
All right – in short, to summarise the most common error:
If something is English, it is British; but the reverse is not always true: if something is British, it is not necessarily English. So, if you refer to someone from England as being "British", you are correct – but don't make the mistake of thinking everything about the English is therefore representative of the British as a whole (see Logical Fallacies).

So what's so "Great" about any of this then?
Of course, the existence of a "Great" Britain suggests the existence of a "Mediocre" Britain somewhere else that it needs a superlative to be distinguished from. A misconception that the term implies 'really rather jolly good' is perpetuated by slogans and titles that happily play on it, e.g. "the Great British Sausage" or The Great British Bake Off. In fact, the "Great" in this instance just means 'large' or 'main', to distinguish the island from that smaller nearby geographic area once known as Lesser, Less or Little Britain^note not to be confused with Little Britain – the region of Brittany, now the northwest corner of France (Bretagne, as opposed to Grande Bretagne), formerly semi-independent, often fought over throughout history. Before it became what the Romans termed "Britannia minor" or "Britannia cismarina" ("Britain on this side of the sea") when it was occupied by refugees from (Great) Britain in the 5th century A.D., it was called Armorica. Breton, the Celtic language of Brittany (now largely replaced by French), is closely related to Cornish (see below), and more distantly to Welsh, it is therefore "British" and "Insular Celtic" in a linguistic sense, and distinct from the Gaulish (a Continental Celtic language) spoken there up until the 5th century.

All right, I broadly get all that so far. Can you give me some better historical context, though?
Yes, although this is where it maybe gets even more confusing. "English" was for a long time an accepted generalisation for the whole country, including Scotland and the British parts of Ireland; this is reflected in several foreign names for the nation to this day. The word 'England' (and its foreign equivalents such as Angleterre) derives from Angle-land, after one of the successive waves of Germanic and Norse peoples – the Angles and Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Danes and Norwegians – who invaded from northern Europe^note  the Jutes from Jutland in Denmark, the Angles from Schleswig, the Saxons from Holstein and Lower Saxony, the Frisians from the coast of Lower Saxony in Germany and what is now the province of Frisia in the Netherlands in the centuries of the 'Dark Ages' after the withdrawal and fall of The Roman Empire. Still earlier, though, the tribes who controlled most of the south of the country were the Britons, whom scholars later called the Brythonic Celts: specifically, the Celts of Cornwall, Wales, and the aforementioned Brittany in France, to distinguish them from the Goidelic Celts of Scotland (with the exclusion of the Picts, a people who lived in northern and eastern Scotland, and the Damnonii, who lived in southern Scotland, who were Brythonic Celts), Ireland and the Isle of Man, as well as the various Celtic peoples of the continent (e. g. Cisalpine Gauls in Northern Italy, Transalpine Gauls in what is now France, Celtiberians on the Iberian Peninsula). It is from them that the Romans named the whole island Britannia^note  However, they also used the name "Britannia" for their part of the island, referring to the unoccupied part as "Caledonia". Thus, "British" is much the older idea, and for about the first millennium AD means 'Celtic', and is contrasted with "English" – for instance, the (probably) legendary King Arthur was far from being the proto-King of England many would describe, since the Anglo-Saxons were those very invaders that he and his Brythonic brethren sought to repel. In fact, the Welsh, whom could more legitimately claim continuity with the original Britons, regularly used the term Brytaniaid (literally "British") to refer to themselves, in opposition to the English, right up to the nineteenth century.
The British state as it now exists came into existence when King James VI of Scotland became also James I of England when he succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603 and united the two thrones. In practice though, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries politicians and others would use British mainly to refer to the British Empire, or when referring to the state itself, whilst continuing to refer to the various peoples as English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish; reflecting the wide recognition that although a single political unit it was a state representing several distinct national groups^note This fact which helps to explain why these countries have maintained separate national sports teams, which formed around this time - see below.. This continued right up until the First World War, when Prime Minister Lloyd George (who, perhaps tellingly, was Welsh) really popularised the use of the phrase British People.

