Great Britain map

 Great Britain, also known as Britain, is an island in the North Atlantic off the north-west coast of continental Europe. With an area of 229,848 km² (88,745 sq mi), it is the largest island of the British Isles, the largest island in Europe and the ninth-largest in the world. In 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the third-most populous island in the world, after Java (Indonesia) and Honshū (Japan). It is surrounded by over 1,000 smaller islands. The island of Ireland lies to its west.

The island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constituting most of its territory: most of England,Scotland, and Wales are on the island, with their respective capital cities, London, Edinburgh, and Cardiff. Politically, the term Great Britain usually extends to include surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales.

The Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the Union of Scotland and England (which already comprised the present-day England and Wales) in 1707. More than a hundred years before, in 1603, King James VI, King of Scots, had inherited the throne of England, but it was not until 1707 that the Parliaments of the two countries agreed to form a single kingdom. Subsequently, in 1801, Great Britain united with the neighbouring Kingdom of Ireland, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. When five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom in 1922, the state was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.