What’s the furthest north in the UK you’ve been? Where do you think the north starts?

[BarrelOfOtters]

Prompted by a friend who has never been north of Birmingham and thinks of that as North.

orkney for me.

The North starts at Watford Gap. However, I’m South coast born and bred, so I like to say the north starts where the A23 turns into the M23 😁

Leeds is not Midlands! "Northern Powerhouse" is "committed" to improving connections between "the great cities of the North" which includes Leeds and Manchester.

Northern Trains provides our rail services.

The group of Northern Mayors includes the mayors of W Yorks and Manchester.

Scottish Highlands.

Im a Northerner and I’ve always considered that the North starts with Yorkshire and Lancashire / Greater Manchester.

Inverness is the furthest north in the U.K. I've been. For me t'north starts at Yorkshire.

Agree with this - I'm from Yorkshire so feel that's where the 'proper' north starts, and the north east is Newcastle / Country Durham / Sunderland / Northumberland, whereas my Scottish DH thinks the north east is Aberdeenshire.

Wick. The north starts at York for me!

Orkney for me too.

Sheffield is definitely in the North. The most distressing road sign on the A1 the is one that says:

The South
Sheffield

Scotland is a country. In the same way that Wales is a country. England is a country. Why is it that you are struggling to comprehend this?

Scotland is a separate county.
The United Kingdom is comprised of 4 countries brought together under the - was it called the treaty of union? - but they are still 4 countries within the union.

The UK is a country.

Has Wales become a country or is it still a principality? If the former, please can we have the dragon added to the Union Jack?

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all non-sovereign countries. You will only find them under the country called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in official countries of the world lists.

The United Kingdom itself IS a country and referred to as such under international law as well as by the international community.

Now, my point was that Scotland is NOT a separate non-sovereign country from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is fact.

Why is it you're struggling to comprehend this?! 🤷‍♂️

Birmingham isn't the North, it's the Midlands!

The furthest North I have ever been is Glasgow. I think the North starts somewhere around North Staffordshire/Cheshire

Scotland isn't separate from England, Wales and Northern Ireland since all these were united into ONE single new country called the United Kingdom.

This is a self-evident fact given the SNP are still currently trying to separate Scotland from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. And failing.

The UK is itself a unitary sovereign country.

@SmiteTheeWithThunderbolts , Wales is a country.

Wales hasn't had a Prince ruling it for centuries now, so hasn't been a principality for all that time.

You're confusing the UK with England there whereas @Coffeaddict isn't. A common problem throughout this thread - England isn't the UK.

Indeed, all your examples is solely concerned with England since that's where it serves.

But in terms of the United Kingdom geography, Leeds would be midlands.

The Treaty of Union brought together the kingdoms of Scotland and England (which included Wales) into one new state, Great Britain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatyoff_Union

The U.K. obviously includes NI. ... not quite sure how that maps to the 'four countries' model, probably depends who you ask.

But in terms of the United Kingdom geography, Leeds would be midlands.

It's a problem with common terminology used by the majority in the U.K.

yes, the centre of the U.K. is in Morecambe bay so Leeds is somewhere in the middle but 'The Midlands' only ever means the middle section of England. And, with no other qualifiers, 'the North', 'northerners', 'up north' are terms commonly understood by the majority of the population to mean more or less 'Northern England'

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_England

Anyway... whether the ops friend was thinking about the U.K. or just England, Birmingham is definitely not in the north!

@ErrolTheDragon the official name for Great Britain following the union is Kingdom of Great Britain.

It didn't become a United Kingdom until 1801 when Ireland as a whole became an integral part of it.

Northern Ireland is recognised in the international community as a non-sovereign country as can be seen in the examples of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

A country becomes one when accepted by other countries and these can be sovereign or non-sovereign. Indeed, one country has no defined territory of its own.

Haltwhistle is still literally the center of Britain (britishheritage.com)

This would demonstrate how a good proportion of the population in England cannot seem to grasp the distinctions between England and United Kingdom.

For England, the Midlands has a capital M.

For the UK, it doesn't - just lowercase. This should be enough to let people know which is meant.

Of Great Britain as it states.

But for the UK, the geographic centre is the middle of Morecambe Bay.

But we simply don't use the term 'midlands' with no capital. If I'm talking about where I live in the context of the whole of the U.K. I might say middle or centre (and then, to be sure, see some surprise from southerners when they realise that's in 'the North West' )

If you can find a single reference anywhere to "the midlands" in reference to the central part of the UK, I'll eat my hat.

What would be in this fantasy "midlands"? Blackpool? Hull? Douglas?