So who and what can we really call 'British' and 'Britain' now?
Nowadays, the broad technical usage states that 'Britain' is simply a collective term for everything that can be British; it is now used explicitly as an extension covering everywhere presided over by those who preside over Great Britain and so, technically, places like The Falkland Islands and Gibraltar are in Britain. This isn't really held up, though, for obvious reasons.

English people usually don't really care whether they're called English or British. However, "British" is arguably used much less than it used to be, and people often tend to call themselves "English", or, if being pedantic, "UK citizens". Some left-leaning/liberal people in particular dislike "British" because of the imperial connotations (British Empire, British Army, etc.), in comparison with the nicer connotations of "English" (country lane, green field, pub, etc.). English nationalists, on the other hand, who tend to be (but are not always) right-wing, may also object to it, as may nationalists from any other part of the UK. "Brit" can seem slightly derogatory, but "British" is usually OK.

Most people from Cornwall, the south-west tip of England, with its own distinct Celtic heritage, do not identify as "English", preferring "Cornish". Tread carefully.

Some from the 'Celtic fringe' of the UK might have different views on identifying as 'British'. Many of those from the North of England like to insist they weren't actually conquered by the Romans, so can sometimes be bracketed with the Celts in this respect, and because large swaths of the North remained unconquered and Celtic for many centuries thereafter, they may well choose to say they are British even more because of this fact, and reject being called/identifying as English (like the Cornish) - still, some instead invoke this history to reject being British, instead identifying as English, though they are likely from the parts of the North that were conquered by the Angles if not the Romans, like Northumbria and the East of Yorkshire. The North of England is confusing in itself.

If you refer to a Scot or a Welshman as "British", the vast majority will just accept this, although the more nationalist may insist on a local term – and although on a kind of cultural level this may be correct depending on your point of view, from a strict legal perspective, this is wrong, as Scottish and Welsh people are all British citizens, as are the vast majority of Northern Irish.^note Northern Irish people are automatically citizens of the UK upon birth, but are entitled to citizenship in the Republic of Ireland, and some Nationalists might renounce British citizenship and take up exclusive ROI citizenship, hence "mostly." Because of the special relationship between the ROI and UK and their common membership in the EU, this switch is (or was) almost entirely symbolic, as going from one to the other does not deprive you of any rights or grant any particularly significant new ones, other than no longer being subject to the (highly unlikely) conscription and some subtle differences in random foreign countries' visa policies. Things got a lot more complicated when "Brexit" came up though, because, among other things, residents of Northern Ireland who are Irish citizens are still entitled to representation in the European parliament, but Northern Ireland will lose its MEPs. How exactly Westminster plans on solving that is, as of this writing, still unknown. Whatever happens, "British" is right, and "English" is not. Apart from being separated by borders, this is (as touched upon above) because the Scottish Highlanders and Strathclyde and the Welsh, plus the Irish, Manx (of the Isle of Man), Cornish and extended Cumbric can trace their heritage back to the Celts who inhabited these isles since before the Romans, let alone the 'English', came^note (this can be a controversial view: Oppenheimer argues that Germanic people have also been here since pre-Roman times) – whereas the 'English' descend mainly from the consecutive Germanic and Norman (read: stinkin' French) conquests, and can be, and sometimes are, still viewed as "outsiders" and "invaders" by more radical nationalists in Wales or Scotland. Hence sassenach, derived from Scottish Gaelic Sasannach, meaning "Saxon", a derogatory word for the English. Those of Celtic land now in England (Cornwall, Cumbria, the West Riding) may have a more reasonable chip on their shoulder because of the actual invading that happened to take the land, but also have nationalist ties both ways and so are less likely to be violent. Strathclyde, though in south-west Scotland, often gets lumped with these areas. Lowland Scottish culture is mainly of Germanic origin (south-east Scotland has been Germanic almost as long as England has). The Scots language (distinct from and not to be confused with either Scottish English or Scottish Gaelic) is derived from Middle English (the language spoken in England from the 1000s to the 1400s), making Modern Scots a sister language of Modern English – unlike Scottish Gaelic of the Celtic language family, which is nowadays confined to parts of the Highlands and the Hebrides (an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland). That said, Scots is also spoken in parts of the Highlands despite being quite broadly seen as the Lowland language (e.g. Aberdeen and the surrounding area, which actually has an extremely high concentration of Scots speakers). Also, the far north of Scotland (Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, and part of Caithness) has a more Scandinavian heritage – it was, after all, closer for the Vikings to reach – and though its language, Norn, died out in the 19th century, some Orcadians and Shetlanders still insist they are not Scottish.
Of course, centuries of time and interbreeding have long eroded any genetic disctinctiveness between these peoples, and it's important to bear in mind that these identities are based on cultural (and in some cases linguistic) continutity, rather than race or genetics (and that talking about descent is a quick way to commit political suicide and get branded a racist in modern politics, even among nationalists); as a related point, an English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish person could be of any race or colour.

