What’s a county?

THE BRITISH ISLES

One country?

The British Isles is the name for a collection of about 4000 islands, including Great Britain and Ireland. The name of British Isles is usually only seen on maps.

Great Britain, known as Britain or GB, is the name for the largest of the islands in the British Isles. It includes England, Scotland and Wales. It does not include Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. You see the abbreviation GB on driving licences of people who live in England, Scotland and Wales.

The United Kingdom or UK is a political term which includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All of these countries are represented in parliament in London and the abbreviation UK is used on most official documents produced by Parliament.

Everybody from the UK is British, but be careful: only people from England are English. People from Wales think of themselves as Welsh; people from Scotland as Scottish; people from the Republic of Ireland as Irish and people from Northern Ireland as either British or Irish.

What’s a county?

Britain is split up into counties. The word county describes an area with its own local government. County councils are elected to run things, such as education, housing, town planning, rubbish disposal. They look after things like roads, libraries and swimming pools.

Many counties, like Yorkshire, Berkshire and Lancashire, contain the word shire, which is an old word for county. In writing, it is usual to abbreviate the names of counties containing the word shire: Lancashire becomes Lancs; Wiltshire becomes Wilts; South Yorkshire becomes S. Yorks. But Essex stays Essex and Durham stays Durham.