welcome to the United Kingdom and a whole lot more explained by me CGP Greg
United Kingdom England Great Britain are these three the same place are they
different places do British people secretly laugh at those who use the
terms incorrectly who knows the answers to these questions I do and I'm gonna
tell you right now for the lost this is the world this is the European continent
and this is the place we have to untangle the area shown in purple is the
United Kingdom part of the confusion is that the United Kingdom is not a single
country but instead is a country of countries it contains inside of at four
co-equal and sovereign nations the first of these is England shown here in red
England is often confused with the United Kingdom as a whole because it's
the largest and most populous of the nations and contains the de facto
capital city London to the north of Scotland shown in blue and to the West
as Wales shown in white and often forgotten even by those who live in the
United Kingdom is Northern Ireland shown in orange each country has a local term
for the population while you can call them all British it's not recommended as
the four countries generally don't like each other the Northern Irish Scottish
and Welsh regard the English as slave-driving colonial masters no matter
that all three have their own devolved Parliament's are allowed to vote on
English laws despite the reverse not being true and the English generally
guard the rest as rural yokels who spend too much time with their sheep however
as the four constituent countries don't have their own passports they are all
British citizens like it or not there are British citizens of the United
Kingdom whose full name by the way is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland so where's Great Britain hiding right
here the area covered in black is Great Britain
unlike England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland Great Britain is a
geographical rather than a political term rip Britain is the largest island
among the British Isles within the United Kingdom the term Great Britain is
often used to refer to England Scotland and Wales alone with the intentional
exclusion of Northern Ireland this is mostly but not completely true as all
three constituent countries have islands that are not part of Great Britain such
as the Isle of Wight part of England the Welsh Isle of Anglesey the Scottish
Aberdeen's the Shetland Islands the Auckland islands in the islands of the
Clyde the second biggest island in the British Isles is Ireland it's worth
noting at this point that Ireland is not a country like Great Britain is a
geographical not political term the island of Ireland contains on a two
country's Northern Ireland which we have already discussed and the Republic of
Ireland when people say they are Irish they were referring to the Republic of
Ireland which is separate country from the United Kingdom however both the
Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom are members of the European
Union even though England in particular likes
to pretend that it's an island in the mid-atlantic rather than 50 kilometers
off the coast of France but that's a story for another time to review the two
largest islands in the British Isles are Ireland in Great Britain Ireland has on
a two countries the Republic of Ireland in northern
Ireland while Great Britain mostly contains three England Scotland and
Wales these last three when combined with
Northern Ireland formed the United Kingdom there are still many unanswered
questions such as why when you traveled to Canada is there British royalty on
the money to answer this we need to talk about Empire you can't have gone to
school in the english-speaking world without having learned that the British
Empire once banned a 4th of world's land and govern nearly a fourth world's
people well that's easy to remember the parts of the British Empire that broke
away violently we often forget how many nations gained independence through
diplomacy not bloodshed these want to be nation struck a deal with the Empire
where they continue to recognize the monarchy as the head of state in
exchange for a local autonomous Parliament to understand how they are
connected we need to talk about the crown not the physical crown that sits
behind glass in the Tower of London and earns millions of tourist pounds for the
UK but the crown is a complicated legal entity best thought of as a one-man
corporation who created this corporation God did according to British tradition
all power is vested in God and the monarch is crowned in a Christian
ceremony God however not wanting to be bothered with micromanagement
conveniently delegates his power to an entity called the crown while this used
to be the physical crown in the Tower of London it evolved over time into illegal
corporations so able to be controlled only by the ruling monarch it's a useful
reminder that the United Kingdom is still technically a theocracy with the
reigning monarch acting as both a head of state in the Supreme Governor of the
official state religion Anglicanism such of the oddities that
arise with dealing with a thousand-year-old monarchy back to
Canada and the rest the former colonies that gained their independence through
diplomacy and continue to recognize the authority of the crown are known as the
Commonwealth realm they are in decreasing order of population Canada
Australia Papua New Guinea New Zealand Jamaica the Solomon Islands believes the
Bahamas Barbados st. Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Grenada Antigua and
Barbuda Saint Kitts and Nevis and Tuvalu all our independent nations but still
recognize the monarchy as the head of state even though it has little real
power within their borders there are three further entities that belong to
the crown and these are the Crown Dependencies the Isle of Man jersey and
guernsey unlike the Commonwealth realm they are not considered independent
nations but are granted local autonomy by the crown and a British citizenship
by the United Kingdom that the UK does reserve the right to overrule the laws
of their local assemblies are we done now almost but not quite there are still
a couple of loose threads such as this place the tiny city of Gibraltar on the
southern coast of Spain famous for its rock its monkeys and for causing
diplomatic tension between the United Kingdom and Spain or what about the
Falkland Islands which caused so much tension between the United Kingdom and
Argentina that they went to war over them these places belong in the last
group of crown properties known as British overseas territories but their
former name crown colonies gives away their origin there the last vestiges of
the British Empire unlike the Commonwealth realm they have
not independent nations that continue to
rely on the United Kingdom for military and sometimes economic assistance like
the Crown Dependencies everyone born within their borders is a British
citizen the crown colonies are in decreasing order of population bermuda
the cayman islands the Turks and Caicos Islands Gibraltar the British Virgin
Islands Akrotiri and Dhekelia Anguilla Santa Lena the Ascension Islands Tristan
da Cunha Montserrat the British Indian Ocean Territory the South Georgia and
South Sandwich Islands the Falkland Islands the British Antarctic Territory
and the Pickering Islands for a final Venn diagram the United Kingdom is a
country situated on the British Isles and is part of the crown which is
controlled by the monarchy also part of the crown in the British Isles are the
Crown Dependencies the independent nations of the former Empire that still
recognize the crown are the Commonwealth realm and the non independent remnants
of the former Empire are the British overseas territories thank you very much
for watching