Caernarfon
Caernarfon is a royal town and port in Gwynedd, with a population of 9,615. It lies along the A487 road, on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait, opposite the Isle of Anglesey; the city of Bangor is 8.6 miles to the north-east, while Snowdonia fringes Caernarfon to the east and south-east. Carnarvon and Caernarvon are Anglicised spellings that were superseded in 1926 and 1974, respectively; the villages of Bontnewydd and Caeathro are close by. The town is noted for its high percentage of native Welsh speakers. Due to this, Welsh is the predominant language of the town. Abundant natural resources in and around the Menai Strait enabled human habitation in prehistoric Britain; the Ordovices, a Celtic tribe, lived in the region during the period known as Roman Britain. The Roman fort Segontium was established around AD 80 to subjugate the Ordovices during the Roman conquest of Britain; the Romans occupied the region until the end of Roman rule in Britain in 382, after which Caernarfon became part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd.
In the late 11th century, William the Conqueror ordered the construction of a motte-and-bailey castle at Caernarfon as part of the Norman invasion of Wales. He was unsuccessful, Wales remained independent until around 1283. In the 13th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, ruler of Gwynedd, refused to pay homage to Edward I of England, prompting the English conquest of Gwynedd; this was followed by the construction of Caernarfon Castle, one of the largest and most imposing fortifications built by the English in Wales. In 1284, the English-style county of Caernarfonshire was established by the Statute of Rhuddlan; the ascent of the House of Tudor to the throne of England eased hostilities between the English and resulted in Caernarfon Castle falling into a state of disrepair. The city has flourished, leading to its status as a major tourist centre and seat of Gwynedd Council, with a thriving harbour and marina. Caernarfon experienced heavy suburbanisation, its population includes the largest percentage of Welsh-speaking citizens anywhere in Wales.
The status of Royal Borough was granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1963 and amended to Royal Town in 1974. The castle and town walls are part of a World Heritage Site described as the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd; the present city of Caernarfon grew up around and owes its name to its Norman and late Medieval fortifications. The earlier British and Romano-British settlement at Segontium was named for the nearby Afon Seiont. After the end of Roman rule in Britain around 410, the settlement continued to be known as Cair Segeint and as Cair Custoient, of the History of the Britons, cited by James Ussher in Newman's life of Germanus of Auxerre, both of whose names appear among the 28 civitates of sub-Roman Britain in the Historia Brittonum traditionally ascribed to Nennius; the work states that the inscribed tomb of "Constantius the Emperor" was still present in the 9th century. The medieval romance about Maximus and Elen, Macsen's Dream, calls her home Caer Aber Sein and other pre-conquest poets such as Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd used the name Caer Gystennin.
The Norman motte was erected apart from the existing settlement and came to be known as y gaer yn Arfon, "the fortress in Arfon". A 1221 charter by Llywelyn the Great to the canons of Penmon priory on Anglesey mentions Kaerinarfon. In 1283, King Edward I completed his conquest of Wales which he secured by a chain of castles and walled towns; the construction of a new stone Caernarfon Castle seems to have started as soon as the campaign had finished. Edward's architect, James of St. George, may well have modelled the castle on the walls of Constantinople being aware of the town's legendary associations. Edward's fourth son, Edward of Caernarfon Edward II of England, was born at the castle in April 1284 and made Prince of Wales in 1301. A story recorded in the 16th century suggests that the new prince was offered to the native Welsh on the premise "that was borne in Wales and could speake never a word of English", however there is no contemporary evidence to support this. Caernarfon was constituted a borough in 1284 by charter of Edward I.
The charter, confirmed on a number of occasions, appointed the mayor of the borough Constable of the Castle ex officio. The former municipal borough was designated a royal borough in 1963; the borough was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in 1974, the status of "royal town" was granted to the community which succeeded it. Caernarfon was the county town of the historic county of Caernarfonshire. In 1911, David Lloyd George Member of Parliament for Caernarfon boroughs, which included various towns from Llŷn to Conwy, agreed to the British Royal Family's idea of holding the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle; the ceremony took place on 13 July, with the royal family paying a rare visit to Wales, the future Edward VIII was duly invested. In 1955 Caernarfon was in the running for the title of Capital of Wales on historical grounds but the town's campaign was defeated in a ballot o
Welsh Ambulance Service
The Welsh Ambulance Service, formally the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, is the national ambulance service for Wales and one of the three NHS trusts in the country. It was established on 1 April 1998 and has 2,576 staff providing ambulance and related services to the 3.1 million residents of Wales. The Welsh Ambulance Service's headquarters is located at H. M. Stanley Hospital, St Asaph, Denbighshire; the service is divided into three regions: Central and West Region – based at Ty Maes Y Gruffudd, Cefn Coed Hospital, Swansea North Region – based at H. M. Stanley Hospital, St Asaph, Denbighshire South-East Region – based at Vantage Point House, Ty Coch Industrial Estate, CwmbranThe service is investing as part of a five-year modernisation plan, this will see the end of Regions and management will be via Heads of Services aligned to the Health Board areas along with a Head of Service for the Clinical Contact Centres and Head of Service for Production which oversees the resources available within the geographical areas.
