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Nearest national capital (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 15 points 11 months ago (20 children)

That's why it says "national" capital. The national capital of those places is London.

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  • [+] 15 points 11 months ago (7 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    Lots of places have subnational entities which they may or may not call something that translates to "country". Nothing particularly unique about the UK. The only thing that is unique is that in some sports, the UK's subnational entities have separate teams, you are right about that part.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Quite typical of the Brits to get pissy about you saying the truth.

    They went all over the world drawing arbitrary lines separating or forcing peoples together, but try to get them to understand that the world considers the UK to be a singular entity and they blow a fucking fuse over the semantics. And they're not even correct about the semantics!

    The entitlement some British people feel over foreigners giving a shit for their internal politics is frankly outrageous.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Quite typical of the ignorant to ignore years of history of rebellion, genocide, imperial conquest, cultural warfare, and indoctrination.

    The Roman Empire spanned Europe but you wouldn't blame the subjects in, for example, France, for the decisions and conquest of the Roman leaders. How exactly does the same logic apply to us?

    England are an imperial power, they gained their power through military conquest. Who were their first targets? Their neighbours. Maintaining a military conflict within your island is difficult so eventually they resorted to cultural warfare as well as military. For example, outlawing the Scottish language, dress, instruments, and ultimately identity. A crime to be yourself.

    You empathise with people all over the world having arbitrary lines drawn and the separating/forcing of peoples apart/together but not with Scotland/Wales/Ireland because of your dislike of Brits.

    You're blinded by your own hatred. My hatred of Brits is likely higher than yours, and I am one in your eyes, which only exemplifies part of why I hate "Brits". A made up term for a made up people.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    Sorry, I don't hate the Brits, I just think UKans are being ridiculous to expect us to care. The onus is not on foreigners to have an opinion – much less weigh on – domestic issues such as Scottish Independance or Irish unification. Even if I wanted to have an opinion, I'm more than likely to eat my own foot.

    Scotland and NI are nowhere near unique in their having a federalized governance and internal struggle for independence. However until independence happens, Scotland and NI are part of the UK and you can't be mad at maps of Europe for reflecting that fact.

    I support a sovereign Ukraine but a 1980 map of Europe would have it as a non-sovereign Soviet Republic and that's not a contradiction.

    Also very ironic that you would talk about "made up people" to a Belgian. I don't even talk the same language or receive the same TV channels as my compatriots 50 km over. We've mastered having a national identity built on not having a national identity.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    Lots of places have subnational entities which they may or may not call something that translates to “country”.

    Not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious as to some examples of this. I've heard various languages translating words for a country's subdivisions as things like state, province, prefecture, etc, but I haven't run across a country within a country before (unless you're talking about enclaves like the Vatican).

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Germany and Austria are divided into Länder (singular: Land), which literally just means country. (Germany has 16 of them, Austria 9.) This is usually translated as states or provinces in English, but the word in German isn't Staaten or Provinzen, which is what we call the subdivisions of Australia, Canada, and the US.

    The Kingdom of the Netherlands is also divided into 4 countries.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (9 children)

    The nation of Scotland would beg to differ...

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago* (8 children)

    If everyone who sometimes calls themselves a nation counts, surely Barcelona must too… 😉

    "National capital" = capital of an independent sovereign state.

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  • [–] -5 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Does Barcelona have it's own parliament, legal system, justice system, education system, taxation system, benefits system, housing system?

    Scotland isn't "sovereign" but it's far beyond what would be regarded as a region in other countries either.

    The United Kingdom is, as the name implies, a union of nation states. So despite your patronising tone it is a nation within a nation.

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  • [–] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Catalonia (the autonomous community or "nation" which Barcelona is the capital of) absolutely does have:

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  • [+] -11 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Perhaps that's why they have a strong independence movement then... Y'know, as a people who have their own unique national identity that have been oppressed into subjugation by a larger state. Ringing some similar bells with Scotland.

    Maybe instead of denigrating people for wishing for self determination and supporting the oppressive larger states, you should consider your list, which are pretty common determinates of nationality, and think on whether that therefore qualifies these people for independence and the right to state their capital city is their national capital.

    I certainly don't regard London as my capital city. My parliament is in Edinburgh, my immigrant friends go to Edinburgh for embassies, Edinburgh is the cultural hub, the financial hub, and legal focal point for the peoples of Scotland, why would they regard London as their capital?

    The same, I'm sure, can be said for the peoples of Wales, the North of Ireland (to a lesser extent, with some, er, troubles there), and Catalonia.

    After all, in the context of international laws, membership of extranational organisations like the EU, how many European nations are even sovereign any more? Does sovereignty matter in the context of this map when it's definition in the key is country?

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago

    Nothing I wrote is about "denigrating" people wishing for self-determination, or about "supporting the oppressive larger states". It's just currently a fact of the world that the independence movements in those places have not yet been successful. They might still be in the future!

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Also applies to the three regions of Belgium, FWIW. Even your ID card and passport will be slightly different depending on where you get it.

    And don't you start grandstanding about what you think that should mean for us, because regardless of what you say your outside understanding will be incomplete and your opinions will be ignorant.

    The UK has a unique history that has led its constituent nations to conceptualize strong cultural and political identities - which is far from unusual. The only unusual thing is that Brits keeps pretending that the UK is somehow Special™ and foreigners should give any more of a shit about its subnational divisions than you do about US states or German States or Canadian Provinces.

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  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    And don't you start grandstanding about what you think that should mean for us, because regardless of what you say your outside understanding will be incomplete and your opinions will be ignorant.

    ...

    Apply the same logic. Scotland has had a pro- independence party in power since 2007, do you think this manifests in a vacuum or because there's legitimate reason to regard Scotland as a nation?

    75 years ago would you disregard the notion of Ukraine being a nation? Now you'd agree it most definitely is, but back then it was a member of the USSR, does that remove its credentials of being a nation just because it's been subjugated by a larger entity? Despite it's lengthy history, individual culture, etc?

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