Bob's right. The USA is a federation of states (see the historical definition of "state", meaning country). Sadly most of those living within said federation are brainwashed enough to not know the difference. Like the UK being composed of different countries. Within each of these states are counties of thier own.
While on the subject, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales get the choice of thier local flags or the Union Flag on the forum, yet those living in the United States only get the USA flag.
If you want I'll say something to Becky, but really We aren't gettign anythign mroe than you are right now, the USA is just there so people know that "Connecticut" is part of the USA instead of just saying "where the hell is Connecticut!?!"
Edit: Dammit Jack beat me to it, and brought up a point that I didn't
North America is a continent, "America" is a short name for the "United States of America", referring to the fact that the United States were in fact located in America.
So you want to be displayed like we are displayed now? Be prepared to be listed as "England, UK", "Scotland, UK", "Northern Ireland, UK" and "Wales, UK". That's as deep as the listing of american states goes
That's the same as saying UK not the same as saying "England"
I meant on the forum. If i could fly the Texan flag i surely would.
Seriously, you want UK counties, then I want the counties of each of the 50 american states, that way you know that I live in Franklin County, Ohio j/k
As described, those less up may think that the American states are counties, actually they are states, hense the word state, and each of them has many counties. The UK DOES have the same treatment, in the CTRA Wales, Scotland, and Ireland have all managed to attain complete independence from Oliver's Army .
I did miss off California from the list initially, but this in no way effected the rest of the world .
I actually read up on a few countries to be sure I was doing the right thing, a few Canadians asked for their states, but their government web page says that these are terrotories and Australia is regions and terrotories or something like that, although they often have State in the name, it's 1 country.
Just so as you know, we where thinking of including a flag on the web page side of things and using the American state flags, but there where 2 problems - 1) There's far too many flags to sort out and resize, and 2) Some of you Yanks cant seem to draw in a standard flag proportions! *sigh* Well, I guess it's too much to expect, you never mastered English properly either ...
Even in Holland we have 12 separate states (provences). They also have separate flags, but that is it. Nothing more, the great diffenrence I think with america is the different laws. We just have 1, and all the states have to act by that law.
A State is run more like a Country would be run in the EU. Geographically each state is roughly the size of the UK so there is a big difference between state and County =)
Each state has their own set of laws and taxes and anything else you can think of is different =) Driver's licensing is one, car registration, road systems. They are all tied in, rather well, but each state maintains their own roads with little federal help.
Like I said each state in the big ole' US of A is run just like a country would be run in the EU and is entirely different than a county, which each state as around 100 or so depending on the state.
I think it's silly to include the various American States and skip the Canadian provinces, especially considering that geographically and (depending on the province) culturally they're all quite big and different.
For example, British Columbia is about the size of France, Germany and the Netherlands combined. It's larger than the total area of Washington, Oregon and California. Also, 75% of the province is mountainous (3,280 feet above sea level), 60% is forested, and only about 5% is arable. That's only 1 of 10 provinces (and 3 territories).
Each province also has its own taxes (income tax being quite different depending on where you live), driver's licenses and healthcare systems.
It just seems that with the amount of comments I've seen regarding how geographically ignorant North Americans are that some sort of interest might be shown from Europe regarding the make-up of our countries. IMO, anyone that can't name more than a few Canadian provinces is quite the hypocrite.
DrDNA, I asked Becky about that before we went live, and she said she looked it up on our (igloo living) government website, and said that we are 1 country with provinces and territorys, whereas the USA are States (of confustion) joined in a Union, sorta like the EU, but not really.
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