A United Kingdom of Awesome Britain & Northern Ireland (ordinarily shortened to the United Kingdom or even a UK) occurs as united states off a northerly-american coast of continental Europe, surrounded per North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and a Atlantic Ocean.

These are composed of quaternary constitutional area: trine constituent countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—on the island of Great Britain, and a province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. A border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's primary international land border, although there is a nominal frontier by owning France midmost of the Channel Tunnel.

A UK has many overseas territories, and relationships using many Crown dependencies and Commonwealth realms.

Terminology
A United Kingdom is the union of the Kingdom of England (which includes the principality of Wales with the Kingdom of Scotland and later the Kingdom of Ireland to form a single state. A modern "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is the effect of the partition of Ireland around 1922. A United Kingdom is another time known as "Great Britain", "Britain", or even "England", although these terms don't mean a equivalent tool. Great Britain, or merely Britain, is the geographical name of the largest of the British Isles, including its smaller neighboring islands, but not Ireland. (A British Isles itself refers to the archipelago that includes Great Britain & Irel&, and a total of little islands, like the Channel Islands, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, Orkney, the Shetland Islands.) "Great Britain" refers to the nations of Engl&, Wales and Scotland, i personally.e., a United Kingdom, except for Northern Ireland. "UK" & "British" come each utilized when adjectival forms.

History
Independent article: History of the United Kingdom

Scotl& and England own existed when separate unified able since a 10th century. Wales, under English control since a Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Act of Union 1536. By having a Act of Union 1707, a separate kingdoms of Engl& and Scotland, with shared the equivalent monarch since 1603, agreed to a lasting union when the Kingdom of Great Britain. This union occurred at once once a Scottish government was on a brink of economic ruin & was deeply unpopular by using the Scottish people.

A Act of Union 1800 united a Kingdom of Smashing Britain by having the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been step by step brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This was besides an unpopular guide, ingesting place good fallowing a stillborn Irish Rebellion of 1798 (see Society of the United Irishmen). A timing, once farther Napoleonic intervention or an invasion was despised, was preponderantly due to security concerns.

Inside 1922, when bitterly combat which echoes down to a todays political strife, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, with a latter left over a portion of the United Kingdom. Equally provided for in the accord, Northern Ireland, which consists of sextet of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster, immediately opted out of a Yours free! State & to remain in the UK. A terminology of the UK was changed around 1927 to recognise a departure of virtually all of Ireland, using the title United Kingdom of Neat Britain & Northern Ireland existence adopted.

A United Kingdom, a dominant industrial & nautical power of the 19th century, played a leading role within getting Western world ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy - to say nothing of its part around forward-moving globe literature & science. At its zenith, a British Empire stretched over of these quarter of the globe's surface. A number 1 half of the 20th century saw the UK's nature and severity seriously depleted from either a results of World War I and World War II. the 2nd half found a disassembly of a Empire & the UK rebuilding itself into a modern & prosperous united states.

the UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. Its attitude towards farther integration is conservative, & there exists important Euroscepticism in UK politics. It has non chosen to adopt a Euro, owing to internal political considerations and the food and drug administration's judgement of the prevailing economic conditions. A bit of British economic expert require that a European Central Bank be reformed to mirror the Bank of England before a UK joins the Euro, a require which, given the German economic difficulties following adoption of the Euro, would seem to exist as conceivable later.

Constitutional reform is as well the todays issue in the UK. A House of Lords has been subjected to ongoing reforms, Scotland elected its own parliament in 1999 and in the same season, devolved assemblies were created in Wales and Northern Ireland. Based on data from poll, a monarchy remains typically popular within spite of recent tilt. Trend lines for the British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the people, using about 10% undecided or even indifferent [http://www.mori.com/mrr/2000/c000616.shtml]. Despite a united states's liberal heritage, the food and drug administration's Information Commissioner stated in 2004 that the united states is presently inside danger of becoming the surveillance society.

A United Kingdom occurs as member of the Commonwealth of Nations (successor organisation to the former British Empire) & NATO. These are likewise the lasting member of the UN Security Council and holds veto power. These are one of a fewer than 10 nuclear powers.

