The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England

Often people confuse these three: United Kingdom, Great Britain and England. As an example, in sports different names are used for Olympic games different from football World Cup game and many others.

Below is the map of the world and the area in question is this tiny mass of land within the red mark.

Lets zoom in and look at the map closer, the whole of that area is the "British Isles" consisting of five countries which is categorized into to named: Ireland and Great Britain.

Ireland consist of two countries "Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland", while Great Britain consist of three countries "England, Scotland and Wales".

United Kingdom is made up off the whole of Great Britain and part of Ireland. That is all the countries in Great Britain ("England, Scotland and Wales") are in United Kingdom and in Ireland only Northern Ireland is part, Republic of Ireland isn't part of United Kingdom.

Hmm! This sounds complicated, right? Let clarify this by visualizing it on a map.


British Isles = Ireland + Great Britain

Here purple color for Ireland and blue color for Great Britain to clearly see to two different regions.

Ireland = "Republic of Ireland + Northern Ireland"
Great Britain = "England + Scotland + Wales"

United Kingdom =  "England + Scotland + Wales + Northern Ireland"

I hope that was clear and succinct.
Thank you for reading