Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the

northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), Great
Britain is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island
in the world.[5][note 1] In 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the
world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan.[7][8] The island
of Ireland is situated to the west of it, and together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller
surrounding islands, form the British Isles archipelago.[9]
The island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences
between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, and constitutes most of its territory.[10] Most of England, Scotland,
and Wales are on the island. The term "Great Britain" often extends to include surrounding
islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales, and is also sometimes loosely applied to
the UK as a whole.
A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England (which
had already comprised the present-day countries of England and Wales) and the Kingdom of
Scotland by the 1707 Acts of Union. More than a hundred years before, in 1603, King James
VI, King of Scots, had inherited the throne of England, but it was not until 1707 that the two
countries' parliaments agreed to form a political union. In 1801, Great Britain united with the
neighbouring Kingdom of Ireland, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
which was renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" after the Irish
Free State seceded in 1922.
Toponymy[edit]
Main article: Britain (place name)
The archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term 'British Isles'
derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek
geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British
Isles.[11] However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the
island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia.[12][13][14]
The earliest known name for Great Britain is Albion (Greek: Ἀλβιών) or insula Albionum, from
either the Latin albus meaning "white" (referring to the white cliffs of Dover, the first view of
Britain from the continent) or the "island of the Albiones", first mentioned in the Massaliote
Periplus in the 6th century BC, and by Pytheas.[15]
The oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC), or
possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, "There
are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne".[16]
Pliny the Elder (c. AD 23–79) in his Natural History records of Great Britain: "Its former name
was Albion; but at a later period, all the islands, of which we shall just now briefly make
mention, were included under the name of 'Britanniæ.'"[17]
The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of
the Britons. Old French Bretaigne (whence also Modern French Bretagne) and Middle
English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten,
Breten(also Breoton-lond, Breten-lond). Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century
BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the travel writings of the Pytheas
around 320 BC, which described various islands in the North Atlantic as far north
as Thule (probably Norway).
Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ
νῆσοι (the Prettanic Isles).[18]
The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the
Πρεττανοί, Priteni or Pretani.[15] Priteni is the source of the Welsh
language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to
refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland.[19] The latter were later
called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans.
Derivation of Great[edit]
The Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain (μεγάλη
Βρεττανία megale Brettania) and to Ireland as little Britain (μικρὰ Βρεττανία mikra Brettania)
in his work Almagest (147–148 AD).[20] In his later work, Geography (c. 150 AD), he gave the
islands the names Alwion, Iwernia, and Mona (the Isle of Man),[21] suggesting these may have
been the names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of
writing Almagest.[22] The name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after
the Roman conquest of Britain, after which Britainbecame the more commonplace name for the
island.[15]
After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of
Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) refers to the island
as Britannia major("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"),
the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, which had been settled in the
fifth and sixth centuries by migrants from Britain.[23] The term Great Britain was first used
officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the
daughter of Edward IV of England, and James the son of James III of Scotland, which described
it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee". It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and
I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland".
Modern use of the term Great Britain[edit]
Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically
to England, Scotland and Wales in combination.[24] However, it is sometimes used loosely to
refer to the whole of the United Kingdom.[25]
Similarly, Britain, can refer to either all islands in Great Britain, the largest island, or the
political grouping of countries.[26] There is no clear distinction, even in government documents:
the UK government yearbooks have used both Britain[27] and United Kingdom.[28]
GB and GBR are used instead of UK in some international codes to refer to the United Kingdom,
including the Universal Postal Union, international sports teams, NATO, the International
Organization for Standardization country codes ISO 3166-2 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-3,
and international licence plate codes.
On the Internet, .uk is the country code top-level domain for the United Kingdom. A .gb top-
level domain was used to a limited extent, but is now obsolete because the domain name registrar
will not take new registrations.
In the Olympics, Team GB is used by the British Olympic Association to represent the Great
Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic team.
Political definition
Politically, Great Britain refers to the whole of England, Scotland and Wales in
combination,[29] but not Northern Ireland; it includes islands, such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey,
the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland, that are part of
England, Wales, or Scotland. It does not include the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which
are self-governing dependent territories.[29][30]
The political union that joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland happened in 1707 when
the Acts of Union ratified the 1706 Treaty of Union and merged the parliaments of the two
nations, forming the Kingdom of Great Britain, which covered the entire island. Before this, a
personal union had existed between these two countries since the 1603 Union of the
Crowns under James VI of Scotland and I of England.
Prehistoric period
Main article: Prehistoric Britain
The island was first inhabited by people who crossed over the land bridge from the European
mainland. Human footprints have been found from over 800,000 years ago in Norfolk[31] and
traces of early humans have been found (at Boxgrove Quarry, Sussex) from some 500,000 years
ago[32] and modern humans from about 30,000 years ago.
Until about 14,000 years ago, Great Britain was connected to Ireland, and as recently as 8,000
years ago it retained a land connection to the continent, with an area of mostly low
marshlandjoining it to what are now Denmark and the Netherlands.[33] In Cheddar Gorge,
near Bristol, the remains of animal species native to mainland Europe such as antelopes, brown
bears, and wild horses have been found alongside a human skeleton, 'Cheddar Man', dated to
about 7150 BC. Thus, animals and humans must have moved between mainland Europe and
Great Britain via a crossing.[34] Great Britain became an island at the end of the last glacial
period when sea levels rose due to the combination of melting glaciers and the
subsequent isostatic rebound of the crust.
Great Britain's Iron Age inhabitants are known as Britons; they spoke Celtic languages.