Look at likewise: Monarchs; History of Britain; History of England; History of Ireland; History of Scotland; History of Wales, UK local history terms

Government and politics
Independent article: Politics of the United Kingdom A United Kingdom occurs as constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised in behalf of the Queen by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers world health organization conjointly produce higher Her Majesty's Government. These ministers come drawn from either & responsible to Parliament, the legislative immune system, which is traditionally considered to exist as "supreme" (that is, a cappella to legislate in any matter & non attached by decisions of its predecessors). A UK is one of a couple of countries in a globe now, & probably the merely democracy, that does not have a statute constitution, relying instead on tradition.

A Prime Minister appoints more Ministers from either Parliament, world health organization together form a Cabinet. A Prime Minister is the head of government. Sovereignty is vested fully in the monarch, world health organization is Head of State, but under Britain's constitutional monarchy ''Her Stateliness's Government'' is answerable & accountable to the House of Commons, which is the lower directly-elected home inside Britain's bicameral Parliament. the British technique of government has been emulated about the world - a bequest of the United Kingdom's compound past. Nations that watch British-style parliamentarism, by having an executive drawn from either & accountable to a law-makers, come said to work under the Westminster system of governance.

In a United Kingdom the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, however his or even her role is chiefly, though non entirely, observance. A monarch is an integral section of Parliament (when a "Crown-in-Parliament") & theoretically gives Parliament a power to meet and produce legislation. An Act of Parliament does not be law until it has been signed per Queen (incline Royal Assent), although there are no monarch has refused to assent to the bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. Foreign policy & criminal justice come implemented around Her Loftiness's title, however a monarch has there is no rattling control all over either. A Queen as well confers titles & honours, on the advice of the Prime Minister around virtually all cases. Her Loftiness has access to completely Cabinet papers & is briefed every week per Prime Minister, commonly in Tuesdays. Constitutional writer Walter Bagehot asserted that the monarch has iii rights: to exist as consulted, to counsel & to warn. Victims rights come exercised seldom however can be crucial at key days—like after there is a "hung parliament". Every season, a monarch officially opens Parliament, and makes a speech announcing what the food and drug administration plans to clean when you took the next month, even so that speech is ordinarily written per Prime Minister. Although the abolishment of a monarchy has been suggested many days, the popularity of the monarchy remains hard, sustaining simply 23% wanting a republic according to a recent poll per Daily Telegraph. A todays monarch is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne around 1952 & was crowned inside 1953. A British monarch as well reigns inside Fifteen more sovereign countries that come referred to as a Commonwealth Realms. Although a UK has there is no political or even executive power on top people independent nations, it retains influence across long-standing close relations. Inside occasionally Commonwealth Realms a Privy Council remains the greatest Court of Appeal.

Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. These are a ultimate legislative authority in a United Kingdom, based on data from the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. These are bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. A Home of Commons is extra right than a Home of Lords, & might at long last pass legislation that a Lords has rejected, by invoking a Parliament Act. A Home of Commons has 646 members world health organization come directly elected from either individual-member constituencies according to people. A Home of Lords has 724 members: hereditary peers, life peers, and bishops of the Church of England. Historically, a Home of Lords was composed of members of the Peerage, holding seats by nature of birthright, although at present members come appointed for life. What is more, a House of Lords Act 1999 severely curtailed the total of hereditary peers who could sit in a upper Home - lone 92 away from many c locate the right, across existence elected by their fellow peers or even by holding the royal agents of Earl Marshal or Lord Great Chamberlain. the proposals to reform a Home of Lords ab initio known as for 100% hereditary peers to lose their ballot rights, however a compromise was reached that allowed the children to exist as phased out bit by bit.

By constitutional convention, Ministers are chosen largely from either among members of a Commons with the little total chosen from either the Lords. Ministers exercise two legislative powers & perquisite (deriving from either royal prerogative) powers. A Prime Minister is a leader of the party sustaining the majority of seats in the House of Commons and is formally appointed by the monarch. A todays Prime Minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been inside professional since 1997.