Northern Ireland, famously, is where terminology is especially contentious.
Note that in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland the terms 'Unionist', 'Loyalist', 'Nationalist', and 'Republican' are all distinct and loaded. Unionists want to remain a part of the United Kingdom; Loyalists are militantly committed to that belief. Nationalists want to be unified with the rest of the Republic of Ireland; Republicans are militantly committed to that belief. Loyalists are Unionists and Republicans are Nationalists, but not all Unionists are Loyalists and not all Nationalists are Republicans. There are also subtle political differences between all four of these categories which just confounds the matter further.^note Note also that a very, very small minority of Unionists supports the abolition of the British monarchy and is therefore "republican." You can safely ignore the existence of these people, but they do exist. Monarchist Nationalists used to exist before the establishment of the Republic of Ireland made that beyond-extremely unlikely.
If you refer to a Nationalist-minded Northern Irish person as "British", you may find you are seriously wrong. If you fail to refer to a Unionist-minded Northern Irish person as "British", you may find you are seriously wrong. "Ulster" is a commonly-used synonym for Northern Ireland, yet a loaded one, being mainly used by Unionists and giving the appearance of historical legitimacy to the province – which is rejected by Nationalists, especially as it makes up only two-thirds of historical Ulster: Counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan are part of the traditional province, but are now part of the Republic of Ireland.^note Ironically, the most northerly part of the island is not in Northern Ireland but in fact in County Donegal.. "Ulsterman" may thus be taken as offensive by NI Nationalists and Republicans, or by citizens of the ROI – although, in truth, a lot of people in the Republic are less bothered by this sort of thing. "Northern Irish" is usually a good neutral choice, although some extreme Republicans will vehemently not use it, and insist on "the occupied six counties" or some similar formulation. Exercise maximal caution, generally.

If you refer to someone from The Republic of Ireland as British... well, don't. Just don't. Aside from being demographically incorrect, as the ROI does not have anywhere near the concentration of British-descended persons in its population as Northern Ireland does, it's mainly because... well... it's a completely different country, it's considered impolite. At best.^note Think of it like calling a Canadian "American", or vice versa, although considering the history it is more similar to calling a Polish person "German". Using "English" is no better, for the reasons above re: Scottish and Welsh people. Many Irish people, and the Irish government, object to the geographic term "The British Isles" as well, seeing it as implies Ireland is politically "British" (i.e. part of the UK), and prefer either "The British and Irish Isles" or just avoiding the phrase altogether.^note And on a historical note, it's also misleading - the Irish, historically, are not Britons, in any sense. They're not the aforementioned Brythonic Celts, but rather the Goidelic Celts, the other extant branch of the language/culture family.

So I think we've got that whole "British" thing straight. Remind me, then, why shouldn't I just call the whole thing "England"? (Joke.)
Grrrr. Under no circumstances should the UK as a whole be referred to as "England", which hasn't been an independent country since 1707. It is wrong. Don't do it. Don't. This is a message many would like to get across to other nations, some of whose name for the UK in their own languages is exactly the word for England. Whether you're an overseas tourist, or a politician, or a movie star, please don't talk about the "English" response or the reception you receive in "England" when you mean the UK — unless you're speaking your own language out of earshot of islanders. They'll otherwise accuse you of wiping three countries from the face of the map. If you're a pop star, don't come on stage in Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast and scream "Hello, England!" (and for the love of all that is holy, don't shout "Hello, London!") There is no quicker or more brutal way to lose an audience. If you're a comedian, you might just get away with it. (Yell "#*@% the English!", on the other hand, and they'll probably carry you off shoulder high...)