The Welsh Ambulance Service provides: Emergency Medical Services - This service responds to emergency 999 calls and GP's urgent calls. A standard crew combination for this service would consist of a Paramedic and an Emergency Medical Technician; however double Paramedic / double Technician crews are not uncommon. As of 2013, the majority of the EMS fleet consists of Wilker Mercedes Benz 519 Sprinter Ambulances and Honda CRV / Ford Focus Rapid Response Vehicles. Non Emergency Patient Transport Service - This service deals with the planned care aspect of ambulance work. NEPTS staff provide transport between home and healthcare facilities or some inter-hospital transfers. Urgent Care Service - This service bridges the gap between NEPTS and EMS, allowing for patients to be transferred between home and hospital or hospital to hospital while meeting the advanced needs that some of these patients may have. UCS ambulance crews may be allocated to EMS calls at times of high demand and following clinical telephony triage by a nurse or face to face triage by Advanced Paramedic Practitioners or Paramedic Practitioners working from a Rapid Response Vehicle.
NHS Direct Wales / 111 Wales is a 24-hour telephone and internet health advice service provided by NHS Wales to enable people to obtain advice when use of the national emergency telephone number does not seem to be appropriate but there is some degree of urgency. NHS Direct Wales / 111 Wales supports EMS Operations by providing clinical triage for "Green 3" calls that are deemed suitable. More than 45% of 999 calls have a disposition of not requiring 999 conveyance. In addition during times of escalation other calls deemed suitable are triaged, it does not replace any of the existing emergency or non-emergency medical services but complements those existing and enables callers who might not be able to diagnose themselves to be directed to care of an appropriate level of urgency, including transport to hospital if the diagnosis merits that action. Community First Responders - CFRs are volunteers from the community trained in basic first aid, oxygen administration and the use of an Automated External Defibrillator.
They are used by the ambulance service in rural areas to provide basic care, such as Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation before an EMS crew arrives. As CFRs are only sent to local calls in specified communities, they arrive before an EMS ambulance crew without the use of blue lights and sirens. Whilst most CFR teams are the sole responsibility of WAST, a number of teams are made up of regular divisions from St John Ambulance in Wales although this does not give them any exemptions. There are developing numbers of Advanced Paramedic Practitioners in the service who through their extended scope of practice are working toward advancing the service their patients receive with "see and treat" and "see and refer" models of care; this removes the need for some patients to travel in an ambulance to A&E. In 2012 a strategic review of the service was commissioned by the Welsh Government and was conducted by Professor Siobhan McClelland and published in April 2013. National Health Service NHS Direct Wales Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Direct Wales
North Wales
North Wales is a region of Wales. Retail and educational infrastructure are centred on Wrexham, Colwyn Bay and Bangor, it is bordered to the rest of Wales with the counties of Ceredigion and Powys, to the east by the English counties of Shropshire and Cheshire. North Wales was traditionally divided into three regions: Upper Gwynedd, defined as the area north of the River Dyfi and west of the River Conwy); the division with the rest of Wales depends on the particular use being made. For example, the boundary of North Wales Police differs from the boundary of the North Wales area of the Natural Resources Wales and the North Wales Regional Transport Consortium; the historic boundary follows the pre-1996 county boundaries of Merionethshire and Denbighshire which in turn follows the geographic features of the river Dovey to Aran Fawddwy crossing the high moorlands following the watershed until reaching Cadair Berwyn and following the river Rhaeadr and river Tanat to the Shropshire border. Montgomeryshire, one of the historic counties of Wales, is sometimes referred to as being in North Wales.