Them big political parties come a Labour Party and Conservative Party. the UK has hanker experienced a two-party system, but in a previous Xx years the Liberal Democrats have re-emerged as a large third person, winning Xxii.0% of a vote at the survive election, translating into Nina from carolina.6% of the seats inside Parliament. A electoral rules utilized for general elections is first-past-the-post. A nature and severity of this rules means that Labour were elected in the 2005 election with only 35.2% of the subject vote, however however won the hard majority of seats around Parliament (Labour keep around 66 seats to a higher degree a lot non-Labour seats combined).

A constitution of the United Kingdom is un-codified & partly unwritten, which means that there are no lone document regulates how else the food and drug administration works, and unwritten constitutional conventions are used extensively. A constitution is according to a principle that Parliament is the ultimate sovereign system in the united states. the United Kingdom has been a centered, one state for lot of its history.

There has yearn been the far flung feel of national identity in the Celtic nations. Throughout a late 19th century a UK debated rendering Ireland home rule. Page rule was given to Northern Ireland inside 1920: it was eventually abolished by London in 1972, when tremendously civil strife. A Scottish National Party was founded in 1934, & Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) within 1925. Referendums for devolution to Scotland and Wales failed inside 1979, however succeeded in 1997 for Scotland and Wales and in 1998 for Northern Ireland. Inside 1999, a Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were established, the previous getting primary legislative power. Proportional representation is used for the elections, which has resulted within the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Scotland. Due to internal disagreements, a Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since 2002. Within Cornwall, there is a movement that calls for devolution [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1881847.stm] (Cornish nationalism), and an academic debate on top a Cornish identity and constitutional status of Cornwall. Regional Assemblies were proposed for the north of England, however fallowing the referendum in the 'Northward East' region in which 78% voted against a scheme, plans for regional governments were abandoned. Because of the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, all the devolved assemblies and parliaments can be abolished by Parliament, however this is improbable to happen.

View as well: Law of the United Kingdom British monarchy Politics of Northern Ireland Politics of Scotland Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Courts of the United Kingdom

Subdivisions
Independent article: Subdivisions of the United Kingdom

A United Kingdom occurs as united states that is divided into little joe constitutional countries:

A constitutional area of the United Kingdom use at times administrative subdivisions as follows:

The regions and administrative counties of England The council areas of Scotland The counties and county boroughs of Wales The districts of Northern Ireland

A Act of Union 1536 incorporated Wales & England into England and Wales for legal purposes.

Although tons quadruplet keep around historically been divided into counties, England's population is an sequentially of magnitude big than a others then within recent years it has for a few purposes been divided into nine intermediate-level Government Office Regions - North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, Eastern, London, South East, South West. From each one vicinity is processed higher of counties and unitary authorities, apart from London, which consists of London boroughs. Although at one point it was arranged that every or even a few one regions would exist as given its have regional assembly, a project's first is uncertain, as of 2004, after the Northward East area rejected its projected assembly within a referendum.

Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of Xxii Unitary Authorities, styled when Ten County Boroughs, Nine Counties, & Ternary Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into Twenty-six Territorial dominion.

Likewise for instance associated by owning a United Kingdom, though non constitutionally a portion of a United Kingdom itself, come the Crown dependencies (the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and a Isle of Man) as self-autonomous possessions of the Crown, and the total of overseas territories under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Watch as well: City status in the United Kingdom, Towns of the United Kingdom, and Local government in the United Kingdom

Military
Independent article: British Armed Forces

A armed forces of a United Kingdom are referred to as the British Armed Forces or '''Her Loftiness's Armed Forces, officially a Armed Forces of the Crown'''. Their Commander-in-Chief is the Queen and they are managed per Ministry of Defence.

A British Armed Forces come charged by having protecting a United Kingdom & its overseas territories, promoting Britain's wider security interests, & supporting international peacekeeping efforts. It is active & regular participants inside NATO and other coalition operations.

A British Army had a reported nature & severity of 112,700 around 2004, including 7,600 women, and a Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. A 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategical nuclear arm, which consists of quaternity Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, while a Royal Marines provide commando units for amphibious assault & for specialist reinforcement forces inside and beyond a NATO area. This puts number active duty military troops in the 210,000 range.

