British Isles British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consists of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and over six thousand smaller isles. They have a total area of about 315,159 km and a combined population of just under 70 million, and include two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland (which covers roughly five-sixths of the island of Ireland) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The islands of Alderney, Jersey, Guernsey and Sark, and their neighbouring smaller islands, are sometimes
British Isles naming dispute acronym IONA is a useful way of addressing the coming together of these two islands." This name is ambiguous, because of the other islands in the North Atlantic which have never been considered part of the British Isles. Some academics in the 1990s and early 2000s also used the term "Northwest European archipelago"; however, its use appears sporadically in historiography and rare outside it. The name "West European Isles" is one translation of the islands' name in the Gaelic languages of Irish and Manx, with equivalent terms for "British Isle". In Irish, (literally "Ireland and Great Britain") is the more