There is one exception, the sneaky prefix "Anglo-". While it can mean "English", as in the social group referred to as Anglo-Irish (i. e. people who immigrated to Ireland from England as well as their descendants, seen as distinct from Ulster-Scots), it frequently is used to mean "British", as e. g. in the Anglo-Irish Treaty (Irish Gaelic: An Conradh Angla-Éireannach) of 1921, which on the British side was signed by representatives of the British government, which incidentally was headed by a Welshman, David Lloyd George.

I'm sorry. I'll try not to say anything at all, it sounds safer.
Seriously, though, if you get all this wrong, you will usually be forgiven. It's an easy mistake to make. There is a reason for it. England does cover over half of the UK's total land area, and does contain the vast majority (around 53 million out of 63m, currently) of its population. Even Brits get mixed up often enough – after all, even the title of this article is wrong: "Britain" and "the UK" technically refer to the same thing; it should read Great Britain Versus The UK – and until More Recently Than They Think it was accepted practice (at least by the English) for "England" and "Britain" to be interchangeable terms.

Just watch out for the Scots. They long have a reputation as being 'the hard lot from up north'. Some of them are nationalists and will not tolerate one step out of line, saying it arises from the Union, which is the root of all evil. Some are unionists... who will not tolerate a step out of line, because it undermines the Union and drives people into the arms of the Nats. Some of them, we shan't name any names, have a reaction resembling an enraged Dalek: DO-NOT-BLAS-PHEME!

Note that the English have become much less shy about this in recent years. The Scottish Referendum and the rise of the SNP have created a divide in British politics, but there is a self-limiting factor given that the English have no reason whatsoever to vote SNP, which spends much of its time and effort insulting them, to no useful outcome. As at 2019, the English elected a Conservative Government with a sufficient majority to ignore the SNP outright, which has changed the dynamic considerably. Long-neglected national symbols like St George’s Day are being revived, and the Cross of St George is no longer specifically equated with the extreme Right. There is, strictly speaking, no specific English nation state, but they have issued a timely reminder that they are quite capable of taking overall control if they are so minded.

Generally speaking, the English pay little attention to the more overt manifestations of Scottish nationalism. The Scots might refer to England as “The Auld Enemy” but to the English, “The Old Enemy” is, and has long been (despite Two World Wars And One World Cup™)France and the French.

Oh good. Hey. it's all quite simple really, isn't it?
Hmmm. Ish. Even using the terms "British" or (say) "Scottish" isn't always enough, even when they're both correct. You've got to use the right term in context. Many Scots, nationalists or otherwise, can get really infuriated with English sports commentators when they refer to an athlete as "bringing the gold home for Britain!" yet conversely to the same athlete as "the plucky Scot, coming in fifth...". Received wisdom says that the predominantly London-based media hail any Scot's – or Welsh or Northern Irish person's – sporting success as "British", but (possibly unconsciously) shunt the same person off into the ghetto marked 'Scottish', 'Welsh' etc. should they trail in last. This subtrope is traditionally personified by tennis player Andy Murray (the joke/complaint goes that he is invariably referred to as British when he wins and Scottish when he loses), or Oscar Wilde^* who predates the Irish state (who's a "great British author", or an "Irish homosexual pervert"!)

