This discussion of one or several categories is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.
From the 1700s-1750s, we have Great Britain in the XXXXs, then we have both Category:Great Britain in the 1760s and Category:United Kingdom in the 1760s, and both Category:Great Britain in the 1770s and Category:United Kingdom in the 1770s, then Great Britain only in the 1780s and 1790s, then United Kingdom from the 1800s onward. Since the category tree starts with Category:Kingdom of Great Britain (1707 to 1801), I could potentially see a double category at Category:Great Britain in the 1800s (with two subcategories) and Category:United Kingdom in the 1800s (with eight categories) but otherwise it should be clearly divided, no? Themightyquill (talk) 07:06, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- And what to do about Category:United Kingdom in the 19th century? Do we double up with Category:Great Britain in the 19th century just to handle Great Britain in 1800 and part of 1801? - Themightyquill (talk) 07:18, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Just a comment: the Kingdom of Great Britain may have been a country, but the term Great Britain, without "Kingdom of", refers to an island. If we want, we can have parallel categories for the island and the various political entities that have existed on it, but I'm not sure how helpful that would be. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:25, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- We do - Category:Great Britain, though maybe it should be renamed Category:Great Britain (island) for clarity? I'll tag it and maybe we can get some additional input. - Themightyquill (talk) 12:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment The term "Great Britain" is much more commonly used to refer to the political entity, and therefore includes the outlying islands of England, Scotland and Wales. The main island itself is definitely a secondary meaning. Trying to disentangle the island from the political divisions is a bad idea and would make a complete mess further down the category tree.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:26, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Common usage is important, but we need to find clarity. Great Britain may exist as a political entity, but the nature of that political entity is unclear and, today, somewhat unofficial, no? It certainly doesn't fit into our category structure. On the other hand, its use to describe the island is unambiguous and fits into our category structure. - Themightyquill (talk) 10:18, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- My first point is term "Great Britain" does not refer primarily to the island, but to the combination of the three nations. While its incorrect, its actually more common to use "Great Britain" to refer to the UK as a whole than the island specifically (eg Team GB in the Olympics).
- The second is using a category to describe the island emphatically does not fit our category structure. Consider a geographical feature - like the White Cliffs of Dover. They are correctly categorised in Category:Cliffs of Kent. Which is in turn in England, then the UK. If we wanted a category for the political concept of Great Britain, it naturally fits in there as another intermediate tier.
- The cliffs are also on the island of Great Britain. But Kent isn't, as the Isle of Sheppey is part of Kent and is an offshore island. So to set things up properly, including a category for the island of GB, needs an entirely parallel scheme.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:16, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Nilfanion: So do we have an extra layer under Category:United Kingdom with a pooly defined political category of Category:Great Britain (political union of various definitions) or an extra layer under Category:Islands of the United Kingdom with a clearly defined geographic category Category:Great Britain (island), or do we delete Category:Great Britain altogether? Or some other solution? - Themightyquill (talk) 21:24, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- The political concept of Great Britain is clearly defined (England plus Wales plus Scotland). In fact, while it has no real function, its more clearly defined than Category:United Kingdom itself (because the UK included all of Ireland for >100 years). I note that the existing subcats correspond to the political definition.
- The problem with a separate category for the island itself, is what do you actually include? If you want it to be strictly for images of the main island, excluding all offshore islands, then what images should it (or its subcategories) contain? All the millions of images of the main island? Which are all embedded in the well-developed political tree, and would need an parallel tree to be set up to exclude the offshore islands?
- The correct solution IMO is to have Category:Great Britain mean the political concept. The existing subcats make sense, eg Ordnance Survey is a Great Britain-wide (not UK) organisation. All that's missing is to add England, Scotland and Wales as subcategories.--Nilfanion (talk) 04:51, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Nilfanion: What parent categories are you thinking? - Themightyquill (talk) 22:26, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I as an English resident wasn't aware until a few years ago that the UK is sometimes called Great Britain, and I wasn't aware that the term "British" can also include the whole of the UK until recently. However I would note that the islands around GB are often refereed to as being in Great Britain. In some languages the UK is called GB (the equivalent in the language) therefore because Commons is multi language I
 Weak support the rename of the island. The ISO code for the UK is also GB. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:48, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- It also interesting to note that the terms UK and British often (I think) are only used to refer to England, rather than the whole of the sovereign state or island. I don't think we need to rename England to but if it was then it should probably be to Category:England, United Kingdom as Category:England (country) wouldn't be helpful in this case. However for Wales and Scotland, they should use "country" as there are other places in the UK such as Category:Wales, South Yorkshire and Category:Scotland, Lincolnshire and the use of country wouldn't appear to cause the same confusion, not that disambiguation is needed though. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is really very simple: the United Kingdom came into being on 1 January 1801, succeeding the Kingdom of Great Britain, which ran from 1707 to 31 December 1800. The year 1800 is a year of the 18th century. So for these historical periods there should be no United Kingdom categories in the 18th century and no Great Britain categories for the 19th century. To help people to understand this, I suggest that the Category:United Kingdom in the 18th century should be empty and should be redirected to Category:Great Britain in the 18th century. Moonraker (talk) 07:26, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, that would certainly be convenient, but that's now how we categorize years by century on commons. Note that Category:1800 is in Category:18th century by year, and that most people celebrated the new millenium with the arrival of the year 2000, not with the arrival of 2001. =) - Themightyquill (talk) 18:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- I support to redirect Category:United Kingdom in the 18th century to Category:Great Britain in the 18th century. However, there should be Category:Great Britain in the 19th century as a geographical entity. --Soumya-8974 (he) talk contribs subpages 08:26, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Involved closure, but the rough consensus is determined to be that Great Britain should primarily refer to the combination of England, Wales and Scotland, with the secondary meaning of a single island in a different category. Also, UK in the 18th century should be redirected to Great Britain in the 18th century. --Soumya-8974 (he) (talk • contribs) 06:43, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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