Why is wales a country

Biggest natural lake: Llyn Tegid, 6km in length. Longest placename: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch is the full name, which means The Church of St Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio near a red cave, and it is often shortened to Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.

Snow-covered summit of Snowdon Yr Wyddfa. Wales is well-connected to the rest of the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe via road, rail, sea and air.

Cardiff is around 2 hours from London travelling by road or train. Wales is well-connected via road, rail, sea and air. Education is compulsory and state funded from years of age, and delivered through Nursery, Primary, Middle, Secondary, Special and Welsh Language schools. Around , students study at further education institutions in Wales every year. Education in Wales. Creative Industries and Life Sciences are key industries in Wales.

Businesses that come to Wales have easy access to the UK market, with its population of 66 million people. The Royal Mint at Llantrisant makes five billion coins a year for 60 countries. Germany is Wales' top export destination, taking a fifth of exports. Wales was officially recognised as a country in December by the ISO. There is no doubt, at all, that Wales is a country. However, there are several factors that still make many people believe that Wales is not a country, for instance, Wales does not have its own Welsh passport.

Welsh people simply have a British passport. The United Kindom is a unitary sovereign country. A type of country, if you like, whereas the other four countries that make up the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, are not.

Great Britain is actually an island. Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles and the ninth-largest island in the world. Wales is not an island, it has land borders with England to the east, but it does have a very long coastline to the north, west, and south.

Tasmania, one of the Australian islands , is the 26th largest, interestingly. The Channel Islands are sometimes counted as part of the British Isles, sometimes not. They seem to be more part of the mainland Europe land mass. So yes, Wales also lies on the British Isles. What is a principality? Put simply, a principality is a state ruled by a prince. Wales has not fully been a principality since the early s. By the late s Wales was unified and really, a country.

Wales, meanwhile, remained a conquered territory. This tradition continues today with Charles, Prince of Wales. The late Lady Diana was also the Princess of Wales during their marriage. This was the first major political union in what would become the U.

Now, he gained a second name: King James I of England. Even though Scotland and England shared the same king, they were still two politically separate kingdoms, each with their own parliament. Over the next century, there were several failed attempts to merge them into one nation.

There were several reasons for this union, says Christopher A. One was the fact that Scotland was in debt after trying to establish a colonial empire in the Americas the same way that England, Portugal and Spain had done.

Well, he was actually King James I of Ireland, too. Back in the s, Ireland become a dependent kingdom of England, and the Crown of Ireland Act mandated that the king of England was now also the king of Ireland. Between and , the Irish Republican Army fought for independence from the U.