3 ms·

I'm British and I have always considered NI to be one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. They are all countries in their own right, and the

I'm British and I have always considered NI to be one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. They are all countries in their own right, and the UK is also considered a country for most purposes. Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK.

andyjohnson0 4y ago
> Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK. For some reason that I've never understood, the ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are "GB" and "GBR" [1]. That might have some bearing on this. As a brit as well, and as commentary for others who don't live here, my perception is that the term "Great Britain" isn't used a lot nowadays - either as an informal synonym for "the country called the UK", or as the formal name for "the part of the UK that isn't Northern Ireland". It does get used for things like "Team GB" (the UK Olympic team branding, which includes athletes from NI) and probably other sports-related stuff. Its all very confusing... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes
- tankenmate 4y ago
  The reason is that the ISO codes were inherited, via a long winding path, from the postal system. That's why you'll see that the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey have codes as well (even though they are not independent sovereign states). And of course Ireland has a code. But then after the postal codes were created came partition, and the Unionists called themselves British, so wouldn't have wanted a code that made them felt less British, and so whereas they would have been under the Ireland code before partition they joined GB after partition.

andyjohnson0 4y ago

> Although I think it's weird the number of (mostly foreign) entities that only provide GB as an option for country rather than UK. For some reason that I've never understood, the ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are "GB" and "GBR" [1]. That might have some bearing on this. As a brit as well, and as commentary for others who don't live here, my perception is that the term "Great Britain" isn't used a lot nowadays - either as an informal synonym for "the country called the UK", or as the formal name for "the part of the UK that isn't Northern Ireland". It does get used for things like "Team GB" (the UK Olympic team branding, which includes athletes from NI) and probably other sports-related stuff. Its all very confusing... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes

tankenmate 4y ago
The reason is that the ISO codes were inherited, via a long winding path, from the postal system. That's why you'll see that the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey have codes as well (even though they are not independent sovereign states). And of course Ireland has a code. But then after the postal codes were created came partition, and the Unionists called themselves British, so wouldn't have wanted a code that made them felt less British, and so whereas they would have been under the Ireland code before partition they joined GB after partition.