Great Britain and the United Kingdom

Great Britain is a group of islands lying off the western coast of Europe, comprising the main territory of the United Kingdom. Great Britain is also used as a political term describing the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales, the three nations which together make up all the main island's territory.The flag of the UK is sometimes wrongly called the the Union Jack, but Union Flag is actually the correct name as it only becomes a "Jack" when flown from a ship's jack mast.

"Great Britain" is also widely used as a synonym for the country properly known as the "United Kingdom". This is wrong as the United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland in addition to the three countries of Great Britain.

This use of Great Britain is thought by some to derive from usage as an abbreviation of the correct full name of "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". But the British themselves occasionally use the abbreviation "GB", such as in the Olympic Games where the UK team is sometimes informally referred to as 'Team GB' and the UK uses the international foreign vehicle identification code of "GB".

The origin of the name "Britain" is unclear. Some historians say that when the Romans took over the southern part of Great Britain they named the island after the Brigantes, one of the largest Celtic tribes living there. The Romans gave it the name "Britannia".

The earlier Celtic inhabitants became known as "Britons" and the island as Britain. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the name Britannia largely fell out of use, only to be used in a historical sense, referring to the Roman possessions.During medieval times, the British Isles were referred to as "Britannia major" and "Britannia minor". The term "Bretayne the grete" was used by chroniclers as early as 1338, but it was not used officially until King James I proclaimed himself "King of Great Britain" on 20 October 1604 to avoid the more cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland".

Over the centuries, Great Britain has evolved politically from three independent states (England, Scotland, and Wales) through two kingdoms with a shared monarch (England and Scotland), a single all-island Kingdom of Great Britain, to the situation following 1801, in which Great Britain together with the whole island of Ireland constituted the larger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK). The UK then became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the 1920s, when Ireland regained independence.

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised by a government headed by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Executive power is vested in the monarch but in reality Her Majesty's Government is answerable and accountable only to the House of Commons, the lower and only directly elected house in Britain's bicameral Parliament.

The UK's current monarch and head of state is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953.

The British (currently UK) Parliament is bicameral, composed of the 659-member elected House of Commons and the appointed House of Lords.