Even worse, Great Britain, which has no political status whatsoever (it's just the name of the island on which England, Scotland, and Wales are situated-- and if you've ever wondered "what's so great about Great Britain", it's just called that to distinguish it from Britannia, a smaller, nearby French island with a similar name), also has a TLD, namely ".gb". To be fair, other dependent islands also have TLDs (the Faroe Islands (.fo) [Denmark], Reunion Island (.re) [France], the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands (.hm) [New Zealand], and, worst of all, the uninhabited and stupidly named British Indian Ocean Territory (.io) [United Kingdom]).
Some people even think that Australia and Canada are "part of" England or the United Kingdom in some strange way. Not true, but Australia and Canada are the two largest "commonwealth realms"-- independent nations that recognize King Charles II as their head-of-state/King. The other 13 nations who recognize King Charles II as their King (excluding the United Kingdom itself, obviously): Antigua and Barbuda [that's one single country with an "and" in their name-- don't even get me started!], the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica [ya mon!, Chuck be'd d' King!], New Zealand [which I maintain is really part of Australia, even though they refuse to admit it-- ironically, Tasmania, which really is part of Australia, often behaves like it's independent], Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis [another country with an "and" in it's name-- they actually held a national referendum to separate into two countries with two names, but this eminently sensible referendum was defeated -- I'm sure if they ever have a referendum to annex another country, it will pass, so their name will eventually be "Saint Kitts and Nevis and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and a Bunch of Really Small Uninhabited Islands That Are Underwater Ninety Percent of The Time But Are Still Part of This Stupid Country and Also Starring Norman Fell as Mr Roper"], Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines [this would be a good name for a rock band], the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu [wasn't he the Vulcan guy on Star Trek: Voyager?]
I have yet to come up with a mnemonic for the 15 commonwealth realms. The closest I've gotten is "Solomon, grinning twice, zealously jams antique Barbies (2) into papa's new guinea pig.", which doesn't quite work.
Just to confuse matters, "commonwealth realm" sounds a lot like "commonwealth nation", but they are different. The "commonwealth of nations" is just a group of countries (all former British colonies) that have a special trade agreement with each other (sort of like NAFTA or the EEC, but without a stupid acronym). There are 53 commonwealth nations, and I am not going to list them here, partly for space reasons, but mostly the "commonwealth of nations" is stupid.
I realize some British (English? United Kingdomish? commonwealthers?) people might be offended by this blog entry (I like British people, and I like annoying them even more), because 1) they're British and pretty much offended by everything, 2) Queen Elizabeth II is still the British monarch [as of this writing -- but I'm sure the old bat will have to step down soon!] so I shouldn't be talking about "King Charles", 3) if you believe the textbook version of British history, Prince Charles will ascend to the throne as King Charles III (not II); I, however, prefer the Blackadder version of British history.
This might be a good time to remind everyone that I type these blog entries off the top of my head and am too lazy to do any fact checking. In other words, if you're reading my blog entries, you're a fairly sad individual-- if you're reading my blog entries and expecting factual material, you're beyond hope.
Slightly more accurate information on some of this crap may be found at:
Then again, it may not be...