Explaining Britain, and the End of the Welsh Coast Path

Laurie and I have spent a lot of time in England, Scotland, and Ireland over the years, but I still found the concept of the United Kingdom, vs. Britain vs. The British Isles a bit confusing. Until this trip, I didn’t realize that Wales was actually a different country. So I did a bit of research and found this excellent graphic created by Anna Debenham.

This is explained in more detail at https://brilliantmaps.com/eng-gb-uk/ but basically, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are countries with some individual rights and even legislatures, much like states in the United States. Together those four countries make up the nation of the United Kingdom. Great Britain consists of the countries on the main island of the British Isles: England, Wales, and Scotland. The British Isles consists of the island of Great Britain and Ireland, however, the Irish prefer the term British-Irish Isles or, “these islands” according to the referenced article.

A good trivia question is, “What nation has the longest official name?” It is, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We learned that on our cruise over here.

Not included in this diagram is the “Commonwealth of Nations,” an association of 56 independent nations, most of whom are former British colonies. As members of the commonwealth they have certain rights and can compete in the Commonwealth Games. The US is a former colony, but left under circumstances that seem to have left us without an invite to the commonwealth. The Republic of Ireland left the commonwealth voluntarily in 1949.

The Welsh Coastal Path

We finished our ten days on the Coastal Path of Wales yesterday, reaching the end on a sunny day punctuated by 3

gusts of wind up to 30 mph. In our ten days we covered about a third of the 186 miles. Like the Southwest Coastal Path in Cornwall and Devon, it had sandy beaches and sheer cliffs with amazing views. The terrain wasn’t as difficult, fortunately. Today we move toward the east side of Wales where we will be hiking about half of the Offa Dyke Path which is roughly along the Welsh/English Border. Note the Welsh humor in the warning sign below.