What Countries Call Themselves.

 For a long time, the title United States of America
has greatly annoyed me.  It would annoy me even
if it were called The United States of North America -
for, the North American nation which we call Mexico
is in fact the United States of Mexico.  So the USA
should call itself the United Anglophone States
of North America, including both Texas and Florida.

The United Kingdom sounds as if it belongs to no continent,
and indeed many people within it think so, but it is
the United Kingdom of Great Britain  (England +Wales and Scotland),
with or without 'autonomous' Northern Ireland.  It does not include
the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands (which the French
quite exactly call les Iles anglo-normandes).
Its name may soon have to change.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has disappeared,
leaving its core: the Russian Federation of 'autonomous' statelets and regions
and cities all known as Subjects -  such as Tatarstan,
Tuva, Karelia, Komi, Chukotka, Udmurt, Magadan..., ).

Malaysia (you may be surprised to learn)
is a Federal Constitutional Monarchy
comprising thirteen states (including the Sultanate
of Brunei) and three federal territories.

Greenland (which has a rather fine flag - see below) is not a country
but an 'Autonomous Territory'  (Kalaalit Nunaat)
within the Kingdom of Denmark*
(which once also embraced Norway, South Sweden and Iceland).

Venezuela is The Bolivarian Republic -
but I won't go on...

(*note that the first nation-state flag, white on red, was Danish.)