Britawithin fields one of a virtually all mighty & comprehensive force in Europe. Its spherical power projection capabilities come a bit of of the right in the globe. A Royal Navy is the second big navy around the Globe in terms of gross tonnage duty. Despite Britain's wide ranging capabilities, recent, pragmatical defence policy hwhen the declared assumption that any big operation would exist as undertaken as the portion of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982.

A British army has been actively required in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. But, the programme of demilitarisation is existence step by step implemented.

Geography
Independent article: Geography of the United Kingdom

Virtually all of England consists of rolling lowland terrain, divided east from either west by other mountainous terrain in the north-west (Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District) and northward (a highland moors of the Pennines) and limestone hills of the Peak District by the Tees-Exe line. A moo limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire and chalk downs of the Southern England Chalk Formation. A independent lakes & estuaries come a Thames, Severn and the Trent & Ouse feeding the Humber Estuary; major cities include London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bristol, Nottingham, Leicester, and Newcastle upon Tyne. Touching Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom by owning France. No peak inside England that is 1000m or even greater.

Wales is mostly mountainous, a greatest peak existence Snowdon at 1085 m above sea level. Northerly of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. A big & capital city is Cardiff, located in South Wales. A more metropolitan areas include Swansea, Newport and Wrexham.

Scotland's geographics is varied, using lowlands in the south & east and highlands in the north & west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's greatest mountain (1343 m). There are numerous yearn & deep-sea arms, firths, and lochs. a people of islands west & n of Scotland come too involved, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands, as is the uninhabited isle of Rockall, although this claim is disputed. Independent cities come Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee.

Northern Ireland, making higher a northward-eastern section of Ireland, is mostly craggy. A independent cities come Belfast and Londonderry. A province is personal to one of a UK’s World Heritage Sites, the Giant's Causeway, which consists of more than 40,000 six-sided basalt columns up to 40 feet high.

Inside amount these are calculated that a UK includes around 1098 little islands, occasionally existence natural & occasionally existence crannogs, a nature and severity of artificial island which was built in past days utilizing stone & wood, step by step enlarged by natural waste building higher on top instance.

Economy
Independent article: Economy of the United Kingdom

a United Kingdom, a leading swing trading power & fiscal centre, has an fundamentally capitalism, the for big in the globe. All over a retiring trio decades, the food and drug administration has greatly reduced public ownership by means of privatisation programmes, and has contained a incubation of the Welfare State.

Agriculture is intensive, extremely mechanised, & effective by European standards, producing just about 60% of food needs using exclusively 1% of the labour click. A UK has big coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the greatest shares of any industrial state.

Services, particularly banking, insurance and business services, account for by far the big proportion of GDP. Industry continues to decline inside importance, although a UK is however Europe's big manufacturer of armaments, fossil oil products, microcomputer, televisions, & roving telephones. Tourism is also important: sustaining concluded Two dozen million holidaymaker a year, between China (33) and Austria (19.I), a United Kingdom is ranked as the sixth major tourer destination in the globe.

A Blair government has put off the wonder of participation in the Euro system, citing five economic tests that would need to become met prior to it recommend that the UK adopts a Euro, & hang on to a referendum.

Society

Demographics
Independent article: Demographics of the United Kingdom

At a April 2001 nosecount, a United Kingdom's people was 58,789,194-- a third-largest in a European Union (behind Germany & metropolitan France) & the 21st-largest in the globe. Its overall people density is one of a greatest in the globe. About of these-third of the people sleep in England's prosperous & fertile southeast & is preponderantly urban & suburban--using astir Sevener.Two million in the capital of London. A United Kingdom's high literacy rate (99%) is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level inside 1870 & secondary level around 1900 (except inside Scotland inside which it was introduced in 1696). Education is compulsory from either ages Five across 16. All about a single-fifth of British students last in to post-secondary education. A Church of Engl& and a Church of Scotland work when a official national churches in their several countries, however virtually all religions witnessed in the globe come represented in the United Kingdom.

a class action of islands some continental Europe, a British Isles st& been subject to numerous invasions & migrations, especially from either Scandinavia and the continent, including Roman occupation for many centuries. Contemporary Britons come descended primarily from either a varied ethnic equities that settled there prior to a 11th century. A pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, & Norse influences were blended around Britain under a Normans, Scandinavian Vikings world health organization got sleep in Northern France. Although Celtic languages continue Wales, Scotl&, & Northern Ireland, the predominant language is English, which occurs as West Germanic language descended from either either Old English, and featuring a big total of borrowings from Norman French.