The region is steeped in history and was for a millennium known as the Kingdom of Gwynedd. The mountainous stronghold of Snowdonia formed the nucleus of that realm and would become the last redoubt of independent Wales — only overcome in 1283. To this day it remains a stronghold of the Welsh language and a centre for Welsh national and cultural identity; the area is home to two of the three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Wales. These are Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and canal and, the Edwardian castles and town walls of the region which comprise those at Caernarfon, Beaumaris and Harlech, it shares with Powys and Ceredigion the distinction of hosting the only UNESCO Biosphere reserve in Wales, Biosffer Dyfi Biosphere. The region is made up of the following administrative areas: the county borough of Wrexham the county of Flintshire the county of Denbighshire the county borough of Conwy the county of Gwynedd the county of the Isle of Anglesey In addition to the six Local Authority divisions, North Wales is divided into the following preserved counties for various ceremonial purposes: the preserved county of Clwyd the preserved county of Gwynedd North Wales was a European Parliament constituency until 1999.
There is an electoral region for the National Assembly for Wales with the name, which covers the northeast of Wales as well as the northern-most coastal areas of north-western Wales. The area is rural with many mountains and valleys. This, in combination with its coast, means. Farming, once the principal economic force in the area, is now much reduced in importance; the average income per capita of the local population is the lowest in the UK and much of the region has EU Objective 1 status. The eastern part of North Wales contains the most populous areas, with more than 300,000 people living in the areas around Wrexham and Deeside. Wrexham, with a population of 63,084 in 2001 is the largest town; the total population of North Wales is 687,937. The majority of other settlements are along the coast, including some popular resort towns, such as Rhyl, Llandudno and Tywyn; the A55 road links these towns to cities like Manchester and Birmingham and the port of Holyhead for ferries to Ireland. There are two cathedral cities – Bangor and St. Asaph – and a number of mediaeval castles The area of North Wales is about 6,172 square kilometres, making it larger than the country of Brunei, or the island of Bali.
The highest mountain in Wales and Ireland, is Snowdon in northwest Wales. North Wales has a diverse and complex geology with Precambrian schists along the Menai Strait and the great Cambrian dome behind Harlech and underlying much of western Snowdonia. In the Ordovician period much volcanism deposited a range of minerals and rocks over the north western parts of Gwynedd whilst to the east of the River Conwy lies a large area of upland rolling hills underlain by the Silurian mudstones and grits comprising the Denbigh and Migneint Moors. To the east, around Llangollen, to the north on Halkyn Mountain and the Great Orme and in eastern Anglesey are beds of limestone from which metals have been mined since pre-Roman times. Added to all this are the complexities posed by Parys Mountain and the outcrops of unusual minerals such as Jasper and Mona Marble which make the area of special interest to geologists. North Wales has a distinct regional identity, its dialect of the Welsh language differs from that of other regions, such as South Wales, in some ways: for example llefrith is used in most of the North instead of llaeth for "milk".
Llyn Padarn
Llyn Padarn is a glacially formed lake in Snowdonia, north Wales, is an example of a moraine dammed lake. The lake is 2 miles long and at its deepest point is 94 feet deep, is one of the largest natural lakes in Wales. At its south-eastern end it is linked to the neighbouring Llyn Peris; the busy village of Llanberis lies on the southern banks of the lake. The majority of Llyn Padarn is part of Padarn Country Park. Whilst kayaking and sailing are permitted on the lake, powered craft require permission to use it. Bangor University Rowing Club row at Llyn Padarn. In April 2014 Llyn Padarn was designated as Bathing Water under the Bathing Water Directive; the outflow of Llyn Padarn is on the northern shore and is called Afon Rhythallt, which passes by the village of Brynrefail and becomes Afon Seiont below Pont Rhythallt, near Llanrug. It reaches the sea at Caernarfon. Padarn Country Park is located on the northern flank of the lake, including Coed Allt Wen, a rare and ancient sessile oak woodland.
Both the woodland and Llyn Padarn are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. The Llanberis Lake Railway runs along its eastern bank and various recreational activities take place on the lake during the summer; these include canoeing and fishing. The lake was the venue for the rowing events of Commonwealth Games. Former local bus company Padarn Bus, which operated between 1979 and 2014 from a base at nearby Llanberis, was named after the lake. In 1993, an RAF Westland Wessex helicopter suffered a rotor failure, crashed into the lake, killing three Air Training Corps Cadets, injuring one. Www.geograph.co.uk: photos of Llyn Padarn and surrounding area
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status; the NHS commissions most emergency medical services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other emergency services, the public access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. In addition to ambulance services provided by NHS organisations, there are some private and volunteer emergency medical services arrangements in place in the UK, the use of private or volunteer ambulances at public events or large private sites, as part of community provision of services such as community first responders. Air ambulance services in the UK are not part of the NHS and are funded through charitable donations.
