Talk:United Kingdom/Archive 1

United Kingdom or Great Britain?

Why has this article been moved from United Kingdom, which is a recognised country, to Great Britain, which hasn't existed as a country since the UK was formed?

The person who moved the page says "The term 'United Kingdom' is actually part of the long title for this country grouping" but this doesn't make sense to me. Richard Lamont 08:16, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Richard, most people know this country as Great Britain.Having an article under 'United Kingdom' doesn't make sense,as it is like having an article titled 'United Republic of Tanzania', when most people refer to that country as Tanzania. I hope that I was able to answer your question.Great Britain, by the way, has existed since 1707. - (Aidan Work 14:04, 27 January 2007 (CST))

This seems to me to be a general programming problem. The same issue comes up in biology with the names of organisms, common names and scientific names. Perhaps disambiguation pages would solve it? I do not have a view as to the best name, but I do know that if I put either "United Kingdom" or "Great Britain" or (forgive my lack of sophistication) even "England" in the search box I should be offered a route to this article.Nancy Sculerati MD 15:45, 27 January 2007 (CST) This is confusing indeed, since on the European continent the UK is considered the proper name where as when one would say GB that is the UK without Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - concistent actually by standards used by the FIFA (to mention some of the users of that standard. England and Great Brittain nowadays are seen as total synonyms. However due to historical arguments there remains much to say for using the UK above GB. Robert Tito 17:06, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Counting all minor outlying islands as part of Great Britain, it is 94.3% of the UK's land area and 97.2% of its population. It is not identical to the UK, so the article on the UK should not be called Great Britain. On Wikipedia, there is a separate article for the UK, Great Britain, and England, and I don't see why we shouldn't do the same here. These articles do lead readily to the UK article, because it is linked to in the first two lines of both of those.—Nat Krause 19:36, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Great Britan seems to be a subset of UK. UK should be retained, I suggest, and the distinguishing theme for the subset explained. We also need to check CZ policy on moving pages. I recall it should be done sparingly Is my memory wrong on this? David Tribe 21:43, 27 January 2007 (CST)

I have lived in the UK all my life. We hardly ever talk of Great Britain, because we don't often need a term for England + Scotland + Wales but excluding Northern Ireland. Great Britain is not a legal jurisdiction, it has no parliament or government, and other countries don't send their ambassadors there. There is English Law, and Scottish Law, but no British Law. I would like the name of my country got right, if it's all the same to you guys, so I'm going to revert the move. Richard Lamont 11:48, 28 January 2007 (CST)