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.