Paramedics are seconded from a local NHS ambulance service, with the exception of Great North Air Ambulance Service who employ their own paramedics. Doctors are provided by their home hospital and spend no more than 40% of their time with an air ambulance service. Public ambulance services across the UK are required by law to respond to four types of requests for care, which are: Emergency calls Doctor's urgent admission requests High dependency and urgent inter-hospital transfers Major incidentsAmbulance trusts and services may undertake non-urgent patient transport services on a commercial arrangement with their local hospital trusts or health boards, or in some cases on directly funded government contracts, although these contracts are fulfilled by private and voluntary providers; the National Health Service Act 1946 gave county and borough councils a statutory responsibility to provide an emergency ambulance service, although they could contract a voluntary ambulance service to provide this, with many contracting the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance or another local provider.
The last St John Division, to be so contracted is reputed to have been at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, where the two-bay ambulance garage can still be seen at the branch headquarters. The Regional Ambulance Officers’ Committee reported in 1979 that “There was considerable local variation in the quality of the service provided in relation to vehicles and equipment. Most Services were administered by Local Authorities through their Medical Officer of Health and his Ambulance Officer, a few were under the aegis of the Fire Service, whilst others relied upon agency methods for the provision of part or all of their services.” The 142 existing ambulance services were transferred by the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 from local authority to central government control in 1974, consolidated into 53 services under regional or area health authorities. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England.
The June 2005 report "Taking healthcare to the Patient", authored by Peter Bradley, Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service, for the Department of Health led to the merging of the 31 trusts into 13 organisations in England, plus one organisation each in Wales and Northern Ireland. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, this has further reduced to 10 ambulance service trusts in England, plus the Isle of Wight which has its own provision. Following the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, commissioning of the ambulance services in each area passed from central government control into the hands of regional clinical commissioning groups; the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary provider for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England, 1 each in the other three countries. In England there are now ten NHS ambulance trusts, as well as an ambulance service on the Isle of Wight, run directly by Isle of Wight NHS Trust, with boundaries following those of the former regional government offices.
The ten trusts are: East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust London Ambulance Service NHS Trust North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS TrustThe English ambulance trusts are represented by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, with the Scottish and Northern Irish providers all associate members. On the 14 November 2018 West Midlands Ambulance Service became the UK's first university-ambulance trust; the service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Ambulance Service is a Special Health Board that provides ambulance services throughout whole of Scotland, on behalf of the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government.
Due to the remote nature of many areas of Scotland compared to the other Home Nations, the Scottish Ambulance Service has Britain's only publi
Dinorwig Power Station
The Dinorwig Power Station, known locally as Electric Mountain, is a pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme, near Dinorwig, Llanberis in Snowdonia national park in Gwynedd, northern Wales. The scheme can supply a maximum power of 1,728-megawatt and has a storage capacity of around 9.1-gigawatt-hour. The scheme was built at a time when responsibility for electricity generation in England and Wales was in the hands of the government's Central Electricity Generating Board. Dinorwig's rapid response capability reduced the need to hold spinning reserve on part loaded thermal plant; when the plant was conceived the CEGB used low efficiency old coal and oil fired capacity to meet peaks in demand. More efficient 500 MW thermal sets were introduced in the 1960s for baseload operation only. Dinorwig could store cheap energy produced at night by low marginal cost plant and generate during times of peak demand, so displacing low efficiency plant during peak demand periods. There were plans for a pumped storage facility near Exmoor but it was not built.
With the increase of renewables such as wind and solar power, the need for storage is expected to increase to deal with intermittency. Today, Dinorwig is operated not only to help meet peak loads but as a short term operating reserve, providing a fast response to short-term rapid changes in power demand or sudden loss of power stations. In a common scenario, the end of a popular national television programme or advertising breaks in commercial television programmes results in millions of consumers switching on electric kettles in the space of a few minutes, leading to overall demand increases of up to 2800 MW. In anticipation of this surge, an appropriate number of units at Dinorwig may be brought on line as the closing credits start to roll; the monitoring of popular television channels is an important factor in electricity grid control centres. The scheme was constructed in the abandoned Dinorwic slate quarry. To preserve the natural beauty of Snowdonia National Park, the power station itself is located deep inside the mountain Elidir Fawr, inside tunnels and caverns.
