This is part two of The Islands of the North Atlantic. In the first part of this occasional series of articles, I set the scene for what the United Kingdom is by tackling some common misconceptions of what the United Kingdom isn't.

1. This is not the United Kingdom You're Looking For
2. The Dis-united Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
3. The Geographies of England - An Exercise in Complexity
4. Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh Geographies - Simplicity not Complexity
5. Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and the Commonwealth of Nations

But the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that we know today only dates back to 1922, so I'm going to start with what the United Kingdom was and for that we need to go back to circa 927 CE and the Kingdom of England.

It was back in February of 2009 that I first wrote about the complex and confusing geographies of the British Isles, the United Kingdom and many other terms of reference for the archipelago of islands that sit off of the north-west coast of Europe and that I call home. Since then, with one notable exception, I have found myself having the same conversations on this topic at pretty much every place I've worked at.

So this is the first in a series of articles about the physical, political, administrative and other geographies of what's sometimes called the Islands of the North Atlantic, which should put this to rest ... until something else changes.

1. This is not the United Kingdom You're Looking For
2. The Dis-united Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
3. The Geographies of England - An Exercise in Complexity
4. Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh Geographies - Simplicity not Complexity
5. Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and the Commonwealth of Nations

Apart from being a damn fine Trance album, German DJ Paul Van Dyk's The Politics of Dancing would definitely make my top 5 list of album titles, if I had one. I love the way the two normally diametrically opposed ideas of politics and dancing are used together to make something new.

Here's another example which is much more geo related; the geography of talking.

A group of researchers have redrawn the map of Great Britain using human interactions, in this case people talking to each other on the telephone, to show how little the way in which we communicate and the relationships we have bear any resemblance to the formal boundaries that governments draw on a map. In the map below, the total amount of talk time is shown, with the maps areas being more opaque the more calls and interactions are made.