Yes, wait a minute: what about all those England sporting teams and so on?
Oh yes, the national sporting situation is predictably complicated. Demonstrating the density of this whole naming confusion, the UK's Olympic team competes under the name "Great Britain and Northern Ireland", but its International Olympic Committee country code is just GBR, and it is routinely referred to as merely "Team GB" – just the sort of reductive continuum that helps perpetuate the whole confusion that necessitates this page. In cricket the 'England' team technically represent England and Wales, while there is for instance a separate Ireland team that nonetheless sees not infrequent shifts of player loyalties to England (which is objectively a much better side, owing to the greater enthusiasm and thus funding and resources for cricket in England). In Association Football meanwhile, the 'Home Nations' of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – and the Republic of Ireland – play as separate teams. In the sports of rugby union and rugby league, the various Irish issues are cut admirably straight through: a single unified Ireland team represents the whole island, featuring players from both Northern Ireland and the Republic. In deference to the political divide, they have their own anthem in "Ireland's Call", which was written specially for the rugby team in the 90s. When they play in the Republic (almost always in Dublin), they play the Republic's anthem followed by "Ireland's Call"; elsewhere (including very rare home matches in Northern Ireland), they play only "Ireland's Call". In addition, a super-unified British and Irish Lions rugby union team assembles every four years, Avengers-style, to tour the countries of the sport's Southern Hemisphere superpowers^note , rotating between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

As a very broad and general rule - though there are plenty of exceptions on both sides - for sports where people compete as individuals (such as Tennis e.g. for Davis Cup etc.) and – as noted – the Olympic Games there is a combined British (i.e. UK) team, or individuals operating under the UK banner; in team sports, usually there will be separate teams for England, Wales, Scotland and maybe Northern Ireland.

To understand why there are separate national sports teams for England/Wales/Scotland even though these are not fully independent political states today (unlike the majority of national sports teams), it's important to remember that international sport has its origins in the 19th century when the question of who was in charge had little bearing on who or what constituted a country, or a nation (as a related example consider that entities like Germany and Italy were understood as single nations with distinct geographical areas long before these areas were unified politically in the late 19th century). In fact, international sport began as competition between the English, Scottish and Welsh, with the likes of France and Germany invited later.

Two of these conflicting methodologies clash, and cause a particular problem, for association football (soccer) at the Olympics. The UK has traditionally not entered the football tournament, for fear that fielding a unified British team would be regarded as 'setting a precedent' that could lead to the four individual nations losing their right to have separate teams the rest of the time. The fear is so bad that, when it was decided to enter a "Team GB" football side (for the first time in decades) for their 'home' Olympics at the London 2012 Games, the Scottish, Welsh and [Northern] Irish Football Associations were united in support of entering an all-English team.^note (In the end five Welshmen were in the men's squad alongside 13 Englishmen, while the women's squad featured 17 Englishwomen and two Scots.) On the other hand, the fielding of a unified British team for rugby union, which returned to the Olympics in 2016 in the cut-down 'sevens' format^note (seven players a side, playing on a standard-sized field, with 7-minute halves), was no problem for World Rugby – it endorsed the concept of a combined British Olympic sevens team in 2011 (back when WR was called the International Rugby Board). Why the football associations can't similarly just ask international federation FIFA for a signed note saying "It's not now, and will never be, a problem with us either" is beyond comprehension. (It may be because, among sports fans as a whole, FIFA is seen as a lot more corrupt and generally dishonorable than the just plain incompetent WR and thus more likely to renege on such a deal.)

Well OK, at least the political arrangements are simple compared with that.
Ah. With devolution (the transferring of certain legislative powers to local governing bodies, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd (Welsh Parliament) and Northern Ireland Assembly) and increasing Scottish and Welsh nationalism, even the English are getting more and more picky about these matters of designation. Many English people get annoyed when people from the UK are either "Scottish" (and occasionally, if they're lucky, "Welsh" or "Northern Irish") or "British", but rarely "English"... at least, not in any positive context. The frustration is that the English are often only separated out when it comes to criticism: for example, Americans may talk about getting independence from "the English" as if the Scots and Welsh had nothing to do with it. There are also more and more English who dislike the use of the UK's Union Flag or national anthem God Save The Queen in relation to purely English matters, for example English sports teams.
Let's not even get started on the "West Lothian question": the idea that a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish member (MP) of the UK Parliament in London can still vote on policies that, since devolution, purely concern England and not their home region if responsibility for the policy area (e.g. health, education) is devolved there to a different legislative body. That is, when such policy is separately governed locally by the Scottish Parliament, Senedd or Northern Irish Assembly, these MPs' decisions can not affect their own constituents — yet they can still affect the electorate in English MPs' constituencies, even though the reverse is not possible. This tramples on the Great British Sense of Fair Play™. Brexit, if anything, made things even worse, with England voting to Leave and Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to Remain (Wales voted to Leave, but much more narrowly than England), leading to (not unreasonable) accusations that Scotland and Northern Ireland were being dragged out of the EU against their will.

