Just to understand this: When someone says "country England", do they mean "country" like in "nation", considering England a separate nation, or is it a lapse and they mean UK? Is England usually referred to as a country, or just part of a country?

I usually think of a country as equal to a nation, and as far as I know, Wales and Scotland have not split off yet? Is the term "country" not actually that sharply defined?

EDIT: Thanks people, I just asked a question to better understand the terminology, you know ...

In this case it's health related and each of the countries in the UK have their own National Health Services (or Health and Social Care in NI). It's not a lapse here.

When I've heard the distinction (often in a historical context), 'nation' is usually meant to mean a set of people in a place with some sense of collective identity or origin, while 'state' is the governing body which has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within well defined borders. When these overlap the result is a nation-state, but they don't always line up so nearly. Using those definitions England, Wales, and Scotland are nations. Ireland (including northern Ireland) could also be called a nation (though, of course, as should be obvious by the fact that this does not line up with the borders of the state, this is a contentious topic). The United Kingdom is the state (and of course Ireland-minus-northern-ireland is also a state). 'Country' as a term generally doesn't imply either of these (it's just a name for some chunk of land, notionally), though it's often synonymous with the nation-state when the borders all actually line up neatly, as opposed to in the UK.

Some of the confusion here is from our history. This is my (likely confused) understanding:

James VI/I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I) was king of _both_ England and Scotland and only later did the Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Union combine the two. You might notice I've neglected Wales which was (considered?) part of England.

In any case, England is a country, yes. Also the UK is a country.

CGP Grey: The United Kingdom Explained (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

A lot of powers are devolved away from England to each other country in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution_in_the_United_Kingd...

England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are constituent countries in a larger country called the United Kingdom. When dealing with international affairs, you typically want to be talking about the UK (unless the subject is sport), as that is the sovereign state. But for domestic affairs, it’s often split in ways that are confusing if you don’t understand various bits of history stretching back about a thousand years.

For instance, England and Wales share a legal system, but Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own. There’s bunch of special things about Northern Ireland and its relation to Ireland. And all of the constituent countries have their own parliament / assembly except for England (the parliament in London is for the whole of the UK where MPs for all constituent countries can vote).

In this particular case, the constituent countries have their own health systems, so it’s normally England we would be talking about, not the UK.

England is the country, part of the United Kingdom. Kingdom being the key word there, the US is a collection of countries ruled by the crown.

Wales and Scotland are separate countries to England.

England is a country, and if you're reading this on the BBC they most certainly are using the correct terminology.

It is not a sovereign country, but instead is a part of the constituents comprising the UK state.

Yeah England is a country. Like what else do we have the name “England” for? We talk a lot more about England than some non-country geography like Anatolia (Asian Turkey). For example there was no UK in the World Cup, but England made it quite far.

If that’s a bit eccentric, well this is the same place that refers to Europe as a different place even though France borders the UK by automobile road.

England is a country. The UK is a country.

People in the UK would refer to England as a country and most people would actually be confused if you referred to the UK as a country, even though it technically is. People in England don’t really think of the UK as anything other than “the UK”. People from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have more nuanced takes.