(Copied from British Isles talk page)
edit(Following a discussion from the British Isles talk page on the lead section)
As above, for a geographical article there is a distinct lack of geographical information in the introduction.
- Currently the first paragraph defines the topic. Fine.
- We have nothing on context so we need a new paragraph expanding on physical elements (perhaps a chronological structure: borrow from the geology section and move on to glaciations and then the modern day)
- Notability should be covered by a second new paragraph, merging human geography (i.e. to follow from the previous paragraph) into something on the general relevance of this island group and its peoples to the rest of the world (culture, language, migrations etc).
- Controversies are more than adequately covered already.
This would give us a four-paragraph structure which would comply with the rules. Thoughts? Wiki-Ed (talk) 13:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Additional Paragraphs
editBelow are two new paragraphs responding to Wiki-Ed's context and notability points above.
The other paragraphs are currently unchanged.
Lead Section
edit| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Western Europe |
| Administration | |
Guernsey | |
| Demographics | |
| Population | ~65 million |
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and over six thousand smaller islands.[7] There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.[8] The British Isles also include two dependencies of the United Kingdom: the Isle of Man and, by tradition, the Channel Islands, although the latter are not physically a part of the island group.[9][10]
The landscape and surface environment of the continental crust that now forms the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and the adjacent lesser isles has undergone dramatic changes during the geological history of the Earth.
The British Isles lie at the juncture of several regions with past episodes of tectonic mountain building. These orogenic belts form a complex geology which records a huge and varied span of earth history.[11] Of particular note was the Caledonian Orogeny during the Ordovician Period, ca. 488–444 Ma and early Silurian period, when the craton Baltica collided with the terrane Avalonia to form the mountains and hills in northern Britain and Ireland. Baltica formed roughly the north western half of Ireland and Scotland. Further collisions caused the Variscan orogeny in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, forming the hills of Munster, south-west England, and south Wales. Over the last 500 million years the land which forms the islands has drifted northwest from around 30°S, crossing the equator around 370 million years ago to reach its present northern latitude.[12]
The islands have been shaped by numerous glaciations during the Quaternary Period, the most recent being the Devensian. As this ended, the central Irish Sea was de-glaciated (whether or not there was a land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland at this time is somewhat disputed, though there was certainly a single ice sheet covering the entire sea) and the English Channel flooded, with sea levels rising to current levels some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, leaving the British Isles in their current form.
The islands' geology is highly complex, though there are large numbers of limestone and chalk rocks that formed in the Permian and Triassic periods. The west coasts of Ireland and northern Great Britain that directly face the Atlantic Ocean are generally characterized by long peninsulas, and headlands and bays; the internal and eastern coasts are "smoother".
The term British Isles is controversial in relation to Ireland,[7][13][14] where there are many objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland.[15] The Government of Ireland does not use the term[16] and its embassy in London discourages its use.[17] In relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the words "these islands" are sometimes used.[18][19] The controversy means that Britain and Ireland is becoming a preferred description,[20][15][21] although British Isles is still commonly employed.[20]
References
edit- ^ Na hOileáin Bhriotanacha from CollinsHapper Pocket Irish Dictionary (ISBN 0-00-470765-6). Oileáin Iarthair Eorpa meaning Islands of Western Europe from Patrick S. Dineen, Foclóir Gaeilge Béarla, Irish-English Dictionary, Dublin, 1927. Éire agus an Bhreatain Mhór, meaning Ireland and Great Britain (from focail.ie, "The British Isles", Foras na Gaeilge, 2006)
- ^ Office of The President of Tynwald
- ^ University of Glasgow Department of Celtic. See paragraph "Dè dìreach a th’ ann an Ceiltis an Glaschu?" (Version in English. See para' "What is Celtic at Glasgow?")
