I don’t think anyone here is saying ‘Japanese people should be able to find Wales on a map.’
Just that the U.K is a collection of countries, and (once explained to those who don’t know), they should recognise it as such. It’s not that hard to understand, really.
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The people of the Netherlands.
I’m absolutely not surprised Japanese do not distinguish between the UK and England.
We hardly ever do in Germany and we’re within firing range.
In fact, I only ever see the “UK” equivalent in official documents, “Great Britain” (Großbrittanien) is used synonymously with it even when there is a need to be precise.
We similarly often don’t distinguish between “Holland” and the Netherlands even though the former is only part of the latter.
I get that (in particular non-English) British people get upset about this but it just is not relevant to people outside of your country.
Also note English Wikipedia uses the term “country” for the UK throughout!
(I live in England and to be honest I wasn’t even aware that people object to referring to the UK as a country)
The German states are similarly referred to as a “Land” (“country”, it’s the same word used for foreign countries) in German, but that practice is not carried over into English (unless the term itself is borrowed, as is sometimes done).
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I think it’s not too much to expect people to be able to understand that Wales and Scotland at least are countries in the U.K. alongside England but I can understand if foreigners were to be confused about Ireland.
I agree in that as a UK resident I can’t name all the states of America or place them on a map but if the name of a state was said out loud I would recognise it as such and know it sits in the USA as a whole, similar to the larger regions of Japan. Considering there are only 4 compents of the UK I don’t think it’s unrealistic to ask others to be able to do the same for the UK especially because unlike the USA and Japan Wales and Scotland are countries in their own right. It’s not like we expect people to know the dozens of counties making up these countries and recognise I’m talking about England if I say I live in Kent (I don’t by the way).
I’d honestly just be happy if people could say Wales, England or Ireland and have people recognise that it’s in the UK somewhere and not hanging around in Australia or Africa or another part of Europe similar to how we’d be able to locate a state to the USA or large region of Japan if mentioned in conversation.
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I think that’s an English language bias, though.
I don’t know if France has any subdivisions higher than county level.
I can name one (maybe two if you let me take a wild guess) state of Austria …despite being an Austrian citizen…
I can name one canton of Switzerland. (EDIT: i only know that because it’s used as a mnemonic in physics, too!)
I only know Holland is part of the Netherlands because it’s used as a synecdoche.
I don’t know anything about Belgish, Polish or Czech internals.
And those are all neighbouring countries.
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Wales and Scotland aren’t counties though they are countries. And unlike other countries where there are dozens of subdivisions called counties or states or something else there are only 3/4 depending on how you view Northern Ireland in the U.K.
I just don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to be able to say Scotland and have people think of the UK as opposed to a different continent.
France is part of the EU. Thailand is part of ASEAN. Wales is part of the UK. All three are countries in their own right (historically as well as presently recognised as such) but subject to different levels of government as well. It’s not a difficult concept.
it’s not like Wales is in a similar situation to, say, Taiwan, where many people would very much like it to be recognised as a country but a superpower keeps telling people it’s not a country but is in fact “Chinese Taipei” and kicking up a fuss when, eg, a well-regarded literary award lists an author’s country as Taiwan because to China such an entity does not exist.
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It’s a particular problem in the English language. In English you use the word “country” both for the subdivisions of the UK and for the UK itself (or more precisely for the latter, “sovereign country”). It’s not necessarily the case in other languages. In many language, the word translating “country” actually means “sovereign country”.
For example, the translation in French (my native language) of the word “country” is for about every matter “pays”. France is a “pays”, Belgium is a “pays” (subdivided in “régions” and “communautés” which have their own parliament and government, education system, etc.), Switzerland is a “pays” (subdivided in “cantons” each with their own constitution, parliament, government, etc.), the USA is a “pays” (subdivided in “États”) and the UK is a “pays” subdivided in 4 “nations (constitutives)”.
And I don’t know what’s the exact definition of 国 in Japanese but thinking that because English use the same word for the UK and for its four constitutive countries it should be the same in other languages is very English-language centric.
France is part of the EU. Thailand is part of ASEAN. The UK is (currently still) part of the EU. Scotland is part of the UK and indirectly of the EU. Île-de-France is a part of France. California is a part of the USA. The Republic and Canton of Geneva is part of Switzerland. Etc.
When it was voted that the UK should leave the EU, it’s the entire UK that is leaving and not only England and Wales even if a majority of people in Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted to remain (and actually, if the question should arise in my country, Belgium, it wouldn’t be possible to leave unless both the national parliament AND the many parliaments of the regions and community also all agreed).
According to international right, the UK is a country. like France, Japan, the USA, Switzerland. This country, like many others is subdivided in more or less independent constitutive subdivisions. The fact that in the UK these subdivisions are called “countries” doesn’t matter according to international right. It’s subdivisions of a country like the “states” in the USA, the “cantons” in Switzerland, etc.
In Japanese, the United Kingdom is a 主権国家 (sovereign nation), while England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are 国 (countries).
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So by your logic the whole European Union is one big country and places like Germany, France, Belgium and so on are not. They share a currency, function as a single market, have a military, have a parliament and have a capital city.
Actually:
- the EU does not share a common currency but only part of it (19 out of 28 countries) and this currency is also used by countries outside the EU, officially — Monaco, Andorra, Vatican, San Marino — or not — Kosovo, Montenegro;
- the EU does not have an army;
- tue European Parliament does not have the same power as a national parliament;
- the EU has no official capital, only a de facto capital which hosts most of its institutions (and the official seat of the European parliament is NOT in this city).
- and last but not least, the EU does not have a real foreign policy.
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These may be helpful 
Also, for example, if you search for Scotland on google, pretty much all descriptions say it is a country.
The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. - “Countries Within a Country” - a UK government document.
But we use the word county for subdivisions of our countries in the U.K. so there is a distinction…
Even if you wanted to make the difference between a sovereign country and a country significant that doesn’t really excuse not knowing the individual countries in my opinion.
I could recognise that Illinois resides in the USA if someone mentioned they come from there in conversation and that isn’t even a country that’s a state.
You miss the point that England does not overlap Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, so people from those areas should not be called English, unless they have moved there from England.
The term Holland as the equivalent of the Netherlands is also incorrect but sometimes accepted. Calling someone from Limburg a Hollander, is simply wrong; they are Dutch!
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