Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest in Europe. With a population of approximately 58.9 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Ireland is to its west, and it is surrounded by over 1000 smaller islands and islets.

It makes up the largest part of the territory of the sovereign state the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the term Great Britain is sometimes used inaccurately to mean the United Kingdom. England, Scotland and Wales are mostly situated on the island, along with their capital cities, London, Edinburgh and Cardiff respectively.

The Kingdom of Great Britain was the state resulting from the political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland on 1 May, 1707 under Queen Anne. It existed until 1801 when Great Britain and Ireland united. The resulting United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland became the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1922 with the secession of the Irish Free State.

Political definition

Great Britain is the eastern island of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Politically, Great Britain also refers to England, Scotland and Wales in combination, and therefore also includes a number of outlying islands such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland. It does not include the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands as they are not part of the United Kingdom, with independent legislative and taxation systems.

The union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland began with the 1603 Union of Crowns, a personal union under James VI of Scotland, I of England. The political union that joined the two countries happened in 1707, with the Acts of Union merging the parliaments of each nation, and forming the Kingdom of Great Britain, which covered the entire island.

In 1801, an Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland created the larger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK). This in turn became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1922, following the partition of Ireland and the creation of the Irish Free State.

The terms Great Britain and England are sometimes mistakenly used to denote the United Kingdom. This error can be compared with the use of the term Russia to refer to the former USSR. However the use of Great Britain is more politically correct than "England" as it can be a shortened for for the full title of the UK (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) in the same way Britain is used, Britain is legally the shortened form but Great Britain is used as a contrast to little or lesser Britain (Brittany) particularly in an international basis such as the Olympic team to avoid confusion with French Grand-Bretagne, (Great) Britain, and Breatagne, Brittany

Geographical definition

Great Britain lies to the northwest of Continental Europe, with Ireland to the west, and makes up the larger part of the territory of the United Kingdom. It is surrounded by 1000 smaller islands and islets. It occupies an area of 209,331 km² (80,823 square miles).

It is the third most populous island after Java and Honshū.

Great Britain stretches over about 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.

The English Channel is of geologically recent origins, having been dry land for most of the Pleistocene period. It is thought to have been created between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago by two catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods caused by the breaching of the Weald-Artois Anticline, a ridge which held back a large proglacial lake in the Doggerland region, now submerged under the North Sea. The flood would have lasted several months, releasing as much as one million cubic metres of water per second. The cause of the breach is not known but may have been caused by an earthquake or simply the build-up of water pressure in the lake. As well as destroying the isthmus that connected Great Britain to continental Europe, the flood carved a large bedrock-floored valley down the length of the English Channel, leaving behind streamlined islands and longitudinal erosional grooves characteristic of catastrophic megaflood events.

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