- ^ Example:"Hunaniaethau Cenedlaethol Yn Nysoedd Prydain 1801-1914" (In English: "National Identities in the British Isles 1801-1914"). See also: Cardiff University Welsh-English Lexicon
- ^ National Statistics Office (2003). "Ethnic group statistics A guide for the collection and classification of ethnicity data" (PDF). HMSO.
- ^ For "Breetish" see Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) & Scottish National Dictionary Supplement (1976) (SNDS). For use in term "Breetish Isles" see Scots Language Centre website ("Show content as Scots").
- ^ a b "British Isles," Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ The diplomatic and constitutional name of the Irish state is simply Ireland. For disambiguation purposes, Republic of Ireland is often used although technically not the name of the state but, according to the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, the state "may be described" as so.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary: "British Isles: a geographical term for the islands comparing Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."
- ^ Alan, Lew; Colin, Hall; Dallen, Timothy (2008). World Geography of Travel and Tourism: A Regional Approach. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN 9780750679787.
The British Isles comprise more than 6,000 islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe, including the countries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. The group also includes the United Kingdom crown dependencies of the Isle of Man, and by tradition, the Channel Islands (the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey), even though these islands are strictly speaking an archipelago immediately off the coast of Normandy (France) rather than part of the British Isles.
- ^ Goudie, Andrew S. (1994). The Environment of the British Isles, an Atlas. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 2.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Ibid., p. 5.
- ^ An Irishman's Diary Myers, Kevin; The Irish Times (subscription needed) 09/03/2000, Accessed July 2006 "millions of people from these islands - oh how angry we get when people call them the British Isles".
- ^ Social work in the British Isles by Malcolm Payne, Steven Shardlow When we think about social work in the British Isles, a contentious term if ever there was one, what do we expect to see?
- ^ a b Davies, Alistair; Sinfield, Alan (2000), British Culture of the Postwar: An Introduction to Literature and Society, 1945-1999, Routledge, p. 9, ISBN 0415128110,
Many of the Irish dislike the 'British' in 'British Isles', while the Welsh and Scottish are not keen on 'Great Britain'. … In response to these difficulties, 'Britain and Ireland' is becoming preferred usage although there is a growing trend amounts some critics to refer to Britain and Ireland as 'the archipelago'.
- ^ "Written Answers - Official Terms", Dáil Éireann - Volume 606 - 28 September, 2005. In his response, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term. Our officials in the Embassy of Ireland, London, continue to monitor the media in Britain for any abuse of the official terms as set out in the Constitution of Ireland and in legislation. These include the name of the State, the President, Taoiseach and others."
- ^ The Times: "New atlas lets Ireland slip shackles of Britain".
- ^ Bertie Ahern's Address to the Joint Houses of Parliament, Westminster, 15 May 2007
- ^ Tony Blair's Address to the Dáil and Seanad, November 1998
- ^ a b Hazlett, Ian (2003). The Reformation in Britain and Ireland: an introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 17. ISBN 9780567082800.
At the outset, it should be stated that while the expression 'The British Isles' is evidently still commonly employed, its intermittent use throughout this work is only in the geographic sense, in so far as that is acceptable. Since the early twentieth century, that nomenclature has been regarded by some as increasingly less usable. It has been perceived as cloaking the idea of a 'greater England', or an extended south-eastern English imperium, under a common Crown since 1603 onwards. … Nowadays, however, 'Britain and Ireland' is the more favored expression, though there are problems with that too. … There is no consensus on the matter, inevitably. It is unlikely that the ultimate in non-partisanship that has recently appeared the (East) 'Atlantic Archipelago' will have any appeal beyond captious scholars.
{{cite book}}: More than one of|pages=and|page=specified (help) - ^ Guardian Style Guide, Guardian,
A geographical term taken to mean Great Britain, Ireland and some or all of the adjacent islands such as Orkney, Shetland and the Isle of Man. The phrase is best avoided, given its (understandable) unpopularity in the Irish Republic. The plate in the National Geographic Atlas of the World once titled British Isles now reads Britain and Ireland.