The United Kingdom or abbreviated FORM UK, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a sovereign and insular country located in the northwest of continental Europe. Its territory is geographically formed by the island of Great Britain, the northeast of the island of Ireland and small adjacent islands. Since the independence of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland has been the only part of the country with a land border, until the inauguration of the Eurotunnel that links the island of Great Britain by land with France and the European mainland. Great Britain is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the east by the North Sea, to the south by the English Channel and to the west by the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state comprising four constituent nations: Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. It is governed by a parliamentary system with the seat of government and capital in London, but with three decentralized national administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, the capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively. It is a parliamentary monarchy, with Elizabeth II being the head of state. Colloquially and erroneously, it is called Great Britain and England, a consequence of the greater weight of both (territory and kingdom, respectively) within the State. The Crown Dependencies of the Channel Islands — Jersey and Guernsey — and the Isle of Man are not part of the United Kingdom, although the British Government is responsible for their defense and international relations.
The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories, all vestiges of what was the British Empire, which in its international territory reached and covered about a fifth of the world’s land surface. Elizabeth II continues to be at the head of the Commonwealth of Nations and as head of state of each of the Commonwealth Kingdoms.
It is a developed country that by its net volume of gross domestic product is the fifth world economy (by its nominal GDP) and ninth by its GDP PPP. It was the world’s first industrialized country and the leading world power during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century (1815-1945), but the economic cost of the two world wars and the decline of its empire in the second part of the twentieth century diminished its role in international relations.
However, it still maintains significant economic, cultural, military and political influence, and is a nuclear power. It was a member of the European Union between 1973 and 2020, from which it emerged in the process known as Brexit. It is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the right of veto, a member of the G7, the G-20, NATO, the OECD, the UKUSA, the Commonwealth of Nations and the Common Travel Area.
Etymology
The official name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with the United Kingdom or UK being the most commonly used abbreviated forms. The name was first proposed in the Act of Union of 1707, in which the kingdoms of England and Wales decided to constitute a new kingdom together with Scotland, which would have the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Later, with the Act of Union of 1800 the island of Ireland became part of the country, so the name changed to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1927, the country got its current name the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State when it officially gained independent self-government in 1922 and full independence with the 1931 Statute of Westminster.)
It is often referred to by the name of the island that comprises most of its territory, Great Britain, or also, by extension, by the name of one of its constituent countries, England. The name of the United Kingdom, as well as that of the island of Great Britain is British, although also, by extension, the English gentile is usually used in ordinary speech.
Although the United Kingdom, as a sovereign state, is a country, England, Scotland, Wales, and to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland, are also considered as “the countries” (in its original language that is country, because in Spanish it is called a constituent country or constitutive nation, not applying that case), although they are not sovereign states. The British prime minister’s website has used the expression “countries within a country” to describe the United Kingdom.
Some statistical summaries also refer to the constituent countries of England, Scotland and Wales as “regions”, while Northern Ireland is referred to as “province”.
The History of the United Kingdom
Before 1707
The first settlements by anatomically modern humans in the present territory of the United Kingdom occurred in waves approximately 30,000 years ago. It is believed that, towards the end of the region’s prehistoric period, the population belonged to the culture of the island Celts, comprising the Britons and Gaelic Ireland. The Roman conquest, begun in the year 43, subjected the south of the island to be a province of the empire for four centuries.
This was followed by a series of invasions led by different Germanic peoples–Anglos, Saxons and Jutes–which reduced the British area towards what was to be erected as the present territory of Wales, Cornwall and the historic Kingdom of Strathclyde. Most of the region colonized by the Anglo-Saxons was unified into the Kingdom of England in the tenth century. At the same time, Gaelic-speaking people in northwestern Brittany—with connections to the northeast of Ireland and are traditionally supposed to have migrated from there in the fifth century—joined with the Picts to create the so-called Kingdom of Scotland in the ninth century.
In 1066, the Normans invaded England from France and after their conquest, they took power over large parts of Wales, Ireland and were invited to settle in Scotland, introducing to the feudalism of each country the Northern-French model and Norman culture. The Norman elite greatly influenced, but was assimilated with each of the local cultures. Consequently, the medieval English kings conquered Wales and made a failed attempt to annex Scotland to their territory. Following the Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland maintained its sovereign status, despite constant tensions with England. The English monarchs, due to the inheritance they possessed over vast territories in France and by claims to the French crown, maintained several conflicts in France, the most notable of them being the Hundred Years’ War. In it, Scotland allied with France and ended in 1453, with the English withdrawal from French lands.
The Modern Age was marked by religious conflicts around the Protestant Reformation, where the introduction of state Protestant churches in each country occurred from there. Wales was fully incorporated into the Kingdom of England, and Ireland was constituted as a kingdom in personal union with the English crown. Within present-day Northern Irish territory, the lands of the independent Gaelic Catholic nobility were confiscated and given to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.
In 1603, James VI of Scotland inherited the crown of England and Ireland, which united the three kingdoms and moved his court from Edinburgh to London; however, each country remained an independent political entity, while retaining its separate political, legal and religious institutions.
In the mid-seventeenth century, the three kingdoms were involved in a series of wars—including the English Civil War—that led to the temporary overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a unitary republic of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, acts of piracy (corsair) of the British fleet were reported, attacking and stealing ships from the European and Caribbean coasts.
Despite the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the interregnum assured, after the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Law Act, that unlike other European countries, royal absolutism would not prevail, and that a professed Catholic could never accede to the throne. The British constitution would be developed on the basis of a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. With the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, the study of science increased markedly. During this period, particularly in England, the development of the English navy—within the context of the so-called “age of discovery”—led to the acquisition and liquidation of overseas colonies, particularly in North America.
Following the Act of Union of 1707
On May 1, 1707, the United Kingdom of Great Britain was created by the political union between the Kingdom of England (of which Wales was a part) and the Kingdom of Scotland. This event was the result of the Treaty of Union signed on July 22, 1706, and ratified by the English and Scottish parliaments to create the Act of Union of 1707. Nearly a century later, the Kingdom of Ireland, under English rule since 1691, united with the Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as stipulated in the Act of Union of 1800. Although England and Scotland had been separate states before 1707, they had remained in a personal union since 1603, when the Union of Crowns took place.
In its first century of existence, the country played an important role in the development of Western ideas about the parliamentary system, in addition to making significant contributions to literature, the arts and science. The Industrial Revolution, led by the United Kingdom, transformed the country and sustained the growing British Empire. During this time, like other powers, it was involved in colonial exploitation, including the Atlantic slave trade, although with the passage of the Slave Act in 1807, the country was one of the pioneers in the fight against slavery.
Heyday of the British Empire
After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Napoleonic Wars, the nation emerged as the leading naval and economic power of the nineteenth century and continued to be an eminent power until the twentieth century. The capital, London, was the largest city in the world from 1831 to 1925. The British Empire reached its maximum extent in 1921 when after World War I, the League of Nations granted it the mandate over the former German colonies and Ottoman possessions, the latter as part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. A year later, the British Broadcasting Company was created, which subsequently became the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the world’s first large-scale broadcaster.
World Wars
In 1921, internal conflicts in Ireland over demands for Irish self-government eventually led to the partition of the island. At the same time, the victory of the Sinn Féin party in the 1918 general election, followed by a war of independence, led to the creation of the Irish Free State; Northern Ireland chose to remain part of the United Kingdom. As a result, in 1927 the formal name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland changed to its current name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Great Depression broke out at a time when the country was still far from recovering from the effects of World War I.
The United Kingdom was part with the United States, the Soviet Union and France among the allies of World War II. Following the defeat of its European allies in the first year of the war, the British Army continued the fight against Germany in an air campaign known as the Battle of Britain. After the victory, the country was one of the three great powers that came together to plan the post-war world. The Second World War left the national economy damaged. However, thanks to the help of the Marshall Plan and expensive loans obtained from the United States and Canada, the nation began the road to recovery.
