Terminology of the British Isles

one of four constituent countries of the United Kingdom: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

thumb|Scottish Highlands and Lowlands thumb|300x300px|Map of the British Isles drawn from [[Ptolemy's cartographic works, showing his rotation of Caledonia to the east and delimited from the rest of Great Britain by the estuaries of the (Firth of Forth) and the (Firth of Clyde). From Edward Bunbury's A History of Ancient Geography Among the Greeks and Romans (1879)]] Caledonia (; ) was the Latin name used by the Roman Empire to refer to the forested region in the central and western Scottish Highlands, particularly stretching through parts of what are now Lochaber, Badenoch, Strathspey, and po

thumb|The Armada Memorial in [[Plymouth depicting Britannia|alt=A photograph of a statue of Britannia on a stone plinth outdoors]]

upright=1.4|thumb|The White Cliffs of Dover may have given rise to the name Albion. Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. Today the term is only used poetically.

thumb|Ireland (Ἰέρνην) in Strabo's Geographica, from an 11th century manuscript. thumb|right|Color depth#Truecolor|True-colour satellite image of Ireland

Latin name for Britain

Cambria is a name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name for the country, . The term was not in use during the Roman period (when Wales had not come into existence as a distinct entity) or the early medieval period. After the Anglo-Saxon settlement of much of Britain, a territorial distinction developed between the new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (which would become England and Southern Scotland) and the remaining Celtic British kingdoms (which would become Wales and, before their absorption into England and Scotland, Cornwall to the south and Strathclyde or Hen Ogledd to the north). L

thumb|right|300px|Coronation of Alexander III of Scotland|King Alexander III on [[Moot Hill, Scone, on 13 July 1249. He is being greeted by the ollamh rìgh, the royal poet, who is addressing him with the proclamation "Benach De Re Albanne" (= Beannachd do Rìgh Albann, "Blessings to the King of Scotland"); the poet goes on to recite Alexander's genealogy.]]

terminology

Logres (also Logris or Loegria, among other forms) is King Arthur's realm in the Matter of Britain. The geographical area referred to by the name is south and eastern England. However, Arthurian writers such as Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach have differed in their interpretations of this. ==Etymology== It derives from the medieval Welsh word Lloegyr, a name of uncertain origin referring to South and Eastern England (Lloegr is modern Welsh for all of England).

individual nations within Great Britain and the island of Ireland

thumb|upright=1.4|A map of the divisions of Roman Britain with the Scoti shown as a tribal grouping in the north of Ireland Scotia is a Latin placename derived from Scoti, a Latin name for the Gaels, first attested in the late 3rd century. The Romans referred to Ireland as "Scotia" around 500 A.D. From the 9th century on, its meaning gradually shifted, so that it came to mean only the part of Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth: the Kingdom of Alba. By the later Middle Ages it had become the fixed Latin term for what in English is called Scotland.

thumb|True color (rendering)|True-colour satellite image of [[Ireland, known in Irish as .]]

legal term in the UK referring to the United Kingdom (UKGBNI), the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man

thumb|right|[[Great Britain and adjacent islands in the 5th century AD, before the invasion and subsequent founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.