Portal:United Kingdom

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The United Kingdom Portal

Flag of the United Kingdom	Coat of Arms for the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is 94,354 square miles (244,376 km²), with an estimated population of 67,596,281 people in 2022. The capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom is London, whose wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. The cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively. Other major cities include Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and Leeds.

Inhabited continuously since the Neolithic, the lands making up the modern-day UK have remained ethnically and culturally diverse. In the transitional period from the Danelaw in the late 9th century to the Norman Conquest culminating in 1066, the modern British people began to shape up, followed by the establishment of parliamentarism in the mid-13th century in both England and Scotland. With the end of the Wars of the Roses the English state stabilised, consolidated and grew ever more powerful, resulting by the 16th century in the annexation of Wales and domination of Scotland by an English ruler. Subsequently, colonies across the globe were established. Over the course of the 17th century, the role of the British monarchy was reduced, particularly as a result of the English Civil War, and the parliament in Westminster took on a leading role. In 1707, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present United Kingdom.

The UK became the first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the "Pax Britannica" between 1815 and 1914. At its height in the 1920s, the British Empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and the Second World War damaged Britain's economic power and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. British influence can be observed in the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies, and British culture remains globally influential, particularly in language, literature, music and sport. English is the world's most widely spoken language and the third-most spoken native language. (Full article...)