:Editors,

Thank you for the quick replies! My original thoughts were that it's painfully obvious to any reader that the UK is a country, and that this does not need pointing out  an equivalent example:

"The United States is a country consisting of fifty states and a federal district."
can be reduced, without loss of clarity, to
"The United States consists of fifty states and a federal district."

But very well  I can see that it's been decided to emphasize the UK's status as a country. Fair enough.

GoodDay, Jamesinderbyshire:  You're both very right, of course, but I think there's a chance we could preserve these subtle complexities AND use clear language *at the same time*. Perhaps there is a synonym for country that we can use that would eliminate this awkward wording altogether? I noticed that the "Four countries of the United Kingdom" article uses the term "sovereign state". Would the following work?

"It is a sovereign state consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales."

Alarics: I realize the issue has been discussed before, but I feel that the issue has often been tackled from a political perspective - with pro-devolution/independence editors wanting to de-emphasize UK's status as a unitary state and with nationalists wanting to do the opposite.

I am a Canadian reader, without a lot of knowledge about UK politics or how the country operates. I am approaching this issue purely from a writing/editing perspective. I am simply trying to make this article as *clear and concise* as possible, without losing all the subtle complexities and compromises that various editors have negotiated into the article. I'm certainly not trying to set any new conventions, and I certainly don't want to set off any edit wars.

129.173.98.127