The project – begun in 1974 and taking ten years to complete at a cost of £425 million – was the largest civil engineering contract awarded by the UK government at the time. The work was undertaken by an Alfred McAlpine / Brand / Zschokke consortium. Twelve million tonnes of rock had to be moved from inside the mountain, creating tunnels wide enough for two lorries to pass comfortably and an enormous cavern 51 metres tall, 180 metres long, 23 metres wide known as "the concert hall"; the power station comprises 16 kilometres of tunnels, one million tons of concrete, 200,000 tons of cement and 4,500 tons of steel. The power station is connected to the National Grid substation at Pentir by 400 kV cables that are buried for 10 kilometres, rather than using transmission towers or pylons to transmit the electricity across an area of outstanding natural beauty. A 50 MW pumped storage facility at nearby Glyn Rhonwy in disused slate pits was approved in 2013, with an expected cost of £120m and an opening date in 2018.
It is planned to hold about 500 MWh of energy, with a round-trip efficiency of 75%. The project received further approval in 2017 for an increased capacity of 100 MW. Water is stored at a high altitude in Marchlyn Mawr reservoir and is discharged through the turbines into Llyn Peris, at an altitude of 100 metres, during times of peak electricity demand, it is pumped back from Llyn Peris to Marchlyn Mawr during off-peak times. Although it uses more electricity to pump the water up than it generates on the way down, pumping is done at periods of low demand, when the energy is cheaper to consume; the power station comprises six 300 MW GEC generator/motors coupled to Francis-type reversible turbines. The generators are vertical-shaft, salient-pole, air-cooled units each having 12 electromagnetic poles weighing 10 tonnes each, producing a terminal voltage of 18 kV. From standstill, a single 450-tonne generator can synchronise and achieve full load in 75 seconds. With all six units synchronised and spinning-in-air, 0 MW to 1800 MW load can be achieved in 16 seconds.
Once running, at full flow, the station can provide power for up to six hours before running out of water. The energy storage capacity of the station is 11 GWh. At peak output water flows through the generators at 390 cubic metres per second. Another important feature of Dinorwig is that it has been designed to assist restarting the National Grid on the occasion of a complete power failure, it includes diesel generators and large batteries which would allow the plant to restart in the event of a complete shutdown of the grid. The plant runs on average at 74–76% efficiency, it fills an important need in the system by responding to sudden surges in electricity demand because of its rapid ability to deliver power on load spikes. One of the alternatives would be to have spare capacity from conventional power stations running part loaded, hence at lower efficiency than otherwise, thus capable of being r
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world; the Irish Sea lies between Great Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world, it is the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017. The UK is constitutional monarchy; the current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the longest-serving current head of state.
The United Kingdom's capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. Other major urban areas in the UK include Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire conurbations, Greater Glasgow and the Liverpool Built-up Area; the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Their capitals are London, Edinburgh and Belfast, respectively. Apart from England, the countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers, but such power is delegated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which may enact laws unilaterally altering or abolishing devolution; the nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. The medieval conquest and subsequent annexation of Wales by the Kingdom of England, followed by the union between England and Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, the union in 1801 of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There are fourteen British Overseas Territories, the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed a quarter of the world's land mass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language and political systems of many of its former colonies; the United Kingdom is a developed country and has the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It has a high-income economy and has a high Human Development Index rating, ranking 14th in the world, it was the world's first industrialised country and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The UK remains a great power, with considerable economic, military and political influence internationally, it is sixth in military expenditure in the world. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.
It has been a leading member state of the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the G20, NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization; the 1707 Acts of Union declared that the kingdoms of England and Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The term "United Kingdom" has been used as a description for the former kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was "Great Britain"; the Acts of Union 1800 united the kingdom of Great Britain and the kingdom of Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Following the partition of Ireland and the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, which left Northern Ireland as the only part of the island of Ireland within the United Kingdom, the name was changed to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Although the United Kingdom is a sovereign country, Scotland and Northern Ireland are widely referred to as countries. The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom; some statistical summaries, such as those for the twelve NUTS 1 regions of the United Kingdom refer to Scotland and Northern Ireland as "regions". Northern Ireland is referred to as a "province". With regard to Northern Ireland, the descriptive name used "can be controversial, with the choice revealing one's political preferences"; the term "Great Britain" conventionally refers to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England and Wales in combination. However, it is sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole; the term "Britain" is used both as a synonym for Great Britain, as a synonym for the United Kingdom. Usage is mixed, with the BBC preferring to use Britain as shorthand only for Great Britain and the UK Government, while accepting that both terms refer to the United K
