The Highlands to the north and west are the more rugged region containing the majority of Scotland’s mountainous land, including the Cairngorms, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs and Ben Nevis which at 1,345 metres (4,413 ft) is the highest point in the British Isles. It occupies the major part of the British Isles and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and some smaller surrounding islands, meaning it comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal, with its first atomic bomb test, Operation Hurricane, in 1952, but the post-war limitations of Britain’s international role were illustrated by the Suez Crisis of 1956. Nonetheless, Britain was described as “a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests and sitting at the heart of a global production system.” After Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain entered the Second World War. Beginning with the Great Reform Act in 1832, Parliament gradually widened the voting franchise, with the 1884 Reform Act championed https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/no-wageringcasino.com by William Gladstone granting suffrage to a majority of males for the first time. After the defeat of France at the end of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815) the United Kingdom emerged as the principal naval and imperial power (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830).
Healthcare in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter and each country has its own system of universal publicly funded healthcare (NHS England, NHS Scotland, Health and Social Care (Northern Ireland) and NHS Wales), although private healthcare is also available. The modern system of universal publicly funded healthcare in the United Kingdom has its origins in the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1949 is the primary healthcare provider in the United Kingdom. About 38 per cent of the United Kingdom population has a university or college degree, the highest percentage in Europe and one of the highest in the world. Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with each country having a separate education system.
- The archipelago formed by Great Britain and the numerous smaller islands is as irregular in shape as it is diverse in geology and landscape.
- It defined a national identity for England and slowly, but profoundly, changed people’s religious beliefs.
- The terms used here are a mixture of geographic and political labels.(more)
- These powers vary and have been moved to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and in England, the Greater London Authority and Combined Authorities.
There have been many authors whose origins were from outside the United Kingdom but who moved to the UK, including Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sir Salman Rushdie and Ezra Pound. Irish writers, living at a time when all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, include Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker (who wrote Dracula) and George Bernard Shaw. Twelve of the top 25 of 100 novels by British writers chosen by a BBC poll of global critics were written by women; these included works by George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Doris Lessing and Zadie Smith.
Theatre of United Kingdom plays an important part in British culture and has had a vibrant tradition of theatre since the Renaissance with roots going back to the Roman occupation. A global survey in 2024 ranked the UK third in the ‘Most Influential Countries’ rankings, behind the US and China. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies, in particular the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland, a common culture known as the Anglosphere.
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Acts from Liverpool have had 54 UK chart number 1 hit singles, more per capita than any other city worldwide. More recent UK music acts that have had international success include George Michael, Oasis, Spice Girls, Radiohead, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse, Susan Boyle, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi, One Direction, Harry Styles and Dua Lipa. The Beatles have international sales of over 1 billion units and are the biggest-selling band, in addition to being widely regarded as the most influential band in the history of popular music. The UK has produced some of the most prominent English-speaking rappers along with the United States, including Stormzy, Kano, Yxng Bane, Ramz, Little Simz and Skepta. Historically, there has been Renaissance music from the Tudor period, with masses, madrigals and lute music by Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and John Dowland. English folk features melodic ballads with strong lyrics and music for country dancing often using accordion and fiddles.
Local government in Scotland is divided into 32 council areas with a wide variation in size and population. The geographical division of the United Kingdom into counties or shires began in England and Scotland in the early Middle Ages, and was completed throughout Great Britain and Ireland by the early modern period. In addition the monarch has a number of reserve powers at his disposal to uphold responsible government and prevent constitutional crises.t As a result of parliamentary sovereignty, the British constitution is uncodified, consisting mostly of disparate written sources, including parliamentary statutes, judge-made case law and international treaties, together with constitutional conventions.
They are active and regular participants in NATO (including the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps), the Five Power Defence Arrangements, RIMPAC and other worldwide coalition operations. Britain’s global presence and influence is further amplified through its trading relations, foreign investments, official development assistance and military engagements. It maintains the British Council, an organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities in over 100 countries. Local government in Northern Ireland since 2015 has been divided between 11 councils with limited responsibilities. It established power sharing arrangements for a devolved government and legislature, referred to as the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly respectively.
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Since the majority of the rain falls over the western regions, the eastern parts are the driest. The length of coastline of Great Britain plus its principal islands is about 19,491 miles (31,368 km) long, with the coastline of the main island Great Britain being 11,073 miles (17,820 km) of that, though measurements can vary greatly due to the coastline paradox. The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to use an approved COVID-19 vaccine. The COVID-19 pandemic had a severe impact on the British economy, caused major disruptions to education and had far-reaching impacts on society and politics in 2020 and 2021. A referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 resulted in the Scottish electorate voting by 55.3 to 44.7 per cent to remain part of the United Kingdom.
During this time Canada, Australia and New Zealand were granted self-governing dominion status. The British population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, causing significant social and economic stresses. Throughout the Victorian era (1837–1901) political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies. British merchants played a leading part in the Atlantic slave trade, mainly between 1662 and 1807 when British or British-colonial slave ships transported nearly 3.3 million slaves from Africa.
London is also one of the world’s leading financial centres, ranking second in the 2025 Global Financial Centres Index. London is the world capital for foreign exchange trading, with a market share of 37.8 per cent in 2022 of the global turnover. As of 2023 it is the world’s second-largest exporter of services and in 2024 was the world’s largest net exporter of financial services. The Department for Business and Trade is responsible for business, international trade, and enterprise. Despite having one of the highest levels of income inequality in the OECD, the UK has a very high HDI ranking, including when adjusted for inequality.
The UK has a history of non-white immigration with Liverpool having the oldest black population in the country dating from at least the 1730s, in addition to having the oldest Chinese community in Europe dating from the 19th century. The 2011 census also showed that, over the previous 100 years, the proportion of the population aged 0–14 fell from 31 to 18 per cent, and the proportion of people aged 65 and over rose from 5 to 16 per cent. In 2012 and 2013 births contributed the most to population growth, while in 2014 and 2015 net international migration contributed more. In the late 1990s nuclear power plants contributed around 25 per cent of the total annual electricity generation in the UK, but this has gradually declined as old plants have been shut down. Wind power was the largest source of electricity in 2024, generating 30 per cent of the UK’s total electricity. It is home to many large energy companies, including two of the six major oil and gas companies – BP and Shell.
A poll from July 2024 revealed that 3 per cent of the UK population follow a vegan diet, 6 per cent are vegetarian, and 13 per cent identify as flexitarian (following a mainly vegetarian diet). The food of England has historically been characterised by simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. 2019 was a particularly good year for British films which grossed around £10.3 billion globally, accounting for 28.7 per cent of global box office revenue. Some of the most commercially successful films have been produced in the United Kingdom, including two of the highest-grossing film franchises (Harry Potter and James Bond). The British directors Alfred Hitchcock, whose film Vertigo is considered by some critics as the best film of all time, and David Lean, who directed Lawrence of Arabia, are amongst the most critically acclaimed directors ever. In the late 80’s, dance music exploded with Rave culture mainly Acid House tracks which were made mainstream with novelty records (such as Smart E’s Sesame’s Treet and the Prodigy’s Charly) and the Balearic sound brought back from the Ibiza club scene.