The United Kingdom since 1945
The immediate post-war years saw the establishment of the welfare state, including one of the world’s first and largest public health services. Changes in government policy also attracted people from across the Commonwealth, giving birth to a multicultural state. Although the new limits of the British political role were confirmed by the Suez Crisis of 1956, the international spread of the English language meant the permanent influence of its literature and culture, while since the 1960s, its popular culture also began to have great influence abroad.
Following a period of global economic slowdown and the industrial conflicts of the 1970s, the following decade saw a substantial influx of revenue from the sale of North Sea oil and economic growth. Margaret Thatcher’s tenure marked a significant shift in the direction of the post-war political and economic consensus; a path that since 1997 was followed by the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In 1982, there was a brief war against Argentina in the Falklands that ended with British victory.
Furthermore, there were several tragedies in football stadiums provoked, among other reasons by the height of the hooligan phenomenon, such as the Heysel Tragedy, the Valley Parade Tragedy and the Hillsborough Tragedy in the 80s. In 1988, the Piper Alpha oil rig, located in the North Sea, exploded and killed 167 people. That same year saw the bloodiest terrorist attack in Europe, when a bomb exploded inside Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people.
The United Kingdom was one of the twelve founding members of the European Union at its inception in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Previously, since 1973 it had been a member of the precursor of the European Union, the European Economic Community (EEC). The end of the twentieth century saw major changes in British rule, with the establishment of the devolved administrations conferred for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
On September 16, 1992, the episode called “Black Wednesday” occurred when some financial speculators, among others, George Soros, bet against the pound sterling causing multimillion-dollar losses to the English state, the collapse of the Bank of England and forcing it to withdraw from the European Currency Exchange Mechanism.
In 1997 the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty from Hong Kong to China. That same year the death of Diana of Wales in a car accident shocked the whole country. In 1998, after almost two years of negotiations, the Good Friday agreement was signed For this agreement acted as a mediator the then US President Bill Clinton, consummating the peace process in Northern Ireland and the ceasefire of the terrorist group IRA, ending the conflict in Northern Ireland (called by the English The Troubles that is).
Foreign policy during Tony Blair’s government (1997-2007) was one of close alignment with the United States. Following the UK’s participation in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan launched in 2001, Blair took part in the Azores summit in 2003 where the decision was taken to issue a 24-hour ultimatum to the Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein for its disarmament. This ultimatum eventually led to the invasion of Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) in 2003.
Islamic terrorism struck London on 7 July 2005, killing 56 people and injuring more than 700, the day after London was the venue chosen to host the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The financial crisis of 2008 severely affected the British economy. Two years later, Gordon Brown’s Labour loses the election and the Conservative government led by David Cameron ascends, which introduced new austerity measures aimed at addressing the substantial public deficits that occurred during the crisis period. In 2014, the Scottish Government held a referendum for Scottish independence in September of that year, with the independence proposal being rejected with 55% of the vote. On September 9, 2015, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning monarch in the country, having surpassed her own great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria I.
In June 2016, a referendum was held on the permanence of the United Kingdom in the European Union with 51.9% of votes in favor of leaving the European entity, a process that could demand up to two years and that officially began on March 29, 2017. As part of the anti-jihadist coalition in the war against the Islamic State, the UK was again hit that year by terrorism in cities such as London and Manchester.
On January 1, 2020, Brexit became effective, the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
Government and politics
The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy whose head of state is Elizabeth II. She is also the head of state of the fifteen countries that, within the framework of the Commonwealth of Nations, constitute independent monarchies, placing the United Kingdom in a personal union with those nations. The Queen has sovereignty over the Crown dependencies, the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. These are not part of the United Kingdom, although the British Government manages its foreign relations and defense, and parliament has the authority to legislate on their behalf.
The UK does not have a document that serves as a fully defined constitution, something that only happens in two other countries in the world, Israel and New Zealand. The constitution of the United Kingdom, therefore, consists mainly of a collection of different written sources, including laws, statutes, jurisprudence and international treaties.
As there is no technical difference between ordinary statutes and “constitutional law”, parliament can carry out a “constitutional reform” by the simple act of passing a law, and consequently, has the power to change or suppress almost any written or unwritten element of the constitution. However, there are certain limitations to the approval of laws, for example, no legislature can create laws that cannot be changed in the future.
The United Kingdom has a parliamentary government, based on the Westminster system, which has been emulated around the world, one of the legacies of the British Empire. The UK parliament, which meets at the Palace of Westminster has two chambers: the House of Commons (elected by the people) and the House of Lords. Any law passed by parliament requires royal consent to become law. The fact that the devolved parliament in Scotland and the assemblies in Northern Ireland and Wales are not sovereign bodies and can be abolished by the British parliament, makes the latter the most important legislative body in the country.
The seat of the head of government of the United Kingdom, the prime minister, is occupied by the member of parliament who obtains the majority of votes in the House of Commons, usually the leader of the political party with the most seats in that chamber. The prime minister and cabinet are appointed by the monarch to form the “Her Majesty’s Government”, although the prime minister chooses the Council of Ministers, and by convention, the monarch respects his election.
Traditionally, the cabinet is made up of members of the same party as the prime minister from both legislative chambers, mostly from the House of Commons. Executive power is exercised at the political administrative level by the prime minister and the cabinet, who take their oath in front of the king and the latter being the first part of the Privy Council, in such a way that they become mistros of the Crown. In the 2010 election, Conservative Party leader David Cameron ended thirteen years of Labour’s mandate and assumed the role of prime minister. Cameron was able to repeat this success in the 2015 general election, where the Conservative Party won an absolute majority.
General elections are called by the monarch. Although there is no minimum time limit for holding a seat in Parliament, the Parliament Act 1911 requires that a new election must be called within five years of the previous election. Previously, for elections to the House of Commons, the national territory was divided into 646 constituencies, with 529 in England, 18 in Northern Ireland, 59 in Scotland and 40 in Wales; this number increased to 650 in the 2010 general election. Each constituency elects a member of parliament by a simple majority.
The Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (which runs only in Scotland) are the main political parties; in the 2015 general election, they won 619 of the 650 seats available in the House of Commons. Most of the remaining seats were won by parties that, like the Scottish National Party, only compete in one part of the country, such as the Wales Party (Wales only), the Democratic Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin (Northern Ireland only, although Sinn Féin also competes in the elections in Ireland), in addition to the Liberal Democrats (which run nationally and won 8 seats).
For the European Parliament elections, the UK currently has 72 MPs elected by block vote. Doubts about the true sovereignty of each constituent nation arose after the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Union.
The country does not have a single legal system, as it was created by the political union of formerly independent countries and Article 19 of the Treaty of Union of 1707 guarantees the separate existence of the Scottish legal system. Today, the country has three different legal systems: the law of England, the law of Northern Ireland and Scottish law. In October 2009, recent constitutional changes led to the creation of a new Supreme Court to take over the appellate functions of the House of Lords Appeal Commission. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the highest court of appeal for several independent Commonwealth countries, overseas territories and British Crown dependencies.
External relations of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom belongs to several international organizations such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the G-8, the G-7, the G-20, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In addition, it is one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the right of veto. He definitively left the European Union on January 31, 2020, which made it an external border of the same. This process, popularly known as Brexit, was scheduled to culminate in May 2019. However, due to successive enlargements throughout the year, due to a lack of agreement in the British Parliament, it was effective at the beginning of 2020.
The most notable alliance between the United Kingdom and another country is its “special relationship” with the United States, although it also maintains close relations with several members of the European Union, NATO, the Commonwealth and other powerful countries such as Japan. Britain’s global presence and influence are further amplified through its trade relations, official development aid and armed forces, which maintain nearly eighty military installations and other deployments around the world.
Armed forces
The British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force are collectively known as the British Armed Forces. The three forces are administered by the Ministry of Defense and controlled by the Defense Council, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defense. British troops are among those with the best training, as well as being the most technologically advanced. According to various sources, including the Ministry of Defense, the UK has the third or fourth highest budget for military expenditures internationally, despite having only the 25th largest army in terms of personnel. Currently, total defense spending accounts for 2.5% of GDP.
