Countries of the UK: counted separately in a list of countries?

In your example, then she would have won matches in five countries, as all the countries compete as seperate entities, apart from in the olympics, where they compete together as Great Britain & Northern Ireland…Hmmm, not helping am I?!

Aside from your example, Scotland, Wales and England most definitely are seperate countries and should be counted as so – If you visit the UK and spend time in all three, then you have visited three countries. Northern Ireland is also a country in its own right, but it’s a trickier topic as to how those who live there feel about it. Whereas, almost to a T, the Welsh and the Scottish are absolutely confident of their nationality.

Does that help any?....

(To clarify where I’m coming from, I was born in Belgium, to English parents, and brought up in Wales… Oh, and I was once married to a Scotsman…)

EDIT – Just to add, if you did visit the UK and visit Wales and Scotland as well as England, you would definitely feel like you had been to three seperate countries, as they each have their own distinct way about them.

Thanks so much—I was thinking they probably should count individually, but I wanted to ask and be sure.

(Just to be clear, athletics was just a random example; what I care about is the country count. This could equally well be a writer who has been published in all those countries, or an actor who has performed in all those countries, etc.)

Hmmm, it’s still a tricky one… for example, there’s no seperate publishing rules in each country, just the UK, so it wouldn’t count as seperate countries in that example…

Thanks for being precise — my real-life goal (which I was just trying to anonymize because that’s my instinct online) is that I’m working with a musician who has performed in many countries. I’m updating her bio and I want to correctly state number X, for the phrase “She has performed in X countries”.

She has performed in all four UK countries (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). So, should I count those as four, in her number of countries?

I would happily count that as four. :-) (Not least because it sounds best and that’s what bios are all about!)

sorry to make you expose yourself, so to speak, I realise sometimes that precision can come across as being anal… but then we are in the general section! ;-)

No worries, very grateful for the push!

I would count them as three countries in the UK, but I am American what do I know. I know my Scottish BIL corrects people when they ask if he is British.

@harple In America if you visit the south, the northeast, and the west, it is like being in three different countries. LOL. But, I know what you mean, and of course in the UK everything is only a couple hundred miles/kilometers apart.

They are distinct countries with separate rules of government, which function as a single country on the world stage.

The UK is just one country, not several. Except for football (soccer).

@mattbrowne Be careful which country within the “one country” you say that out loud in! ~

@harple – Bavaria?