A1:
Reliable sources support the view that the United Kingdom is a single
country. This view is shared with other major reputable encyclopedias. There has been a long-standing
consensus to describe the UK in this way.
Q2: Why isn't
Great Britain listed as one of the names of the United Kingdom, in the lead?
A2: See the article entitled "
Terminology of the British Isles".
Great Britain is the name of the largest island that the UK encompasses, and is not generally used in source material as the name of the country. Indeed, Britain 2001, the "official reference book" of the United Kingdom produced by the
Office for National Statistics for "British diplomatic posts" says in its foreword:
The term 'Britain' is sometimes used as a short way of expressing the full title of the country: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (or more simply again, the United Kingdom or the UK). 'Great Britain' comprises England, Wales and Scotland only.
The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 'Great Britain', however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles.
Great Britain consists of England + Scotland + Wales. The term is exclusive of Northern Ireland and is therefore not a synonym for the term "United Kingdom".
There has been a long-standing
consensus not to include Great Britain in the lead as an interchangable name of the state.
Q2b: Is
Britain really one of the names of the United Kingdom?
A2b: Whether Britain should be listed as an alternative name in the lead has been discussed often, most extensively in
August 2007 and
April 2011;
and whether the alternate name Britain should be qualified with "incorrect" in
June 2006,
with "informally" in
September 2006,
or with "mistakenly" in
January 2011.
Q3: Isn't the United Kingdom a "collection of countries"?
A3: This is one of the most common questions raised on this talk page, but consistently, consensus goes against taking that approach. No major reputable source describes the UK in this way. However the
history of the formation of the United Kingdom, supported by source material, highlights that England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are "countries within a country". Please also refer to Q4.
Q4: Are England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales countries?
A4: This is the most frequent question raised by visitors to this talk page, and the issue which generates the most debate. However, as a result of a lack of a formal
British constitution, and owing to a convoluted
history of the formation of the United Kingdom, a variety of terms exist which are used to refer to England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Reliable and official sources support use of the word "countries":
As the UK has no written constitution in the usual sense, constitutional terminology is fraught with difficulties of interpretation and it is common usage nowadays to describe the four constituent parts of the UK (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland) as “countries”.
On Wikipedia, the term has broadly won preference amongst the editing community (note, however, that a country is not the same as a
sovereign state). Also commonplace is the phrase
"constituent country, or countries", when referring to the countries as elements of the UK. This phrase, however, is not an actual term; ie Scotland is not a 'constituent country' in itself, but is one of the constituent countries of the UK. The community endeavours to achieve an atmosphere of
neutrality and (for the sake of stability) compromise on the various UK naming issues. See also
Countries of the United Kingdom for more details about the terms that have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Q5: Why don't we refer to England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales as
nations, or by the term "
Home Nations"?
A5: Widespread confusion surrounds the use of the word "
nation". In standard
British English, and in academic language, a nation is a
social group of two or more people, and not a division of land. This is also the approach taken in the nation article, and across Wikipedia (for example, the
English people and the
Québécois are described as "nations", reflecting real world practice). The term
Home Nations is generally used only in sporting contexts. It is not used in any major reputable sources outside of sport, and is not the approach taken by any other encyclopedia.
A6: This view is supported by some sources, but the current consensus amongst the editing community is aligned to a greater body of work which describes both Northern Ireland and Wales as countries. However, the terms are not all mutually exclusive: a country can also be a principality or a province, and these terms are mentioned throughout Wikipedia as alternative names in afternotes.
A7: Northern Ireland has not had its own unique, government sanctioned flag since its government was prorogued in 1972, and abolished in 1973 under the
Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. During official events, the British government uses the Union Flag — the
flag of the United Kingdom — and this is the only flag used by the government in Northern Ireland. The consensus is to reflect this in the article with a note.
Q8: Why is "
British Isles" not mentioned in the introduction?
A8: Again, Wikipedia editors often disagree on the acceptability and suitability of various terms and phrases. This term is not favoured by a number of Wikipedia editors, and is currently not used in the introduction both to simplify the status quo, and also to discourage edit warring.
This article is written in
British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other
varieties of English. According to the
relevant style guide, this should not be changed without
broad consensus.
United Kingdom was one of the Geography and places good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the
good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be
renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Europe, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to
European topics of a cross-border nature on Wikipedia.EuropeWikipedia:WikiProject EuropeTemplate:WikiProject EuropeEurope articles
This article was
copy edited by
Chaosdruid, a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, on 17 May 2011.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the
United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
Does the current structure make sense? I'd imagine if you're not British (or even if you are) you'd be left quite confused by it. We have Scot/NI/Welsh local govt. covered in both sections. In terms of hierarchy it goes from top (UK) level in the previous section to lowest level (local govt) then middle (devolved) level but that "middle" level only tells you about 3 countries. You have to guess what the situation in England is.