The Royal Navy is a blue-water fleet, one of three that survive, along with the French National Navy and the United States Navy. On 3 July 2008, the Ministry of Defense signed several agreements worth £3.2 million to build two new aircraft carriers. The UK is one of five countries (along with the US, China, Russia and France) that may be in possession of nuclear weapons, using a Vanguard-class submarine, which features the Trident II D5 ballistic missile system.
Among the main functions of the British Armed Forces are the protection and defense of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, the promotion of global security interests and the support of international efforts to maintain peace. In addition, they are active and regular participants in NATO, the UN and other international bodies that seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts. There are several overseas garrisons and British Army installations around the world, mainly on Ascension Island, Belize, Brunei, Canada, Diego Garcia, the Falkland Islands/Falkland Islands, Germany, Gibraltar, Kenya, Cyprus and Qatar.
In 2010, the British Army reported that it had 197,840 militants. In addition, there are the bodies of the United Kingdom Special Forces, the Reserve Forces and the Royal Relief Forces. With this, the number of soldiers rises to 435,500, including active and reserve personnel. Despite the UK’s military capabilities, a recent policy on defense issues assumes that “the most demanding operations” could be carried out as part of a coalition. Leaving aside the intervention in Sierra Leone, operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq can be taken as precedents for this policy. In fact, the last war in which the British Army fought on its own was during the Falklands War in 1982, in which it defeated the Argentine Army.
Human rights
In the area of human rights, with regard to membership of the seven bodies of the International Bill of Human Rights, which include the Human Rights Committee (HRC), the United Kingdom has signed or ratified.
Provinces of the United Kingdom
The territorial organization of the United Kingdom is complex and very varied since each constituent country has its own system of geographical and administrative demarcation with origins prior to the union between them. Consequently, there is “no common administrative unit among the members of the United Kingdom”.
Until the nineteenth century, few changes were made to these administrations, but since then there has been a constant evolution of their role and function. The change did not occur uniformly in the constituent nations, and the devolution of power over local government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland makes it unlikely that future administrative changes will be uniform.
The organization of local government in England is complex because the distribution of functions varies according to local provisions. Local legislation is carried out by the British Parliament and the UK government, because England does not have a decentralized parliament. The top level of England’s subdivisions are the nine regional government offices. Since 2000, the London region has had an elected assembly and a mayor, following the strong support given to the proposal in the 1998 London referendum.
It was intended that the other regions would also have their own regional assembly, but the rejection of this idea in a referendum held in 2004 in the North East region of England stopped the reform. Below the level of the region, London is made up of 32 municipalities and the rest of England has district councils and councils or unitary authorities. Councilors are elected by direct suffrage, by simple vote or by block.
Scotland’s local government is divided into 32 council areas, which have wide variations in both size and population. The cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee are special council areas, as well as the Highland council area, which includes a third of Scotland’s land area, but only just over 200,000 people. The power conferred on local authorities is administered by elected councilors, who are currently 1222.
Elections are held by single transferable vote, through block elections of three or four councillors. Each Council elects an Administrator or a General Coordinator to preside over the meetings of the Council and to act as the representative of the area. Councilors are subject to a code of conduct imposed by the Standards Commission for Scotland. The representative organization of local officials is the Scottish Local Authorities Convention (COSLA).
Since 1973, local government in Northern Ireland has been organized into 26 district councils, where single transferable vote elections are held, to elect representatives with powers limited to services, such as waste collection and the maintenance of parks and public places. However, on March 13, 2008, the executive branch proposed the creation of eleven new councils to replace the current system and the next local elections will be postponed until 2011 to facilitate this process.
Finally, local government in Wales consists of 22 unitary authorities, including the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, which are independent unitary authorities. Elections are held every four years by direct suffrage. The Welsh Local Government Association represents the interests of Welsh local authorities.
Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies
The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories dependent on the United Kingdom, but they are not part of it. Mainly, these are small sparsely populated islands that represent the vestiges of the old British Empire. Together, they represent an area exceeding 1 728 000 km² and a population of approximately 260 000 people. However, the largest of these (1 709 400 km², equivalent to 98.9% of the overseas territories) is the British Antarctic Territory, which is only recognized by four other countries, while most Antarctic Treaty signatories recognize British sovereignty over that territory and treat it only as a British claim, while two other signatory countries, Chile and Argentina, have their own claims.
The Antarctic territory claimed by the United Kingdom overlaps partially with the area claimed by Chile (Chilean Antarctic Territory) and totally with that claimed by Argentina (Antarctica Argentina), to the point that this disagreement led to diplomatic tensions, pressures and incidents (such as Deception Island or Esperanza Bay) in years prior to the signing of the treaty, which postpones the resolution of the case.
The dependencies of the British Crown are three semi-dependent territories of the monarch of the United Kingdom, but they are also not part of the country. Unlike the Overseas Territories, legislation and other matters of local interest are the responsibility of a local legislative assembly; moreover, international treaties and national norms are only applied if this assembly approves them. These units occupy about 779 km² and have a population of more than 235,700 inhabitants.
British Overseas Territories
- Acrotiri and Dhekelia
- Anguilla
- Bermuda
- Gibraltar
- Cayman Islands
- Pitcairn Islands
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- British Virgin Islands
- Montserrat
- Santa Elena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- British Antarctic Territory
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- Falkland Islands (British Overseas Territory)
British Crown Dependency
- Guernsey
- Isle of Man
- Jersey
Geography of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has an area of 244 820 km² comprising the island of Great Britain and the northeastern part of the island of Ireland (Northern Ireland) and other smaller islands. The country is located between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, 35 kilometers from the northwest coast of France, from which it is separated by the English Channel.
Great Britain is located between latitudes 49° and 59° N (the Shetland Islands extend almost to 61° N) and longitudes 8° W to 2° E. The Greenwich Observatory in London is the definition point for the Greenwich Meridian. When measured directly from north to south, Britain measures just over 1100 kilometers in length and just under 500 kilometers at its widest. However, the greatest distance between two points on the island is 1350 kilometers between the end of the land in Cornwall (near Penzance) and John o’ Groats in Caithness (near Thurso). Northern Ireland shares a 443 km land border with the Republic of Ireland.
England accounts for just over half of the total area of the United Kingdom, with 130,410 square kilometers of surface. Most of the country consists of lowlands, with some mountainous terrain in the northwest, where the Tees-Exe line lies, between the Cumbria Mountains and the Pennine Mountains. The highest mountain in the region is Scafell Pike (978 m) and is located within this area. The main rivers and estuaries of England are the Thames, the Severn and the Humber.
Scotland accounts for less than a third of the total area of the United Kingdom, covering 78,772 square kilometers; this figure includes the nearly eight hundred islands, which are mostly to the west and north of Britain, most notably the Hebrides, the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands. Scotland’s topography is distinguished by the Highlands Fault, which runs through the Scottish territory from Helensburgh to Stonehaven.
The fault separates the two main Scottish regions: the northern and western highlands and the southern and eastern lowlands. The mountainous region contains most of Scotland’s mountains, including Ben Nevis, which at 1343 m, is the highest point in the British Isles. The lowlands, especially the narrow strip of land between the Clyde Fjord and the Forth Fjord known as the “Central Belt”, are flatter and are home to most Scottish communities, including Glasgow, the largest city in the region, and Edinburgh, the capital and political center of the country.
Wales occupies less than a tenth of the total UK area, covering only 20,758 square kilometers. Wales is mainly mountainous, although the southern area is less mountainous than the north and center. Therefore, the main industrial areas are in South Wales, formed by the coastal cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport. The highest mountains are Snowdonia, where the highest peak in the region is located: Snowdon with 1085 m a.s.l. The fourteen (or fifteen) highest mountains in Wales exceed 914.4 meters (3000 ft) and are commonly referred to as the “Wales 3000’s”. There are several islands that extend in front of the more than 1200 km of coastline, the largest of them is Anglesey (Ynys Môn), located in the northwest of the country.
