To aid those confused between England, Britain and the UK

Recently I have noticed that many of our fellow imgurians seem to easily confuse Britain with the UK and England, so I hope to somewhat clarify these matters.

England

England (my country) was first unified as a country in around 927 AD and since then has had many wars (mainly with the French). It is made up of 48 counties which are a bit like states, as they all have their own unique culture.

Wales

Wales became independent in 1056 after many back and forth wars between England and itself. It has been into 8 counties. It also has in my opinion the coolest flag by far.

Scotland

Founded in 843 AD, the Scots also fought England a lot (due to them not liking us very much... and all the raping and pillaging) and went back and fourth between independence and English rule for a bit in the 13th century. It used to be split up into burghs but is now made up of 32 council areas.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland was formed in 1921 due to the split between Irish people wanting to join the United Kingdom or not ( It was a lot more complicated than this and there was loads of fighting due to them not really getting a choice in the matter.) It is made up of 6 counties.

The Republic of Ireland

The Republic of Ireland was formed in 1949 again due to not wanting to join the UK (again way more complicated and there was loads of fighting because basically us English were huge dicks to Ireland and gave them no choice) . There was (and still is in some places) between Ireland and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland due to Catholic-Protestant divide (Catholics South and Protestants North) it has 32 counties.

Britain or Great Britain

This is where it gets confusing. Great Britain is just England, Scotland and Wales. It is the name of the ISLAND, and is not a country. The "great" comes from it being larger than Brittany in France, and first came about around the 12th century However in more historic, works such as "Almagest"by Ptolemy, Britain is called Great Britain and Ireland "Little Britain". However it turns out this is very out dated and it will really annoy the Irish if you call Ireland Little Britain.

The British Isles

Again still independent countries, the British isles is the name given to both Great Britain and Ireland and again only refers to the geographical Islands and not the countries within.

The United Kingdom

And of course the UK. This is a union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, formed in 1707. UK actually stands for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Although all the countries are all governed by the same parliament in Westminster , they each have their own regional Parliament to deal with local affairs. Although we often enter as one team into sporting events like the Olympics, we are still independent countries and get pretty butthurt when confused with one another.

(sorry for any errors, especially in the history , feel free to correct me in the comments - first post though so be kind)

*Edit* Thank you all for the feedback, Ireland has 32 counties total not 32 South and 6 North. I have corrected most of my horrendous spelling errors (sorry Ireland) and also took out some of the badly phrased parts and inadvertently offensive remarks. Finally I have been told about a video on this by CGP Grey so here is the sauce- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

*edit two*- Due to my post being a giant omnishambles, I have more errors to correct. Lesser Britain is Brittany in France and has absolutely nothing to do with Ireland. Also DON'T call Irish people British or they will be a little more than a tad miffed (and may or may not punch your bleeding lights out).