A primary language spoken is English. More endemic languages include a Celtic languages; Welsh, the closely related Irish and Scots Gaelic, and a Cornish language; when well as Lowland Scots, which is closely related to English; Romany; and British Sign Language (Northern Ireland Sign Language is also utilized inside Northern Ireland). Celtic dialectal influences from either Cumbric persisted inside Northern England for numerous centuries, mostly famously in the unique placed of figures utilized for counting sheep.

Recent immigrants, especially from either the Commonwealth, speak many more languages, including Bengali, Cantonese, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and Jamaican Creole. A United Kingdom has a battalion of Hindi speaking peoples outside of the Indian sub continent.

Likewise watch: Languages in the United Kingdom

Culture
Independent article: Culture of the United Kingdom

A United Kingdom contains several of the globe's leading universities, including a University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Edinburgh and the University of London (which incorporates, amongst others, London School of Economics, Imperial College and University College London), & has produced several awesome man of science and engineers including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Paul Dirac and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; a united states is credited sustaining the invention of the steam engine, locomotive, 3-piece suit, vaccination, lead crystal, television, radio, the telephone, hovercraft, and two a internal combustion and the jet engine.

Playwright William Shakespeare is arguably a best known writer around globe history; more easily-known writers include the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne), Jane Austen, J. K. Rowling, Agatha Christie, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Dickens. Crucial poets include Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, William Blake and Dylan Thomas. (watch independent article: British literature).

Notable composers from either a United Kingdom own involved William Byrd, John Taverner, Thomas Tallis, and Henry Purcell from the Sixteenth & early Seventeenth centuries, &, extra recently, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Arthur Sullivan (most famous for working using librettist Sir W. S. Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, and John Tavener in the 19th and 20th.

A UK was, by owning a U.s., one of them main contributors in the development of rock and roll, and a UK has provided a few of a best known popular stars, including the Beatles, Sir Cliff Richard, Queen, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and many others. A UK was at a forefront of punk rock music in a 1970s using elastic like the Sex Pistols and The Clash, and a subsequent rebirth of heavy metal with bands like Motörhead and Iron Maiden. Within mid to late '90s, a Britpop phenomenon has seen bands like Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, Coldplay and Supergrass gain international fame. Getting in from either this profits, British elastic, notably Franz Ferdinand, have within 2004 appeared on the world scene as a a share of the indie movement, and within 2005 a Kaiser Chiefs, with a UK largely seen when a personal of such music. A UK is likewise at a forefront of electronica, with British creative person like Aphex Twin, Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney and Lamb at the cutting edge. A United Kingdom was likewise associated sustaining music from either a Caribbean, with the prominent total of Jamaicans & more Caribbean subject existence present in the UK. (view independent article: Music of the United Kingdom).

A great total of major sports originated in the United Kingdom, including football, golf, cricket, squash, boxing, rugby, billiards, and rounders, the forerunner of baseball. A Wimbledon Championships are an international tennis event held in Wimbledon in south London every summer & come seen when a virtually all prestigious of the lawn tennis calendar.

A national sport of the UK is association football, but a UK doesn't compete as a united states in any major football tournament. Instead a personal nations compete singly when England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

These are because of this unique 4-team arrangement that a UK has non then far competed around football cases at a Olympic Games, although efforts are existence processed by The Football Association to field a British team for the London 2012 Olympics (an idea widely disliked in the Scottish FA). The similar arrangement applies to Rugby Union, except that a single team is a lot of Ireland – a Republic of Ireland also when Northern Ireland – although each foursome years a British and Irish Lions (comprising the better players from either Engl&, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) tour more countries. (watch independent article: Sport in the United Kingdom).

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