Northern Ireland accounts for only 14,160 square kilometres and its territory is mostly mountainous. It is separated from the British Island by the Irish Sea and the North Channel. The highest peak in this region is the Slieve Donardcon 849 m, located in the Mourne Mountains. In Northern Ireland is the Lough Neagh, which with its about 388 square kilometers, is the largest body of water in the UK.
Climate
The UK has a temperate climate and an oceanic climate with abundant rainfall throughout the year. The temperature varies with the seasons, but rarely falls below -10 °C, or rises above 35 °C. The prevailing wind comes from the southwest, bringing with it the humid and warm climate from the Atlantic Ocean. The eastern part is more protected from this wind and therefore has a drier climate. The Atlantic currents, heated by the Gulf Stream, make winters not as severe, especially in the west, where winters are humid. Summers are warmer in the southeast of England, being the closest part to the European continent, and cooler as you move north. Snowfall occurs during the winter and spring, although heavy snowfall rarely falls in the lowlands.
| Month | Jan. | Feb. | Sea. | Apr. | May. | Jun. | Jul. | Aug. | Sep. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Annual |
| Temp. max. mean (°C) | 6.7 | 7.1 | 9.9 | 12.6 | 16.3 | 19.6 | 21.7 | 21.4 | 18.8 | 15 | 10.1 | 7.7 | 13.9 |
| Temp. min. media (°C) | 0.4 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 3.4 | 6.3 | 9.3 | 11.3 | 10.9 | 8.8 | 6.4 | 2.8 | 1.3 | 5.2 |
| Total precipitation (mm) | 78 | 51 | 61 | 54 | 55 | 57 | 45 | 56 | 68 | 73 | 77 | 79 | 754 |
| Hours of sunshine | 279 | 280 | 372 | 420 | 465 | 510 | 496 | 465 | 390 | 341 | 270 | 248 | 4536 |
| Relative humidity (%) | 81 | 76 | 69 | 64 | 62 | 60 | 60 | 62 | 67 | 73 | 78 | 82 | 69.5 |
Effects of climate change
In the UK, as a result of climate change, there is a trend towards warmer winters and warmer summers, sea level on the British coast rises by about 3mm each year and there are signs of a change in precipitation patterns. Climate scientists expect heat waves, such as those of 2003, to become the norm in the 2040s as a result of the climate crisis. Calculations from the 2019 model show that London would be relocated to another climate zone if the RCP4.5 scenario occurs. The climate in London in 2050 is more like the previous climate in Barcelona than the previous climate in London. Even extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense. Floods in England from 2013-2014 have been shown to date back to man-made climate change.
Flora and fauna
In most of Britain, there is a temperate climate that receives high levels of rainfall and medium levels of sunshine. To the north, the climate becomes colder and coniferous forests largely replace the deciduous species of the southern forests.
There are some variations in the British climate, with some areas with subarctic conditions such as in the Scottish and Teesdale Highlands, and even subtropical in the Isles of Scilly. The seasonal changes that occur throughout the archipelago condition the plants that must cope with changes in the levels of sunlight, precipitation and temperature, as well as the risk of snow and frost during the winter.
Within the island, there are several ecosystems such as temperate forests, swamps, marshes, etc. Oak, elm, beech, ash, pine and birch are some of the most common trees in British forests. Previously, the British Isles were teeming with deciduous and coniferous tree forests, but by the 2000s, only about 10% of the national territory was covered by forests, concentrated in the north-east of Scotland and the south-east of England, due in large part to uncontrolled logging and urban growth. The area surrounding urban areas is mainly covered by grasses and flowering plants.
The island of Great Britain, along with the rest of the archipelago known as the British Isles, is home to a typical fauna of temperate oceanic climate, little diverse if compared worldwide and similar to that of other countries in Northern Europe.
Among the most abundant mammals in the country are foxes, rabbits, deer, hedgehogs, mice, weasels and shrews. Like other islands located in similar latitudes, reptiles and amphibians are scarce. More than 21,000 species of insects and about 230 species of birds have been discovered throughout the national territory, some of which are threatened by hunting and habitat destruction. Major British rivers, such as the River Thames, are the main source of water for the fauna of local ecosystems, while also being the habitat of several species of fish and waterfowl.
Biodiversity declined severely during the last glaciation, and in a short time (in geological terms) it was separated from the continent by the formation of the English Channel.
Man has pursued the largest species that interfered with his activities (the wolf, the brown bear and the wild boar) to cause their extinction on the island, although of course domesticated forms such as the dog and the pig still exist. The wild boar was subsequently reintroduced.
Since the mid-eighteenth century, Britain has undergone great industrialization and increased urbanization. A DEFRA study published in 2006 suggested that 100 species of animals have gone extinct in the UK during the 20th century, which is about 100 times the rate of background extinction. This has had a major impact on native animal populations, particularly passerines, which are becoming increasingly scarce. Habitat loss has mainly affected larger mammal species. However, some species have adapted to the sprawling urban environment, particularly the fox, rat, and other animals such as the dove.
Economy
The UK economy is made up (in descending order of size) of the economies of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Based on market exchange rates, the UK is the fifth-largest economy in the world and the second-largest in Europe after Germany, ahead of France.
The Industrial Revolution began in the United Kingdom, in a process where there was a great concentration of heavy industries throughout the country, such as shipbuilding, coal mining, steel production and the textile industry. The extension of the Empire created a huge foreign market for British goods, allowing the nation to dominate international trade in the nineteenth century. Later, as happened to other industrialized economies, along with the economic decline after the two world wars, the United Kingdom began to lose its competitive advantage and heavy industry declined. Although manufacturing remains an important part of the economy, in 2003 it accounted for only one-sixth of the country’s income.
The automotive industry is an important part of the manufacturing sector, although it has declined with the collapse of the MG Rover Group and currently most of the industry is foreign-owned. The production of civil and defense aircraft is led by BAE Systems, the largest defense contractor in the world, and by the European firm EADS, the owner of Airbus. Rolls-Royce has a significant share of the global aerospace engine market. The chemical and pharmaceutical industry are important in the UK, as the British companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca are the second and sixth largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, respectively.
However, during the last decades, the tertiary sector has increased considerably and now produces about 73% of GDP. The service sector is dominated by financial services, especially banks and insurers. This makes London the largest financial center in the world, as the headquarters of the London Stock Exchange, the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange and Lloyd’s of London are located here; in addition to being the leader of the three “command centers” of the world economy (along with New York and Tokyo).
In addition, it has the largest concentration of branches of foreign banks in the world. Over the past decade, a rival financial center to London has grown in the Docklands area, where HSBC, the world’s largest bank, and Barclays relocated their headquarters. Many non-British-owned multinational companies have chosen London as the location for their European or foreign headquarters: one example is the American financial services firm Citigroup. Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, is also one of Europe’s largest financial centers and is home to the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, one of the world’s leading banks.
Tourism is very important to the British economy. With more than 27 million tourists arriving in the country in 2004, the UK is ranked as the sixth most important tourist destination in the world. London, by a considerable margin, is the most visited city in the world with 15.6 million visitors in 2006, ahead of Bangkok (10.4 million visitors) and Paris (9.7 million). Creative industries contributed 7% of GDP in 2005 and grew at an average annual rate of 6% between 1997 and 2005.
In July 2007, the United Kingdom had a public debt of 35.5% of GDP. This figure increased to 56.8% of GDP in July 2009. The national currency is the pound sterling, represented by the symbol £. The Bank of England is the central bank, responsible for issuing currency, although banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland have the right to issue their own banknotes. The pound sterling is also used as a reserve currency by other governments and institutions and is the third currency with the largest amount of reserves, after the US dollar and the euro.
The UK decided not to participate in the launch of the euro as a currency, and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ruled out adopting the euro in the near future, arguing that the decision not to join the project had been the best option for the country and for Europe. Tony Blair’s previous government pledged to hold a public referendum to decide whether the country would conduct the “five economic tests”. In 2005, more than half of Britons (55%) were against adopting the euro as a currency, while only 30% were in favor.
