The USA is subdivided into States.
Canada is subdivided into Provinces.
IIRC, Japan is subdivided into Prefectures.
The distinct subdivisions known as England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are officially designated as what?
Countries.
There are 326 billing authorities in England that collect council tax and business rates:
201 non-metropolitan district councils.
55 unitary authority councils.
36 metropolitan borough councils.
32 London borough councils.
City of London Corporation.
Council of the Isles of Scilly.
Wherever you live there will be a local authority who have defined responsibilities. In many cases there will be a Town council and a County council, but in cities they are combined into a Metropolitan council. All the councillors are elected.
There are also regions, but they have very limited responsibilities - mainly business development.
Where I live, we have a Town council which keeps the streets clean, collects refuse, provides social housing etc. We also have a County Council which looks after education, roads, police fire/rescue etc. County Councillors are also elected.
We have an elected Member of Parliament who represents part of the County. These boundaries get moved from time to time to try to keep the populations equal.
It is a complicated mish-mash that has just sort of grown up over the centuries.
We call them countries.
It may sound odd to external viewers who regard countries as places that issue their own passports and sit in the UN, but then foreign opinion on such subjects has rarely held much interest here.
Simply put, the UK is a political union of four countries.
You can see this come to life in some international sports competitions, particularly amongst sports we established, such as football (soccer), where we compete as separate nations, often against each other on the international stage (eg Wales v England during the current European Championship football tournament).
Kingdom, Kingdom, Principality and Province. Or, colloquially, countries.
Shouldn’t sound odd in a country that calls its subdivisions “states”.
I thought the UK was a somewhat asymmetrical union of.
England and Wales, which form one unit as a historic kingdom with its own legal system.
Wales an historic principality (with the heir apparent as “prince”), and some devolved powers.
Scotland, a kingdom, with some devolved powers and its own legal system.
Northern Ireland, a “province” and section of a larger “country.”
Then, there are places that are under the British Crown but not part of the “United Kingdom.”
The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Its not a country that subdivided itself into neat little divisions, but has many overlapping historical pieces.
This a job for CGP Grey. His youtube fame started with a pretty informative video about the structure of the united kingdom. He may need to update it in a couple of years after the brexit stuff is figured out.
[quote=“gazpacho, post:8, topic:758242”]
This a job for CGP Grey. His youtube fame started with a pretty informative video about the structure of the united kingdom. He may need to update it in a couple of years after the brexit stuff is figured out.
[/QUOTE]As of right now, before Brexit stuff happens, there’s the category of British Overseas Territories whose inhabitants are also EU citizens. That includes the Falklanders, but I think exclude the Bermudans (their choice)
But they are not sovereign countries with their own seat in the UN.
They were countries and they remain ready to be countries again , such as a constitution with parliament and a head of state, and so on, so loosely considered countries, nationalities (like ethnicity), and so on.
The brexit thing, well that really shows that the UK of GB is the UK of GB.
They didnt vote on their own did they ,it was all three or nothing…
And the british government issues passports and controls immigration, runs the military, does most of the taxes, mints the currency and controls financial industry and trade, communications, and so on…The feds, quaintly the english parliament (no separate house for england ) have strong control of the states… thats the way it goes there.
And yet we still regard them as countries. Even our own Parliament describes the UK as a union of 4 countries.
In some places there’s also a Parish Council that sits below the Town or District. They tend to deal with really minor and local things like looking after parks and having a say on planning issues. My wife is a Parish Clerk for two such councils, and I still don’t have a clue what they really do!
State can mean a nation. Look up the word “state”…
For what it’s worth, Northern Ireland isn’t a province, either. Ulster is a province, but Ulster is not synonymous with Northern Ireland. Ulster consists of eight counties, but two of those counties have remained part of the Republic of Ireland, leaving only six as part of the UK.
And Ireland is a nation even though it’s not all under the same jurisdiction. So, for instance, in international sports competition, an athlete from Belfast or Londonderry would compete on the same team as one from Dublin or Cork, but not the same as from London.
They’re called states because that’s just what they are, sovereign states that joined together to form a federation.
Originally, yes, the States of what is now the USA were sovereign, independent states. Their original loose federation, though, has grown in power to such an extent that the term “state” no longer technically applies to them in the classical sense.
Regarding sports, it’s a bit (a lot) more complicated than that. In some sports (rugby) there is a single Ireland team that includes Northern Ireland. In others (soccer) there are separate national teams representing Ireland and Northern Ireland. In yet others (golf, Olympics) someone from Northern Ireland must choose whether to represent Ireland or the UK.
As a minor nitpick, there are actually nine counties in the province of Ulster, of which three (Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal) are in the Republic.
And a bit of political theory that the states actually have all of the power, and donate some of that power to the federal government. As opposed to the British political theory that the Monarch has all of the power, but decides to delegate nearly 100% of that power to parliament, who in turn delegates some of that power to the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish parliaments.
In practice, there is a basic structure of hierarchical governments that people “like”, and however the structure originates, it kind of converges to the same basic structure.
NI, England, Scotland and Wales are countries within the legally-defined state of the UK. Greenland and Denmark are also separate countries, but one state, and the uae is similar.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands comprises four countries, which are the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten.