United Kingdom

I

Introduction

United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, island nation and constitutional monarchy in north-western Europe, member of the European Union and Commonwealth of Nations. The United Kingdom lies entirely within and constitutes the greater part of the British Isles. Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles and so called to distinguish it from Brittany, or “Little Britain”.

It comprises, together with numerous smaller islands—including the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, and the Scilly, Orkney, Shetland, and Hebridean archipelagos—the formerly separate realms of England and Scotland, and the principality of Wales. Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster, occupies the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland. The United Kingdom is bordered to the south by the English Channel, which separates it from continental Europe, to the east by the North Sea, and to the west by the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the only land border is between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The total area of the United Kingdom is 244,110 sq km (94,251 sq mi). The capital and largest city is London.

The names “United Kingdom”, “Great Britain”, and “England” are often used interchangeably. The use of “Great Britain”, often shortened to “Britain”, to describe the whole kingdom is common and widely accepted, although strictly it does not include Northern Ireland. However, the use of “England” to mean the “United Kingdom” is not acceptable to members of the other constituent countries, especially the Scots and the Welsh. In this article “United Kingdom” and “Britain/British” are used synonymously; “Great Britain” is used only in reference to England, Wales, and Scotland.

England and Wales were united administratively, politically, and legally by 1543. The crowns of England and Scotland were united in 1603, but the two countries remained separate political entities until the 1707 Act of Union, which formed the Kingdom of Great Britain with a single legislature. From 1801, when Great Britain and Ireland were united, until the formal establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the kingdom was officially designated the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are direct dependencies of the British Crown, and not part of the United Kingdom. They have their own legislatures and legal systems; the British government is responsible only for their external affairs and defence. The defence, external affairs, internal security, and public services of the various British dependent territories are also a responsibility of the government, normally exercised through governors appointed by the Crown.

The dependent territories are: Anguilla; Bermuda; the British Antarctic Territory; the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT); the British Virgin Islands; the Cayman Islands; the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas); Gibraltar; Montserrat; Pitcairn, Ducie, Henderson, and Oeno; St Helena and the St Helena Dependencies (Ascension and Tristan da Cunha); South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Virtually all are internally self-governing and have opted for various political and economic reasons to remain under British control. The exceptions are the British Antarctic Territory, which has no permanent population; and the BIOT, which comprises the Chagos Archipelago, and particularly Diego Garcia, which is leased to the United States and is an important US naval base. Hong Kong S.A.R., formerly a dependent territory, which contained all but 200,000 of what was then the 6 million combined population of the dependencies, was returned to China when Britain’s lease on the territory ran out in July 1997.

Included in the following account of the United Kingdom are sections on the land and resources, population, education, art and culture, economy, government, and history (since 1707) of the nation. Except where otherwise stated, all figures cited include England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Relevant material covered elsewhere in Encarta may be summarized or omitted in this article; the topic headings under which such material may be found are indicated. Numerous other articles containing additional and more-detailed information on important aspects of the United Kingdom are cited at appropriate points in the text.

II

Land and Resources

The maximum overall length of the United Kingdom is 1,264 km (787 mi): the most northerly point is Out Stack, off Unst in the Shetland Islands; the most southerly is St Agnes in the Scilly Isles. The kingdom’s maximum width is 670 km (417 mi), from Lough Melvin in south-western Northern Ireland to Lowestoft in Suffolk, England. The mainland of the island of Great Britain is 974 km (605 mi) at its longest and 531 km (330 mi) at its widest; however, the highly indented nature of the island’s coastline means that nowhere is more than about 120 km (75 mi) from the sea.

Relative to its size, the scenery of the United Kingdom is very diverse and can change dramatically within short distances. This diversity reflects in part the underlying rocks, which range from the ancient Precambrian mountains of the Highlands of Scotland to the recent Quaternary deposits of the Fens in eastern England. All of the United Kingdom—except the area of England roughly south of a line drawn between the Thames and Severn estuaries—was covered in ice during the Pleistocene ice age, and glaciation shaped its most spectacular scenery, including the English Lake District, the loughs of Northern Ireland, the Welsh valleys, and most of Scotland, including the lochs. Human activity has also played a key part in creating the landscape, including the southern downlands of England, the Norfolk Broads, the Fens, and the moorlands of northern Scotland.

A

Great Britain

Great Britain is the world’s eighth-largest island. It has an area of 229,870 sq km (88,753 sq mi), equivalent to just over 90 per cent of the total area of the United Kingdom. It is traditionally divided into two main regions, the highlands (above 100 m/330 ft) and the lowlands, along a line running from the mouth of the River Exe in Devon, north-east to the River Tees estuary. Scotland and Wales lie within the highland region, as well as northern, north-western, and south-western England. Scotland is divided into three regions: the Highlands, which contains the United Kingdom’s highest point, Ben Nevis (1,343 m/4,406 ft), and is its most mountainous area; the Central Lowlands; and the Southern Uplands. Wales comprises primarily the Cambrian Mountains; the highest point in England and Wales (1,085 m/3,560 ft) is in the Snowdon massif.

England is divided into three main upland regions, and two lowland areas—East Anglia and the South-East—connected by generally rich agricultural plains. The upland area of the south-western peninsula includes Dartmoor, Exmoor (see Exmoor National Park), and Bodmin Moor; in the north are the Pennine Hills and in the north-west the Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District.

B

Northern Ireland

The Sperrin and Antrim mountains in the north and north-east are an extension of the Scottish Highlands. With the Mourne Mountains, which contain Northern Ireland’s highest point, Slieve Donard (852 m/2,796 ft), they edge a central plain, containing Lough Neagh (390 sq km/150 sq mi), the United Kingdom’s largest freshwater lake.

A brief summary of the climate, natural resources, and plant and animal life of the United Kingdom follows. More detailed coverage of these subjects, as well as of the United Kingdom’s physical geography and geology, can be found in the articles dealing with the component parts of the kingdom.