On 23 January 2009, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that the British economy was officially in recession for the first time since 1991. It was reported that it was in the last quarter of 2008 when the economy fell into a recession that was accompanied by rising unemployment, which rose from 5.2% in May 2008 to 7.6% in May 2009. The unemployment rate for adults aged 18 to 24 increased from 11.9% to 17.3% in the same period.
The relative poverty line in the UK is commonly defined below 60% of average income. Between 2007 and 2008, 13.5 million people, or 22% of the population, lived below this line. This is one of the highest levels of relative poverty among the members of the European Union. After taking into account housing costs, it was shown that in the same period 4 million children, 31% of the total, lived in households that were below the poverty line. This represents a decrease of 400 000 children compared to the period between 1998 and 1999.
Between 2007 and 2015, the UK recorded the largest decline in real wages (adjusted for inflation) of all advanced countries, at the same level as Greece (-10.4%). The UK has the highest income inequality among OECD countries and the largest regional disparities in Europe. The share of income captured by the richest 1% has doubled in the last 30 years, going from around 4% to more than 8.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018.
Infrastructure
Transport in the United Kingdom
The main British roads form a network of 46 904 kilometers, of which more than 3520 kilometers are motorways. In addition, there are about 213,750 kilometers of paved roads. The rail network, with 16 116 kilometers in Great Britain and 303 kilometers in Northern Ireland, transports more than 18 000 passenger trains and 1000 freight trains daily. Urban rail networks are well-developed in London and other major cities. More than 48,000 km of railways came into existence across the country, yet most were reduced between 1955 and 1975, largely after a report by government adviser Richard Beeching in the mid-1960s (known as Beeching’s Axe). New plans to build new high-speed lines by 2025 are currently being considered.
The Roads Agency is the executive agency responsible for roads and motorways in England, apart from the private company M6 Toll. The Department for Transport says congestion is one of the most serious transport problems and that if left unchecked, by 2025 it could cost England more than £22 billion. According to the 2006 Eddington Report by the British government, congestion is in danger of hurting the economy, unless it is counterbalanced by toll collection and the expansion of the transport network.
Scotland’s tracks and means of transport are the responsibility of the local government’s Department of Transport, with Transport Scotland being the government agency responsible for the maintenance of the country’s roads and rail networks. Scotland’s rail network has around 340 stations and 3000 kilometers of track and carries more than 62 million passengers each year. In 2008, the Scottish Government set out investment plans for the next 20 years, with priorities to include a new bridge on the Forth Road and the electrification of the rail network.
London Heathrow Airport, located 24 km west of the capital, is the busiest airport in the UK and has the highest level of international passenger traffic in the world. Between October 2009 and September 2010, British airports received 211.4 million passengers. It is also the base of operations for airlines such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and BMI.
Media
Television is the main means of communication in the United Kingdom. The main national channels are: BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five. In Wales, S4C is the main Welsh-language channel.
The BBC is the UK’s leading public broadcaster and the world’s largest and oldest broadcaster. It operates several television channels and radio stations at home and abroad. The BBC’s international television service, BBC World News, is broadcast worldwide and the international radio service, BBC World Service, broadcasts in thirty-three languages.
As for radio, the main service is BBC Radio which has ten national stations, among which are the two most popular: BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2; and about forty regional stations. In addition, there are services in other languages within the British borders, such as BBC Radio Cymru in Welsh and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal in Scottish Gaelic; some BBC Radio Ulster programs are broadcast in Irish for the Northern Irish population. There are also hundreds of private local stations.
The Internet is another of the most important media in the country, in addition to having had a great increase since the last decade, so that with 41,817,847 users, it is the seventh country with the largest number of Internet users in the world. The Internet domain for the United Kingdom is .uk. The most popular website with a “.uk” ending is the British version of Google, followed by the BBC page.
The Sun is the newspaper with the largest national circulation, with 3.1 million copies per day, accounting for about a quarter of the market. Its sister publication, News of the World, was the largest-circulation weekly newspaper, canceled following a wiretapping scandal, which typically focused on celebrity stories. The Daily Telegraph, a right-wing newspaper, is considered the best-selling “quality” newspaper in the country. The Guardian is another “quality” newspaper, albeit with a more liberal tendency; The Financial Times is the country’s leading financial daily, characterized by being printed on salmon-colored sheets.
Printed in 1737, Belfast’s The News Letter is the oldest English-language newspaper still in circulation. One of its Northern Irish competitors, The Irish News, has been rated as the UK’s best regional newspaper on several occasions. In addition to newspapers, some British publications have an international circulation, among which the magazines The Economist and Nature stand out.
Energy
The country’s electricity consumption amounts to 345.8 billion kWh anuales, making it the 12th country with the highest electricity consumption in the world. However, it produces 1.54 million barrels of oil per day and 69.9 million m³ of natural gas per year. Currently, most of the electricity comes from non-renewable sources, mainly coal and oil. This has caused the government to start implementing measures to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in terms of energy production and it is intended that by 2020 40% of electricity will come from alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and tidal.
The UK has a small coal reserve, along with significant, but steadily dwindling, reserves of natural gas and oil. Some 400 million tons of coal have been identified in the country. In 2004, total coal consumption (including imports) was 61 million tons, allowing the country to be self-sufficient in coal for just 6.5 years, although with current extraction levels, the period increases to 20 years.
An alternative to coal-fired electric power generation is underground coal gasification (GCS). The GCS is a system that injects steam and oxygen into a well, where gas is extracted from coal and pushes the gas mixture to the surface (a potentially low-carbon coal extraction method). Following the identification of land areas that have the potential for the GCS, gas reserves are estimated to be between 7 billion and 16 billion tonnes. Based on current coal consumption in the country, these volumes represent reserves that could last between 200 and 400 years.
Education
Education in the UK is a decentralized issue, as each constituent nation has its own education system. In England, it is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, although the administration and funding of state schools are the responsibility of local authorities. Universality in education in England and Wales was introduced in 1870 for primary education and in 1900 for secondary education.
Currently, education is compulsory from five to eighteen years of age. Most children are educated in schools in the state sector, only a small portion study in special schools, mainly for reasons of academic skills. State schools that are allowed to select students according to their intelligence and academic ability can achieve results comparable to the most selective private schools: in 2006, of the ten best-performing schools, two were state grammar schools. Despite a drop in the real figures, the proportion of children in England attending private schools has increased by more than 7%. However, more than half of the students at the leading universities, Cambridge and Oxford, attended state schools.
England has some of the best universities internationally; the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and University College London are ranked within the top ten in the world. According to the TIMSS (Trends in the International Study of Mathematics and Science), students in England are the seventh best in mathematics and the sixth in science. The results place English students ahead of other European countries, including Germany and Scandinavia.
Education in Scotland is the responsibility of the Secretary of Education and Learning, with the administration and funding of state schools by local authorities. Two non-departmental public bodies have a key role in Scottish education: the Scottish Qualifications and Learning and Teaching Authority. Education became compulsory in Scotland in 1496. The proportion of children attending private schools is only 4%, although it has been slowly increasing in recent years. Scottish students attending universities in Scotland do not pay tuition or postgraduate courses, as all these fees were abolished in 2001. The monetary contribution to universities by graduate students was abolished in 2008.
Education in Northern Ireland is administered by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Employment and Learning, although at local level it is the responsibility of five boards of education, covering specific geographical areas. The Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessments (CCEA) is the body responsible for advising the government on what should be taught in Northern Irish schools, monitoring standards and awarding degrees.
The National Assembly for Wales has responsibility for education in this country. A significant number of Welsh students learn, either fully or largely, in the Welsh language; lessons in Welsh are compulsory for all pupils up to the age of 16. There are plans to increase the number of middle schools teaching in Welsh, as part of the policy to achieve a fully bilingual Wales.
