The term "Great Britain" can also refer to the political territory of England, Scotland, and Wales, which includes their offshore islands.

[15] 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.

[16] The first known written use of the word Britain was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original Proto-Celtic term in a work on the travels and discoveries of Pytheas that has not survived.

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 term used by Pytheas may derive from a Celtic word meaning "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk" in reference to body decorations.

[22][23][24][25] Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι (the Prettanic Isles).

The Scottish philosopher and historian, John Major (Mair), published his 'History of Great Britain, both England and Scotland' (Historia majoris Britanniae, tam Angliae quam Scotiae) in 1521.

While promoting a possible royal match in 1548, Lord Protector Somerset said that the English and Scots were, "like as twoo brethren of one Islande of great Britaynes again."

[39] Politically, Great Britain refers to the whole of England, Scotland and Wales in combination,[40] but not Northern Ireland; it includes islands, such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland, that are part of England, Wales, or Scotland.

[42] The oldest evidence for archaic humans in Britain are the Happisburgh footprints and associated stone tools found in Norfolk, dating to around 950–850,000 years ago.

[43] Modern humans arrived in Britain about 40,000 years ago, as evidenced by remains found in Kents Cavern in Devon, following the disappearance of Neanderthals.

[43] Prior to 9,000 years ago Britain retained a land connection to the continent, with an area of mostly low marshland (Doggerland) joining it to what are now Denmark and the Netherlands.

Neolithic farmers, of Anatolian origin, arrived in Britain around 4000 BC, replacing the pre-existing hunter gatherers.

[47] Around 2000 BC, the Bronze Age Bell Beaker Culture arrived in Britain, which genetic evidence suggests was associated with another episode of nearly complete population replacement.

In the course of the 500 years after the Roman Empire fell, the Britons of the south and east of the island were assimilated or displaced by invading Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, often referred to collectively as Anglo-Saxons).

At about the same time, Gaelic tribes from Ireland invaded the north-west, absorbing both the Picts and Britons of northern Britain, eventually forming the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century.

[54] It stretches over about ten degrees of latitude on its longer, north–south axis and covers 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), excluding the much smaller surrounding islands.

The island is marked by low, rolling countryside in the east and south, while hills and mountains predominate in the western and northern regions.

[57] Around 10,000 years ago, during the Devensian glaciation with its lower sea level, Great Britain was not an island, but an upland region of continental north-western Europe, lying partially underneath the Eurasian ice sheet.

It is generally thought that as sea levels gradually rose after the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, Doggerland reflooded cutting off what was the British peninsula from the European mainland by around 6500 BC.

Changing latitude and sea levels have been important factors in the nature of sedimentary sequences, whilst successive continental collisions have affected its geological structure with major faulting and folding being a legacy of each orogeny (mountain-building period), often associated with volcanic activity and the metamorphism of existing rock sequences.

[60] Great Britain also experienced early industrialisation and is subject to continuing urbanisation, which have contributed towards the overall loss of species.

[citation needed] These include squirrels, mice, voles, rats and the recently reintroduced European beaver.

Extinct large mammals include the brown bear, grey wolf and wild boar; the latter has had a limited reintroduction in recent times.

[71] The island has a wide variety of trees, including native species of birch, beech, ash, hawthorn, elm, oak, yew, pine, cherry and apple.

[77] These include red poppies, bluebells, daisies, daffodils, rosemary, gorse, iris, ivy, mint, orchids, brambles, thistles, buttercups, primrose, thyme, tulips, violets, cowslip, heather and many more.

During the period of the Roman occupation of Southern Britain (AD 43 to c. 410), Common Brythonic borrowed a large stock of Latin words.

[99] The Church of Scotland, a form of Protestantism with a Presbyterian system of ecclesiastical polity, is the third most numerous on the island with around 2.1 million members.

There are other non-conformist minorities, such as Baptists, Quakers, the United Reformed Church (a union of Congregationalists and English Presbyterians), Unitarians.

[111] Most Jews in Great Britain have ancestors who fled for their lives, particularly from 19th century Lithuania and the territories occupied by Nazi Germany.