troll here also in good faith my preferred compromise is to use both the principal terms in question country and constituent country for scotland england together with principality and province used for wales and northern ireland respectively as per the terminology used in bs iso second edition the term constituent country being cited from the uk government these being as follows scotland gaelic alba is a country that occupies the northern third of the island of great britain it is a constituent country of the united kingdom and shares a land border to the south with england england cornish pow sows is a country that occupies most of the southern two thirds of the island of great britain it is a constituent country of the united kingdom and shares land borders to the north with scotland and to the west with wales wales also spelled gymru nghymru or chymru in certain contexts as welsh is a language with initial mutations see welsh morphology pronounced is a principality that occupies the largest western peninsula of the island of great britain it is a constituent country of the united kingdom and shares a land border to the east with england northern ireland' irish tuaisceart ireann ulster scots norlin airlann'' is a province that occupies the northeast of the island of ireland it is a constituent country of the united kingdom and shares a land border to the south and west with the republic of ireland all of the above terms are verifiable and can be cited from reliable sources which in addition to the iso include scotland is a country at google hits include england is a country at google hits include province of northern ireland at google hits include principality of wales at google hits include the above is not a complete list however the sources as can be seen are certainly reliable many argue that such terms lead to confusion on the part of the reader my response is that perhaps here is the best place to educate in order to avoid such confusion it is after all an encyclopaedia if you prefer this alternative option please comment to that effect regards