Poverty in the United Kingdom
A study published in December 2019 by The Equality Trust reveals that by adding the fortunes of the five richest families in the United Kingdom – for a total of 46,000 million euros – we obtain the sum that the 13 million poorest people in the country have. More broadly, the richest 1% of Britons alone own as much money as 80% of the total population.
Between 2017 and 2018, the country’s poverty rate rose from 22.1% to 23.2%, the largest increase since 1988. Rising inflation and the Conservative Government’s budget cuts for 2015, particularly with regard to family allowances and housing allowances, are believed to be the main causes. Four million Britons live on less than half the poverty line and 1.5 million cannot meet their basic needs.
Demography
Every ten years a census is carried out simultaneously in all regions of the United Kingdom. The Office for National Statistics is responsible for data collection for England and Wales, while in Scotland and Northern Ireland the General Registry Office and the Statistics and Research Agency, respectively, are responsible for carrying out the censuses.
In the most recent census conducted in 2001, the total population of the United Kingdom was 58 789 194 people, the third largest in the European Union, the fifth largest in the Commonwealth and the twenty-first in the world. By mid-2008, it was estimated to have grown to 61,383,000 inhabitants. In 2008, natural population growth surpassed net migration as the main contributor to population growth, the first time it has occurred since 1998. Between 2001 and 2008, the population increased at an average annual rate of 0.5%. This compares with 0.3% per year in the period from 1991 to 2001 and 0.2% in the decade from 1981 to 1991. Published in 2008, the 2007 population estimate revealed that, for the first time, the UK was home to more people of retirement age than to children under the age of 16.
In mid-2008, out of a total of about 61 million Britons, the population of England was estimated at 51,383,000. In this way, England is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with 383 inhabitants per square kilometer, with a particular concentration in London and in the southeast of the country. Estimates for the same period put the population of Scotland at 5.17 million, Wales at 2.99 million and Northern Ireland at 1.78 million, with much lower population density than England. Compared to the 383 English inhabitants per square kilometer, the corresponding figures were 142 h/km² in Wales, 125 h/km² for Northern Ireland and only 65 h/km² for Scotland. Northern Ireland had the fastest growing population in terms of percentage of all four constituent countries of the United Kingdom.
That same year, the average fertility rate across the UK was 1.96 children per woman. While a rising birth rate contributes to today’s population growth, it still remains considerably below the baby boom of 1964, where each woman had an average of 2.95 children, but higher than the lowest record in 2001 of 1.63 children per woman. In 2008, Scotland had the lowest fertility rate with only 1.8 children per woman, while Northern Ireland had the highest with 2.11 children.
Languages in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom does not have an official language, but the most predominant is English, a West Germanic language descended from Anglo-Saxon, which has a large number of loanwords from Old Norse, Norman French and Latin. Due largely to the expansion of the British Empire, the English language spread throughout the world and became the international language of business, as well as the second most widely used language in the world.
Scots (Lallans), a language related to English that also descends from the Average English spoken in the North East of England, is recognized at the European level. There are also four Celtic languages in use: Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Cornish. In the 2001 census, more than a fifth of the population of Wales said they could speak Welsh (21%), and it is estimated that about 200,000 Welsh speakers live in England.
The 2001 census in Northern Ireland showed that 167,487 people (10.4% of the population) had “some knowledge of Irish”, almost exclusively in the country’s Catholic and nationalist population. More than 92,000 people in Scotland (just under 2% of the population) had some understanding of the Gaelic language, including 72% of the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides. The number of schools teaching in Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish is increasing. These languages are also spoken by small groups around the world; in Nova Scotia, Canada Irish is spoken, while there is a Welsh-speaking population in Argentine Patagonia.
Generally, it is compulsory for British pupils to study a second language at some point in their school career: at the age of 14 in England, and until the age of 16 in Scotland. French and German are the two most studied languages in England and Scotland. In Wales, all 16-year-old pupils must have learned Welsh as a second language.
Religion
| Christianity 59.5% | Hinduism 1.3% |
| Irreligion 25.7% | Other 1.1% |
| Undeclared 7.2% | Judaism 0.4% |
| Islam 4.4% | Buddhism 0.4% |
In the Act of Union of 1707, which led to the formation of the United Kingdom, it was ensured that Protestantism would continue to exist, as well as a link between Church and State that remains until the twenty-first century. Thus, Christianity is the religion with the most followers, followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism, according to data obtained in the 2001 census.
In the same census, 71.6% of respondents said Christianity was their religion, although surveys that employ a “more specific” question tend to find smaller proportions; such is the case with the 2007 Tearfund Study, which revealed that 53% identified as Christians, and the 2007 British Social Attitudes Study, which found it to be almost 47.5%. However, the Tearfund Study showed that only one in ten Britons actually attended church weekly.
The 2007 British Social Attitudes Survey, which covers England, Wales and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland, indicated that 20.87% of the population were part of the Church of England, 10.25% non-denominational Christians, 9.01% Catholics, 2.81% Presbyterians (Church of Scotland), 1.88% Methodists, 0.88% Baptists and 2.11% Other Christians. Among other religions, Muslims occupied 3.30%, Hindus 1.37%, Jews 0.43%, Sikhs 0.37% and adherents of other religions 0.35%. A large proportion claimed to have no religion (45.67%).
In the 2001 census, 9.1 million people (15% of the population) claimed to be atheists, with more than 4.3 million people (7%) not indicating a specific religious preference. There is a disparity between the figures for those who identify with a particular religion and for those who proclaim belief in a god: a Euro Barometer survey conducted in 2005 showed that 38% of respondents believe that “there is a god”, 40% believe that “there is some kind of spirit or life force” and 20% said that “I do not believe that there is any kind of spirit, god or life force. ” Druidism has been recognized as one of the official religions of the United Kingdom and as one of the oldest in the country since 2010.
Health
Like education, healthcare is a decentralized matter, so England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have their own healthcare system, along with alternative, holistic and complementary therapies. The National Health Service (NHS) is the body responsible for providing medical care to all permanent residents of the United Kingdom free of charge. In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the National Health Service as the fifteenth best in Europe and the eighteenth in the world.
In addition to the National Health Service, there are several government-run healthcare agencies, such as the General Medical Council and the Midwifery and Nursing Council, while others are private initiatives, such as the Royal Colleges. However, the policy and administration of the National Health Service correspond to each constituent nation. Each National Health Service has different policies and priorities, resulting in stark contrasts between them.
Since 1979, medical service costs have increased significantly, approaching the average expenditure of the European Union. The UK spends around 8.4% of its GDP on health care, which is 0.5% below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average and around 1% below the EU average.
Major cities of the United Kingdom
| 1 | London | London | 12330000 | 11 | Leicester | East Midlands | 660000 | |
| 2 | Birmingham | West Midlands | 1550000 | 12 | Bradford | Yorkshire and Humber | 543000 | |
| 3 | Liverpool | North West England | 1330000 | 13 | Kingston upon Hull | Yorkshire and Humber | 477000 | |
| 4 | Glasgow | Glasgow | 1077000 | 14 | Coventry | West Midlands | 455000 | |
| London Birmingham Glasgow | 5 | Edinburgh | Edinburgh | 945000 | 15 | Belfast | Belfast | 440000 |
| 6 | Leeds | Yorkshire and Humber | 887000 | 16 | Plymouth | South West England | 410000 | |
| 7 | Manchester | North West England | 863000 | 17 | Derby | East Midlands | 397000 | |
| 8 | Bristol | South West England | 812000 | 18 | Wolverhampton | West Midlands | 377000 | |
| 9 | Sheffield | Yorkshire and Humber | 770000 | 19 | Stoke-on-Trent | West Midlands | 362000 | |
| 10 | Cardiff | South Wales | 718000 | 20 | Nottingham | East Midlands | 355000 |
Culture
The culture of the United Kingdom, also called “British culture”, can be described as the legacy of the history of a developed island country, a great power and also as the result of the political union of four countries, each retaining its distinctive elements of traditions, customs and symbolisms. As a result of the rule of the British Empire, the influence of British culture can be observed in the language, traditions, customs and legal systems of many of its former colonies, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and the United States.
