The term used by Pytheas may derive from a Celtic word meaning 'the painted ones' or 'the tattooed folk' in reference to body decorations. Greek historians Diodorus of Sicily and Strabo preserved variants of Prettanike from the work of Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia, who travelled from his home in Hellenistic southern Gaul to Britain in the 4th century BC. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans. Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland.

The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni or Pretani. It is derived from the travel writings of Pytheas around 320 BC, which described various islands in the North Atlantic as far north as Thule (probably Norway). Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten (also Breoton-lond, Breten-lond). Old French Bretaigne (whence also Modern French Bretagne) and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons. Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) in his Natural History records of Great Britain: 'Its former name was Albion but at a later period, all the islands, of which we shall just now briefly make mention, were included under the name of 'Britanniæ.'' The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such as those within Strabo's Geographica, Pliny's Natural History and Diodorus of Sicily's Bibliotheca historica.

The first known written use of the word Britain was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original P-Celtic term in a work on the travels and discoveries of Pytheas that has not survived. To quote his works, 'There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne'. The oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle (384–322 BC), or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. The earliest known name for Great Britain is Albion ( Greek: Ἀλβιών) or insula Albionum, from either the Latin albus meaning 'white' (possibly referring to the white cliffs of Dover, the first view of Britain from the continent) or the 'island of the Albiones'.

However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles. The archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term ' British Isles' derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. The single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the 1707 Acts of Union between the kingdoms of England (which at the time incorporated Wales) and Scotland. Great Britain and Northern Ireland now constitute the United Kingdom. The term 'Great Britain' is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales, including their component adjoining islands. In 2011, it had a population of about 61 million, making it the world's third-most-populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. Ĭonnected to mainland Europe by a landbridge called Doggerland until 9,000 years ago, Great Britain has been inhabited by modern humans for around 30,000 years. The 60% smaller island of Ireland is to the west-together with these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, form the British Isles archipelago. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. With an area of 209,331 km 2 (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe.

Proud definition