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The name Britain originates from the Common Brittonic term *Pritanī and is one of the oldest known names for Great Britain, an island off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The terms Briton and British , similarly derived, refer to some or all of its inhabitants and, to varying extents, those of the smaller islands in the vicinity .
The earliest known name for Great Britain is Albion (Greek: Ἀλβιών) or insula Albionum, from either the Latin albus meaning "white" (possibly referring to the white cliffs of Dover, the first view of Britain from the continent) or the "island of the Albiones". [15]
The Acts of Union 1707 declared that the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". [p] [22] The term "United Kingdom" has occasionally been used as a description for the former Kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was simply "Great Britain". [23]
The name Albion was used by Isidore of Charax (1st century BC – 1st century AD) [9] and subsequently by many classical writers. By the 1st century AD, the name refers unequivocally to Great Britain. But this "enigmatic name for Britain, revived much later by Romantic poets like William Blake, did not remain popular among Greek writers.
The history of the United Kingdom begins in 1707 with the Treaty of Union and Acts of Union.The core of the United Kingdom as a unified state came into being with the political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, [1] into a new unitary state called Great Britain.
The country's official name thus became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". England, as part of the UK, joined the European Economic Community in 1973, which became the European Union in 1993.
Great Britain and Ireland are each labelled in Ancient Greek: νῆσος Βρεττανική, romanized: nê̄sos Brettanikḗ, lit. 'a British island'. Andronikos Noukios, a Greek writing under the pen name Nikandros Noukios (Latin: Nicander Nucius), visited Great Britain in the reign of Henry VIII (r. 1509–1547) as part of an embassy.
This legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The Matter of Britain, a national myth, was retold or reinterpreted in works by Gerald of Wales, a Cambro-Norman chronicler who, in the 12th and 13th centuries, used the term "British" to refer to the people later known as the Welsh. [55]