This is a debate that's been running around my school for the past couple of days.

I think that England is kind of a country, but not really, as it is always represented by the UK, which is a country proper. English don't have English passports while Scottish have Scottish passports, do they?

So, post your opinion!

No.

I'm not quite sure what England is technically, but it certainly isn't a country.

This country is called The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They, together, are one country. Individually, they are.. well, I'm not sure, but they're not countries. Wales is a principality, I know that. Northern Ireland is probably a province or something. Scotland was a country about 200 years ago, but after signing the Act of Union it no longer was. A similar act was signed with Wales probably around the same time. Both realised that independence probably wasn't a good idea, as they couldn't support themselves economically, and needed support from England, and there really wasn't anything to be gained from independence anyway. So they unified with England, to form one country. That country is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.


[Edit: Okay, I've done some brief research.
1536 - Wales signed an Act of Union joining England and Wales (as England)
1707 - Scotland signs an Act of Union joining England (to form the Kingdom of Great Britain)
1800 - Ireland signs Act of Union to Great Britain (to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
1927 - Republic of Ireland separates, to from the Irish Republic and The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland]

I think that thanks to Scotlands bid for independence from the vicious tyrants of England, England is becoming more of a country in its own right; but I personally believe that the UK should just be one big country. Hell, I think that Ireland should become part of the UK :p

I just really don't care. It's some place where people are.. or something. If I call someone English, then that means they're on that giant rock north of western Europe.

giant rock? what map are you looking at? :p

and I agree, the UK is a country, England is a football team.

no no we're a country and we win

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

The only time the four constituent parts are treated separately is in football, and also Commonwealth events.

CONQUER THEM ALL AND MAKE THEM ENGLAND

What have you unleashed!? Don't you remember the last time this came up?

My argument as before: the OED says it is so. So it is so.

England is a coutnry. So is Scotland. So is Wales. God knows what the Irelands are up to.

YES Wales is a Principality, but it is still a nation state. A country does not need a king/queen of it's own to be a country.

AFAIK.

By definition, England, Wales and Scotland can all be called separate countries.

I want to be free from the others, scotland's oil/taxes are getting sucked into THEIR system. It's unfair, we know it's happening and nobody says anything.

The Acts of Union gave up their status as nation states. After the signing, they were no longer their own countries. These acts have not been repealed.

Fair enough. If Scotland has its own national anthem, why do we have a really bad one...?

God save our noble queen my arse: she needs putting down bless her :p

/another thread that one...

England doesn't have an anthem.

'God save the Queen' is the national anthem of the UK.

But 'Land of hope and glory' tends to be used in most sporting events.

United Kingdom is a country, England is a province(like Alberta and California are, though we call the latter something different).

However, its a lot harder to divide the UK like that then it would be for Canada or the US because the UK is more or less a unitary government whereas Canada and US are federal governments.

I want to be a king.

stop lieing to yourself, england is just a place made up by the bush administration

noooooooooooooooooooo!

*disappears*

....The UK is one big country. Also, if you noticed Scotlands 'bid for independence' happened over a thousand years ago, and five hundred years after that they signed the Union Act.

.. So what is "Britain" then?..

Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales + a few little islands nobody really cares about

England ~ Canada

ok seriously, what crazy maps are you people looking at?!

Also, for a post relevant to the thread: England is a part of the UK, and the UK is a country. A country can not be a smaller part of a country. Why the other parts have passports or national anthems is because they can't get it right.

Ah.. I think using the Sex Pistols God Save the Queen would be so much more fun.

Is England a country? I Don't know. But according to some Brits (more frightening and specifically my mother), They're their own continent .

England was a country before all the foreigners turned up. Sometimes you'd be hard-pressed to find an English-speaking (as a first language) person in London. Once at the Pizza Hut in Leicester Square, a bunch of Asians pushed queue in front of us and the guy at the counter (also of some Asian origin) just let it happen and served them first. You go to central London, you feel like a foreigner in your own country.

/End of rant

AK, you need to go to Texas sometime. Especially Houston. You'll be hard pressed to find someone that speaks English.

... and this is why we don't vote Conservative.

he is not alone in finding this, although if you go out to the countryside you find the real England and not just some europeanised city....sorry maeve after living in London for 3 years it just doesn't seem like England, more like europe....bar the historic stuff

as for the debate, yes England is a country, so is Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, although we are all represented under the banner of the UK,

except in sport (bar the olympics), which I think is stupid because we would probably have the best Football squad in the world....although I could also say if carlsberg had a football team it would probably the best in the world....(english joke, hopefully some will get it...)

I wouldn't really describe England, Wales, Scotland, NI as states because that role is taken up by the different counties, IE Cornwall, Northamptonshire ( << me ), Oxfordshire etc....but although the difference between counties is sometimes minor, the difference between countries is a hell of a lot...you'd know the difference between england and wales for example because the buggers have to put welsh on the road signs for the people who live up in the mountains and don't know english....
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k I made that last bit up but they do have welsh on the road signs.....its a little gripe of mine....

the whole issue is open to debate and the government would love to say we are all one big happy family each with our own unique identity but that’s just political crap...

I say it's a country. The term "United Kingdom" indicates a union of several countries which have formed a single larger country, similar to the way in which the term "United States" indicates a union of several states into a single larger state.

Wikipedia has this to say about the subject:



And since it seems relevant, the entry for "country" includes the following:

I say yeah, within the larger country of the United Kingdom. Or, alternatively, you could say it's a nation within the state of the United Kingdom, as is Scotland.

it's a magical place full of dragons and people who talk funny...

Yeah, but America is different. It's only a 500 year old country, every American (except natives of course) are essentially immigrants. England (especially London) is supposed to be this age-old highly established country with a huge volume of history. Now with its massive foreigner population (and tacky millennial buildings), London feels nothing like this at all.

I'm pretty sure that England is a nation, and the UK is a state.

England's a shrubbery.

You're all ignoring the Acts of Union. >:

When country A joins up with country B, then A+B is one country. A and B are no longer separate countries. A+B is one country.

Exactly the same has happened with Norway and Sweden, several times. The two formed a Union, to make one country, and then eventually split, to make two. And then they'd get bored and form a Union again, making one country, and after a while split again, to make two. Norway and Sweden did this about a dozen times.

England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have formed a Union, once, to make one country. They have never split.

If you go back about 1500 years, each county was essentially its own country, but the counties were all united under one King. A few centuries later, each province of this little island was united under one King.
Oxfordshire does not exist as its own nation, and neither does Wales. Hertfordshire does not exist as its own nation, and neither does Scotland. Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire do have powers to govern themselves through local councils and the like, as do Wales and Scotland, but they are not their own country.




You don't have nations within a state. You have states within a nation. You might well say that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all states, within the nation of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

...however Britain is also a state.

How is Britain a state? What is it under?