Art and culture have historically been influenced by Western ideology. Since the expansion of the British Empire, the experience of military, political and economic power led to a unique technique, taste and sensibility of UK artists. The British used their art “to illustrate their knowledge and lead the natural world,” while colonists from North America, Australasia, and South Africa “embarked on the search for a distinctive artistic expression appropriate to their national identity.” The empire was “at the center, rather than on the margins, of British art history”, and the visual arts of the Victorian era have been central to the construction, celebration and expression of British identity.
Art
The art of the United Kingdom covers all the artistic manifestations made from the foundation of the country to the present day. However, much of the so-called British art comes from before 1707, with Stonehenge being the oldest artistic manifestation in the country, dating from 2500 BC. Since then, art in the territory comprised by the United Kingdom was developed over the centuries, and by the time of the union of the four nations, each already had a defined artistic tradition.
The time of greatest boom for the British arts was during the Empire, when the United Kingdom was at the head of several artistic movements in which in addition to representing historical, biblical and mythological moments, they captured moments of daily life that could transcend in art. In addition, thanks to imperial expansion artists were able to take influences from the cultures of countries under British rule, such as India, the United States, etc., at the same time that British works left their mark and legacy within the artists of the colonies. During the twentieth century, British art began to expand into the currents of modern and contemporary art, such as Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Impressionism.
Currently, there are several art institutions in the UK, from which several prominent art movements and artists within their field have emerged. These include the Royal Academy, the Royal College of Art, the Royal Society of Arts and the Tate Gallery. In addition, within its borders there are also several museums and galleries of international prestige, such as the British Museum, the National Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Scotland, the Science Museum in London or the Yorkshire Museum, among others.
Architecture
British architecture is characterized by the eclectic combination of different architectural styles, ranging from those that were found before the creation of the country, such as Roman architecture, to the contemporary architecture of the XXI century. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales developed unique architectural styles and played important roles in the history of world architecture.
Although prehistoric and classical structures exist in the British Isles, the history of British architecture begins with the first Anglo-Saxon churches, built shortly after Augustine’s arrival from Canterbury in Britain in 597. From the twelfth century, Norman architecture spread throughout Britain and Ireland, in the form of castles and churches to help impose Norman authority on their domains. English Gothic architecture, which flourished between 1189 and 1520, was brought from France, but quickly developed its own characteristics.
Throughout the country, secular medieval architecture developed in the form of castles, most of them located near the border between England and Scotland, and dating from the sixteenth century, the time of the Wars of Independence of Scotland. The invention of firearms and cannons made castles useless and the English Renaissance gave way to the development of new artistic styles for national architecture: the Tudor style, the English Baroque and Palladianism. Georgian and neoclassical architecture advanced after the Scottish Enlightenment and from the 1930s several modernist styles appeared. However, the struggle for the preservation of ancient structures and the resistance of traditionalist movements has gained strength, as well as being supported by public figures such as Charles of Wales.
Cinema
The UK was a strong influence on the development of film, with Ealing Studios claiming the title of being the oldest studio in the world. Despite a history of major and successful productions, this industry is characterized by an ongoing debate about its identity and the influences of American and European cinema.
The British market is too small for the British film industry to successfully produce Hollywood-style blockbusters for a sustained period. Compared to the American one, the British film industry has not been able to produce commercial successes internationally; so it maintains a complex and divided attitude towards Hollywood. However, it should be noted that eight of the ten highest-grossing films of all time have some British dimension, whether historical, cultural or creative: Titanic, two episodes of The Lord of the Rings, two of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and three films of the Harry Potter saga.
Literature
British literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, as well as literature from England, Wales and Scotland before the formation of the country. Most of the works of British literature were written in the English language. The UK publishes nearly 206,000 books each year, making it the largest book publisher in the world. The capital of Scotland, Edinburgh, was declared a “City of Literature” by UNESCO.
The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright of all time. Among the most recognized English writers are Geoffrey Chaucer (fourteenth century), Thomas Malory (fifteenth century), Thomas More (sixteenth century) and John Milton (seventeenth century). Samuel Richardson, an eighteenth-century writer, is credited with inventing the epistolary novel, as well as Daniel Defoe, the creator of Robinson Crusoe.
In the nineteenth century, more representatives of British literature followed: the innovative Jane Austen, the Gothic novelist Mary Shelley, the writer of children’s stories Lewis Carroll, the sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë, the social activist Charles Dickens, the naturalist Thomas Hardy, the visionary poet William Blake, the romantic poet William Wordsworth and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
The most famous writers of the twentieth century include science fiction novelist H. G. Wells, children’s classic writers Rudyard Kipling and A. A. Milne, controversial D. H. Lawrence, modernist Virginia Woolf, satirist Evelyn Waugh, novelist George Orwell, popular novelist Graham Greene, crime novelist Agatha Christie, James Bond creator Ian Fleming, fantasy writers J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and most recently J. K. Rowling; as well as poets Ted Hughes and John Betjeman.
Science and technology in the United Kingdom
Since its founding, the UK has been at the forefront of scientific and technological advances, as well as research and development. The Royal Society is the oldest scientific society in the United Kingdom and one of the oldest in the world. During its more than 300 years of history, it has been responsible for promoting, protecting and disseminating knowledge and sciences in the country and throughout the world.
Within this society several scientists participated who contributed to the advancement of their respective areas of knowledge; among these are: Robert Boyle, John Wallis, Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, Thomas Willis, among others. The Council of Facilities for Science and Technology is another of the bodies responsible for promoting and supporting scientific research in the country.
During the years 2008 and 2009, this council invested more than 1200 million US dollars to provide resources to several British institutes and scientific societies. With regard to biomedical research, one of the great advances in this country has been the sequencing of the genome of 10,000 British people to know the rare and low-frequency genetic variants involved in health and disease.
As the leading country of the Industrial Revolution, the UK’s inventors brought the world several innovations, mainly in the field of textiles, steam machinery, railways and engineering. Within this period the inventors George Stephenson, James Watt and Robert Stephenson stand out. Since then, British inventions and inventors have stood out and been numerous. Among these new innovators are Alan Turing, Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird, Frank Whittle, Charles Babbage, Alexander Fleming, among many others. In 2007, the United Kingdom had 79,855 patents in force, the seventh country with the highest number of patents. UK companies’ investment in technology and science was USD 9700 million between 2010-2015.
Philosophy
The United Kingdom is famous for the tradition of “British empiricism,” a branch of the philosophy of knowledge that indicates that the only valid knowledge is that which is proven by experience; and “Scottish Philosophy”, which is sometimes referred to as the “Scottish school of common sense”. The most famous philosophers of British empiricism are: John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume, while Dugald Stewart, Thomas Reid and William Hamilton were the leading exponents of the Scottish school of common sense.
Britain is also notable for a theory of moral philosophy, utilitarianism, first used by Jeremy Bentham and later by John Stuart Mill, in his eponymous Utilitarianism. Other eminent philosophers from the United Kingdom and the states that preceded him include Duns Scotus, John Lilburne, Mary Wollstonecraft, Francis Bacon, Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, William of Ockham, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Jules Ayer.
Music in the United Kingdom
There are several quite popular musical styles in the UK, from folk music from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to heavy metal. Among the most notable British composers of classical music are: William Byrd, Henry Purcell, Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Arthur Sullivan (best known for working with librettist W. S. Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten, pioneer of British modern opera. Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the most prominent living composers in the country and the Queen’s current music teacher. Also here are several internationally renowned symphony orchestras and choirs, such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Choir. The Baroque composer Georg Friedrich Handel, although born in Germany, obtained British citizenship and some of his best works, such as The Messiah, were written in English.
