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A Brief History
Many people are unsure of what the United Kingdom is and will often use the terms 'Great Britain', 'Britain', 'The United Kingdom' and 'England' interchangeably. Great Britain is in fact the name of the island which incorporates the countries of England, Scotland and Wales. The British Isles is the group of islands and includes Great Britain, Ireland, The Hebrides and the Isle of Man (among others). Since 1927 our country's official name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is often abbreviated to just the United Kingdom, the UK or Great Britain. Our official abbreviated country codes are GB or GBR although our ccTLD is .uk which is a break from convention. (Convention would have our ccTLD as .gb) From 1801 to 1927 we were the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, although the partition of Ireland took place in 1922, and from 1707 to 1801 our country was named the Kingdom of Great Britain. Prior to 1707, when we merged with the Kingdom of Scotland, we were called the Kingdom of England. Wales was an administrative region of the Kingdom of England and until 1967 the term England legally included Wales. There is no official founding date for the Kingdom of England but it is generally recognised that it was founded in the 10th Century when the heptarchy of minor kingdoms merged. The term 'heptarchy' was used by historians to refer to the period after the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the southern part of the British Isles. The heptarchy were seven minor kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex. These kingdoms often contained sub-kingdoms which they ruled over either through conquest or alliances. For instance Hwicce was a sub-kingdom of Mercia and Deira was a sub-kingdom of Northumbria. During the 9th Century, the kings of Wessex became dominant over the others and Alfred the Great, who reigned from 871 to 899, was the first king to style himself as the King of England. When the last kingdom, Northumbria, fell to the then king of Wessex in 927, King Athelstan, became the first de facto king of England. As a result of our history and empire, the UK has many crown dependencies and overseas territories. Although these belong to the UK, they are not part of the political entity that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Since the fall of the empire, we created an association called the Commonwealth of Nations which is made up of former colonies and protectorates of the UK.
Countries in the United Kingdom
England
Scotland
Crown Dependencies of the United Kingdom
Jersey
Guernsey
Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom
Anguilla British Antarctic Territory Bermuda British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Falkland Islands Gibraltar Montserrat St Helena and Dependencies (Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha) Turk and Caicos Islands Pitcairn Island South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus The Commonwealth of Nations
Antigua and Barbuda Australia Bangladesh Barbados Belize Botswana Brunei Darussalam Cameroon Canada Cyprus Dominica Fiji Islands Ghana Grenada Guyana India Jamaica Kenya Kiribati Lesotho Malawi Malaysia Maldives Malta Mauritius Mozambique Namibia Nauru New Zealand Nigeria Pakistan Papua New Guinea Samoa Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Solomon Islands South Africa Sri Lanka St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Vincent and the Grenadines Swaziland The Bahamas The Gambia Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tuvalu Uganda United Kingdom United Republic of Tanzania Vanuatu Zambia |
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