Many of us refer to England, United Kingdom and Great Britain as synonyms. Nothing is further from reality. It is also very common to call a Briton English, whether or not they belong to England. Another mistake that we usually make and for which we must take into account the following explanation.
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The differences between the United Kingdom, England and Great Britain
In the first place, we must attend to the geographical criterion. Between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea there are several islands. The best known are the island of great britain and the island of ireland. In this first division we observe that three of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom are in Great Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales. This is where the political criterion appears. The fourth country Northern Ireland, is located on the other big island. It should be noted that the Republic of Ireland (not to be confused with Northern Ireland) became independent from the United Kingdom in the last century.
Hence the importance of not calling a Briton English, since he might be Scottish or Welsh. It will always be better to use British.
The curious case of the Olympics
Although England, Scotland and Wales compete as independent teams in sports competitions, their athletes do so under the UK flag at the Olympics. In the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, for example, they competed under the name of Britain and use the termTeam GB‘ to refer to the team, although the British Olympic Association (BOA) clarified that the team’s full title was Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team. That said, who can compete on this team?:
- Constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales and those athletes from Northern Ireland who so wishas it can also compete under the Irish flag
- Three Crown dependencies: Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey
- All the British Overseas Territories except British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Bermudawhich have their own Olympic committee