The most prominent Britons who have influenced popular music over the past fifty years include The Beatles, Queen, Elton John, David Bowie, Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, Oasis, Blur, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones, all of which have sales exceeding two hundred million records worldwide. The Beatles also hold the record for music sales, with more than a billion records sold internationally. A large number of British cities are known for their music scene: statistically, Liverpool artists are the most successful on the UK Singles Chart. Glasgow’s contribution to the music scene was recognized in 2008 when it was named by UNESCO as a “City of Music”, a title it shares with Bologna, Seville and Ghent.
Gastronomy
Historically, UK cuisine has been labeled as “unbridled dishes made with low-quality ingredients, mixed with simple sauces to accentuate the flavor, rather than disguise it.” However, British cuisine has absorbed the cultural influence of immigrants settled in the country, producing several hybrid dishes, such as chicken tikka masala, considered “the true British national dish”.
Traditional dishes of British cuisine include fish and chips, Sunday roast, steak and kidney pie and bangers and mash. The gastronomy of the United Kingdom has multiple national and regional variants, such as the cuisines of England, Scotland and Wales, which have developed their own regional dishes, such as Cheshire cheese, Yorkshire pudding and Welsh cake. As in other Western countries, the consumption of fast food is very wide, which has caused a public health problem as serious as that suffered by the United States.
Tea is the most popular beverage in the country and in fact is also one of the best-known gastronomic traditions of UK cuisine. Originating during the nineteenth century, tea time (literally, “tea time”, but better translated as “snack time”), is not exclusively for consuming tea, but is one of the central meals of the British, similar to a snack or even dinner. The tea break and the tea sandwich are two variations of this meal.
Sport in the United Kingdom
Sport is a key element of British culture. A large number of sports were created in the United Kingdom, including football, rugby, tennis and golf, the former being the most popular sport in the country. Internationally, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compete separately in most collective sports (although Northern Ireland in many sports, such as rugby or golf, remains united with the rest of the island of Ireland), as well as in the Commonwealth Games. However, in some sports, the UK participates as a single team, such as in basketball.
In the Olympic Games, the United Kingdom also participates as a single team, represented by the United Kingdom’s national Olympic committee, the British Olympic Association. The country has participated in each of the editions of the Olympic Games of the modern era and has hosted three, of the editions of 1908, where it placed in the first place of the medal table, of 1948, of 2012, held in London.
It is claimed that cricket was invented in England (although recent research suggests that it actually originated in Belgium) and the English national team, controlled by the England and Wales Cricket Board, is the only UK national team with test cricket status. The members of the national team are of Welsh and English nationality, unlike the selections of other sports such as football and rugby. Some Northern Irish and Scottish have played for the England national team, due to their respective teams not having cricket test status. All constituent nations have competed in the Cricket World Cup, with England reaching the final on more than three occasions.
As in other collective sports, in rugby England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compete as separate countries in the various international competitions, but with the difference that Northern Ireland does so in conjunction with the Republic of Ireland, so there is an Irish rugby team that represents the entire island. However, every four years the British-Irish Lions, a team made up of players from all over the UK plus Ireland, tour different parts of the world. While England’s rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup championship, Wales’ best performance has been a third-place finish, Scotland a fourth-place finish and Ireland have reached the quarter-finals.
A variant of rugby, rugby league, also known as rugby 13, is practiced throughout the country, but in the north of England (the place where it originated) it is the most important sport in many areas, especially in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, although it also has a presence in London and South Wales. Previously a UK team represented the country in international competitions, but since 2008 each nation has its own rugby league team. In 2013, the UNITED Kingdom will host the Rugby League World Cup for the fifth time.
Tennis was invented in the city of Birmingham between 1859 and 1865. Since 1877, every summer the Wimbledon Championships have been held in Wimbledon (London), which is the third Grand Slam of the year. In terms of achievements, the United Kingdom has reached the Davis Cup on 10 occasions, the last being the one reached in 2015, and has reached the runner-up of the Fed Cup on four occasions.
Golf is the sixth most popular sport in the country, in terms of participation. Although The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, in Scotland, is the cradle of this sport, the oldest golf course in the world is the Musselburgh Links’ Old Golf Course. Shinty (or camanachd) is a very popular sport in the Scottish Highlands region, sometimes attracting thousands of spectators from all over the nation, especially to watch the final of the main tournament, the Camanachd Cup.
As for motorsport, the UK is one of the countries with the highest participation in the sport, as most Formula 1 teams are based in the country and British drivers have won more titles combined than any other. The Silverstone Circuit hosts the annual British Grand Prix, valid for Formula 1. Other motorsport events that are organized in the country are the British Touring Car Championship and the date of the World Rally Championship.
The UK is also home to several major Formula 1 teams, most notably multiple constructor and driver champions McLaren, Williams F1, Team Lotus and Red Bull Racing. In the case of the latter, despite the Austrian origin of the beverage brand that owns the team, it has its headquarters in the United Kingdom, due to the acquisition it made of the franchise of the former Jaguar F1 team to be able to enter the Formula 1 World Championship.
Other popular sports on a national scale include horse racing and field hockey. Particularly in Northern Ireland, especially within the Catholic population, Gaelic football and hurling are very popular, both governed by the Gaelic Athletic Association.
Football
Football has its origins in the United Kingdom, plus it was in this country where it was formalized and standardized, becoming the most popular sport. Each of the constituent countries has its own football association, national team and independent league system, although some clubs compete outside their home countries due to historical or logistical reasons.
The issue of why England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can compete in international competitions separately, and this is not the case with other European regions, is for a historical reason. By the time FIFA was created in 1904, there was already the Football Association of England (1863), the Scottish Football Association (1873), the Football Association of Wales (1876) and the Irish Football Association (1880), whose teams had already played international matches and had their own domestic competitions. That is why, as soon as FIFA – as well as UEFA, more than forty years later – asked these associations to join, they accepted, but as long as their statutes remained intact, each separately.
The situation is different during the Olympic Games. The IOC made it clear from its founding in 1894 that it would only allow the participation of sovereign states. There are other sports in which English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish go separately, all of them of enormous tradition, and of course they are not Olympic (we speak for example of cricket or rugby). It is for this reason that the island has played through a unified selection of the Olympic Games held between 1908 and 1972 (under the official name of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and 2012, the occasion for which an Olympic team was formed composed mostly of English footballers and some Welsh, although without Scots or Northern Irish.
England’s league system includes hundreds of interconnected leagues with thousands of divisions. The top flight, the Premier League, is the football league with the largest audience in the world. Under the Premier League, there is the Football League, which consists of three divisions, and then the Football Conference, which consists of a national division and two regional divisions.
English teams have performed well in European competitions, including those that have won the UEFA European Cup/Champions League: Liverpool on six occasions, Manchester United on three occasions, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea on two occasions and Aston Villa on one. In total, Clubs in England have won forty UEFA international competitions. England’s premier sports coliseum is Wembley Stadium, home to the England national football team, which has a capacity of 90,000 people.
Scotland’s league system has two national leagues: the Scottish Premier League, the top flight, and the Scottish Football League, which has three divisions. An English club, Berwick Rangers, competes in the Scottish football system. The most important teams in Scotland are Celtic Football Club and Rangers Football Club, both from Glasgow: Celtic were proclaimed champions of the European Cup, current Champions, in 1967, being the first British team to do so, and Rangers was champion of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1972. In addition, Heart of Midlothian is the third most important team in the country and Aberdeen was also champion of the Cup Winners’ Cup and the European Super Cup in 1983. The Scottish national football team plays most of the time at home at Hampden Park.
Wales’ league system consists of the Welsh Premier League and several regional leagues. The Welsh Premier League team, The New Saints, plays its home matches in Oswestry, a border city of England, meanwhile, some Welsh teams such as Cardiff City, Swansea City and Wrexham, among others, compete under the English league system. The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff is the home stadium of the Wales national football team.
Northern Ireland’s league system includes the IFA Premiership, which is the top division. A team from Northern Ireland, Derry City, competes outside the borders of the United Kingdom, in the football of the Republic of Ireland. The Northern Ireland national football team plays its home games at Windsor Park in Belfast.
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