Oh for heaven's sake. Is nothing straightforward? Well what about all those other islands and micro-territories Britain owns – they've got to be 'British' at least, haven't they?
Yes. No. Sort of. Aaargh. All right, the auspices of the United Kingdom definitely extend beyond just Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK has fourteen British Overseas Territories scattered across the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic (e.g. The Falkland Islands) and good old Gibraltar, which are under its sovereignty, but not as part of the United Kingdom itself.^note Americans can consider them much like Guam or Puerto Rico are to the USA, although, naturally, there are differences.

Closer to home, there are the three Crown Dependencies too: the Bailiwick of Jersey & Bailiwick of Guernsey (which between them cover The Channel Islands), and the Isle of Man. These are all possessions of the Crown, i.e. subject to the British monarchy, which must give final assent to their laws – but they are not within the United Kingdom politically; each has its own Chief Minister and body for internal legislation... although all are treated as part of the UK for British nationality law purposes and are dependent upon it for international representation, defence etc.
Despite having this quirk, the Isle of Man is geographically part of the British Isles nonetheless, lying in the middle of the northern Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland^note (curiously enough almost equidistant between the coastlines of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – its more 'southerly' apparent position in the diagram at the top of this page is thanks to it being represented schematically as part of the Crown Dependencies but outside the UK). A generic application of "Britain" will usually take in the Channel Islands as well, although the latter lie some way off, on the far side of the English Channel just off the northern French coast.
The actual legal status of these three micro-states, where the British Government has no authority, yet the King does, is insanely complicated. Some idea of the complexity: the island of Sark, a semi-autonomous part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, was the last remaining feudal state in Europe until 2008 ^note Which among other things meant that all farmers on the island had to pay the Lord or Dame of Sark a chicken a year. The island has a population of roughly 600.^note Although it is now introducing democracy, a process instigated by resident billionaire twin brothers who own a sub-island, the same men have been accused by some locals of wanting to run it as their own personal fiefdom. The Isle of Man has the world's oldest continuous parliament, and has never been a member of the European Union, and it has its own version of the pound not interchangeable with the British one... having said that, Manx coins will occasionally find their way into the UK proper and be accepted without comment as they look almost identical and are identical in value.^note "Not interchangeable" simply means that the the Manx pound is not legal tender in the UK (though the pound sterling is legal tender on Man)—that is to say, if you are in, say, London and owe your friend a pound, she is within her rights to refuse if you try to pay it off with a Manx pound coin, but if you try to pay her with a British pound coin, she has to take it in satisfaction of the debt, and you can sue her if she still refuses. The exchange rate has been permanently set at 1 to 1. Theoretically, anyone traveling from the Isle of Man to the mainland is expected to go to an Isle of Man Bank office and exchange their Manx pounds for pounds sterling, but when it comes to coins they often don't bother. And, perhaps most famously, it is popularly thought to have no road speed limits, although it does.^note The Isle of Man actually has speed limits, lots of them. The difference is that the roadsign which in Great Britain means 'national speed limit' (i.e. 60mph, or 70mph if there are multiple lanes), on Man means 'unlimited'. That is the only time there is no speed limit. However, the police can and will pull you over for driving like an idiot regardless of the (lack of) limit. It's like the Autobahn, basically.

I...I think I've got all that.
So, now you know. That's all straightened out nice and clearly then, isn't it?

See also Scotireland and The Irish Question.

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