Do you think of England as a country?

If I'm right England is a country and part of Great Britain and the United Kingdom.
Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales (all three are on that 1 island) and the United Kingdom is England, Scotland, Wales, N-Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and some other isles, like the Isle of Man.

But I could be completely wrong of course.

I know its Great Britain, but sometimes I have to talk about the big mass of land we call England, separate from Scotland & Wales. Depending on what I'm doing I sometimes clump Wales & England together as England. At the post office I can't just put Great Britain down, they need something more specific.

I think of England as that big place over there. *points far away*

Yes, because England is a country.

No... though, I realize they call it a country. But, United Kingdom is the country (which is on par with other countries). I think I tend to equate England and UK, though I suspect that's offensive to some Brits.

Of course it is a country! It's not simply a suburb of Europe yet!

Ah.. I just checked wikipedia... they call England a "Home Nation", which I suppose is a decent compromise. There are four home nations in the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I have a tendancy to fully knowing that GB is the actual country, however... Medieval History has a tendency to 'make' me think in such a manner.

How is England not a country

No, although I know that some people like to call it that.

Yes. At least in the US, it is pretty common to think of the entire UK as "England." It's just the name we use for it. So yes, I think of it as a country, even though I know that technically, it's not the name of the whole country. It's sort of a pars par toto situation. And it's not unlike thinking of America as a country, which plenty of people do as well.

Yes

Yes I do..England...is the same as Great Britain and the United Kingdom and those are considered countries..

It depends a lot on your definition of "country". England (along with the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom) isn't an independent nation in the sense that, say, Germany and France are, but it's more than just a state in the sense that Texas and California are. But the whole makeup of the UK is weird, especially to those outside the UK - it isn't internally consistent, by any means.

> Ah.. I just checked wikipedia... they call England a "Home Nation",
> which I suppose is a decent compromise. There are four home nations
> in the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That's a little misleading, though, and as the Wikipedia article points out such usage is somewhat controversial. The term "home nation" doesn't really mean anything outside the confines of sport, where the four constituent parts of the UK each have their own teams (except in rugby, where there is no Northern Ireland team - instead, there is one team for the whole of the island of Ireland). The four parts of the UK do not have equal status - England and Scotland are former Kingdoms (and that history is the source of the name, United Kingdom, from when they were united under a single king), Wales is a Principality and Northern Ireland is a Territory.

Historically, England and Scotland are two former independent nation states that united to become a single nation state (not a federal state - unlike the US, there is no sense in which the UK exists superimposed on the individual parts, the union between England and Scotland was more akin to a corporate merger than a federation). Wales was already ruled by England by the time of the union, and Northrn Ireland was added afterwards (or, to be more precise, Ireland was added afterwards, and then Northern Ireland was retained when the rest of Ireland regained independance). So Wales was a conquest addition to England that was taken into the union when Scotland and England Merged, and Northern Ireland was a later British conquest that got added to the already-united Britain.

yeah, it had a captail, it's a country.

Always have.

Yes, and we have much to be thankfull for/to the UK also. If they didn't colonize the New World then it's likely we would owe our American Pedigree to France, In which case we would all be driving about in funny looking smallish cars that break down every 1000KM, we would be drinking Chardonet instead of Miller, eating snails and quishe with 1 Metere long crusty bread instead of Big-Macs....and quite worst of all, Denver, Baltimore, Atlanta and even Benton Harbor MI would LOOK LIKE QUEBEC. (...ponder that one for awhile folks!!)

if it's not a country, what is it?

Yeah, there's a lot of internal history there... but, from the outside, UK is the country, right? England is a part of that.

It had a capital? I was under the impression that London is still the capital.

And you logic is flawed - states in the US have capitals and they're still states.

Yes, I do think of England as a country. Great music, so-so weather, crappy dentistry and even crappier food. All the cultural elements that make up a country, non ?

I think I do. In my mind, I don't tend to really notice what the actual political structure is. I'm sure for those who live there, it is important, but for me I have trouble knowing the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom.

I do, why, i do not know?

You don't know much about Africa, do you?

why not

I don't think of England as a 'true' country but I do often misuse the word, out of laziness, when I should have used the phrase, "United Kingdom" or "Great Britain."

Well.... like I said, it depends on your definition of "country". From an outside perspective, the UK is the unit that matters, as it's the level of national government. But it really isn't that simple, internally.

No, not really, it does tend to have a life of it's own, tho.

> I think of England as that big place over there.
> *points far away*


OW! My eye!!!

I don't know how the question came about, however I did spend a month in Rwanda shortly after the genocide, and shuttled between Kigali and Nairobi during this time. What I can tell you is that Africans know how to live: wake up at sunrise and rest at sundown, natural rhythm and family as your primary anchor and value system.

Why do you ask (I mean this started off as a discussion about England, right?)

What is England> Britian?

of course it's a country. i should know i live there