The United Kingdom vs A United Kingdom

[towcats1]

Hi
Why is the indefinite article in the name A United Germany and (sometimes) A United KIngdom?

 

[emsr2d2]

Please give us some real-life example sentences in which you have seen them used with the indefinite article, particularly a capitalised indefinite article.

 

[towcats1]

A United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[towcats1]

Please give us some real-life example sentences in which you have seen them used with the indefinite article, particularly a capitalised indefinite article.

JOURNAL ARTICLE

A United Germany​

Ronald D. Asmus

Foreign Affairs
Vol. 69, No. 2 (Spring, 1990), pp. 63-76 (14 pages)
Published By: Council on Foreign Relations

 

[Piscean]

In neither of your examples is the indefinite article part of the name of a country.

 

[emsr2d2]

In the second example, the final two words don't even represent the country "the United Kingdom". The film is about "a united kingdom". The only reason all three words are capitalised is that it's a title and that's the format for a title.

The same goes for "A United Germany" - it's the title of an article and is therefore capitalised correctly. It was written in 1990, not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall so it refers to the prospect of "a united Germany" - ie a single country, no longer divided into East Germany and West Germany. If you like, think of it as "a version of Germany in which it is no longer divided into two separate nations".
(I've corrected your link so it takes us to the preview of the article.)