It seems to me more logical for there to be an Admin divisions section which (1) starts off with the historical paragraph as now albeit expanded to say that the UK pre-1998 was highly centralized. (2) Then talk about how Devolution developed in general terms. (3) then have sections on each of the 4 countries (with heading for each) which covers not only the devolved institutions but also local government. In the England section it would explicitly cover how the UK institutions effectively continue to cover England - with something about the
West Lothian question issues. I was going to go ahead and
WP:BEBOLD but I know that some might have issue with not having a specific section on Devolution. I'll press on unless there are objections.
DeCausa (
talk) 21:15, 11 April 2024 (UTC)reply
That certainly sounds more logical. I don't think we need to go into too much detail about local government structures as that's handled in the appropriate country articles and doesn't have much bearing on the UK as a whole. Just pointing out that the four countries each have different local government structures is probably all we need to say here, with links to the relevant articles for details.
WaggersTALK 11:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)reply
True. As an aside, the article seems often to be written as though
WP:SUMMARYSTYLE doesn't exist. There are dozens of relevant sub-articles. It could be (at least) half the size but has always suffered from drive-by pet add-ons.
DeCausa (
talk) 11:56, 12 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Wikipedia constantly lies and is full of chronic misinformation. Out of respect for all those that you, Wikipedia, have been disrespecting world wide, I request you delete all pages with statements about the English language being American, and International English being the English language. English is from England. Not America. English is not International English, it is English! Call the American language what it is. American. Never call the UK a country! The UK is four different countries united! Stop being one of the most disrespectful, lying website's in the internet, full of chronic misinformation.
I am tired of correcting your pages and having my words replaced with lies!
Name7528798543 (
talk) 09:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)reply
In the phrase: "Other major cities include Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow and Leicester." I would definitely include Manchester. You may argue whether Manchester or Birmingham should be regarded the UK's second city, but for example: Manchester Airport is the busiest UK airport outside London
89.242.197.200 (
talk) 17:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Based on the citation, I presume the original author intended to use population as a measure of "majorness". If following that vein, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Cardiff would have to be listed before Manchester, but clearly that would unnecessarily bloat the lead. Of course, we could devise some alternative standard of deciding which cities to include, but
is this really that important?
Liu1126 (
talk) 20:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)reply
This goes back to the old problem of how to define a "city" - in Britain (and elsewhere) administrative boundaries rarely coincide with contiguously built-up urban areas. The cited source seems to use a strange (and unexplained) definition - the population figure for Manchester is much lower than that in any other definition I have seen. Outside London, most would consider the largest or most important British cities to include Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow - see
this source for instance - with places like Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Leicester, Bristol, Cardiff and Edinburgh at the next tier. But, definitions will vary.
Ghmyrtle (
talk) 21:00, 21 April 2024 (UTC)reply
The novel source should be removed from the lead, and the lead should follow the body. Currently, the body text does not bother with cities, with the only coverage being a template. That said, the template in question looks at urban areas and lists Manchester as second.
CMD (
talk) 01:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I agree with CMD. But if we are to get into a decision about which places might merit a mention, in my opinion we should do it based on notability not population - i.e. which cities are more prominently / more frequently mentioned by reliable sources? That gets us away from the whole boundaries/population thing (but potentially opens a different can of worms).
WaggersTALK 09:17, 22 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I think that one problem is that, given that we mention Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast as capitals, it would seem a little odd not to mention some of the other cities that are larger and in many respects more significant internationally. Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow stand out for me. But, they should be mentioned in the main text as well, and they need to be included based on defensible criteria and reliable sources.
Ghmyrtle (
talk) 09:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)reply
The Bank of England is not responsible for coins.
"The Bank of England is the UK's central bank and is responsible for issuing notes and coins in the pound sterling."
BoE are responsible for issuing notes, The Royal Mint is responsible for issuing coins.
92.237.50.201 (
talk) 21:07, 23 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Updating The Racial Composition Of The U.K.'s Population
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Please update the percentages in the infobox relating to the population's racial composition according to the latest census data as seen in the infobox for
Demographics of the United Kingdom.
According to the 2021 British Census, (now that Scotland has finally released its racial data), the racial composition of the U.K.'s population is as follows.
I think an image representing Brexit is more appropriate. Brexit resulted in a drastic constitutional change in the United Kingdom, whereas Elizabeth II's death merely resulted in a change of monarch (and unless Charles III reaches the age of 151, the death of a British monarch will occur again in the 21st century).
AdamBlacktalk •
contribs 00:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)reply
I, again, think Brexit is more relevant to Britain in the 21st century. The repercussions of Brexit shaped the political landscape and have an ongoing impact on daily life here. The pandemic was a significant event, led to unprecedented restrictions on daily life in modern Britain, and sadly resulted in far too many deaths, but it was relatively short-lived (in the context of a century). I do think the current photo is not the best possible illustration, though. Perhaps you could find a better image representing Brexit?
AdamBlacktalk •
contribs 23:00, 5 June 2024 (UTC)reply
level-3 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale.
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a
"change X to Y" format and provide a
reliable source if appropriate.
Kahastok
talk 09:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
Already done —
TechnoSquirrel69 (
sigh) 22:52, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Not done: per
Adam Black. '''[[
User:CanonNi]]''' (
talk •
contribs) 01:08, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
_-_09.jpg){kind=link}