British Overseas Territories. Jersey. Isle of Man. Guernsey. Northern Ireland. Great Britain. United Kingdom of GB and NI. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland[note 2] was the formal name of the United Kingdom between 1801 and 1927, reflecting the fact that until 1922, all of Ireland was a part of the Union.
The state came into being on 1 January 1801 under the terms of the Acts of Union 1800, by which the formerly separate kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were united. In 1922, twenty-six of thirty-two counties of Ireland seceded to form the Irish Free State, later the Republic of Ireland. The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 amended the name of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to reflect the change in the country's boundaries, and the Act is conventionally considered to mark the point when the name of the state changed to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
The period began with the newly formed United Kingdom defeating France in the Napoleonic Wars. United Kingdom. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,[nb 6] commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain /ˈbrɪ.tən/, is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe.
The country includes the island of Great Britain (a term sometimes also loosely applied to the whole state), the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another state: the Republic of Ireland.