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United Kingdom " Actions

Also known as: Britain, Great Britain, U.K., United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Written by Sheppard Sunderland Frere , Paul R. Josephson
• All
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Dec 10, 2024 • Article History

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United Kingdom

News • UK and Germany sign deal against

people smugglers as Europe struggles to halt
Channel crossings • Dec. 10, 2024, 7:30 AM
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United Kingdom, island country

located off the northwestern coast of
mainland Europe. The United Kingdom
comprises the whole of the island of
Great Britain—which contains England,
Wales, and Scotland—as well as the
northern portion of the island of Ireland.
The name Britain is sometimes used to
refer to the United Kingdom as a whole.
The capital is London, which is among
the world’s leading commercial, financial,
and cultural centres. Other major cities
include Birmingham, Liverpool, and
Manchester in England, Belfast and
Londonderry in Northern Ireland,
Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, and
Swansea and Cardiff in Wales.

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United Kingdom

The origins of the United Kingdom can

be traced to the time of the Anglo-Saxon
king Athelstan, who in the early 10th
century CE secured the allegiance of
neighbouring Celtic kingdoms and
became “the first to rule what previously
many kings shared between them,” in the
words of a contemporary chronicle.
Through subsequent conquest over the
following centuries, kingdoms lying
farther afield came under English
dominion. Wales, a congeries of Celtic
kingdoms lying in Great Britain’s
southwest, was formally united with
England by the Acts of Union of 1536 and
1542. Scotland, ruled from London since
1603, formally was joined with England
and Wales in 1707 to form the United
Kingdom of Great Britain. (The adjective
“British” came into use at this time to
refer to all the kingdom’s peoples.)
Ireland came under English control
during the 1600s and was formally
united with Great Britain through the Act
of Union of 1800. The republic of Ireland
gained its independence in 1922, but six
of Ulster’s nine counties remained part of
the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland.
Relations between these constituent
states and England have been marked by
controversy and, at times, open rebellion
and even warfare. These tensions relaxed
somewhat during the late 20th century,
when devolved assemblies were
introduced in Northern Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales. Nonetheless, even
with the establishment of a power-
sharing assembly after referenda in both
Northern Ireland and the Irish republic,
relations between Northern Ireland’s
unionists (who favour continued British
sovereignty over Northern Ireland) and
nationalists (who favour unification with
the republic of Ireland) remained tense
into the 21st century.

Quick Facts

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See article: flag of the United Kingdom

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Audio File: Anthem of United Kingdom (see

article)

Head Of Government: Prime Minister:

Keir Starmer

Capital: London

Population: (2024 est.) 68,278,000

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Stonehenge, Wiltshire,
England Stonehenge, prehistoric circular
earthwork and stone religious site, Wiltshire,…
...(more)
England; late Neolithic Period to Early Bronze
The United Kingdom has made
significant contributions to the world
economy, especially in technology and
industry. Since World War II, however,
the United Kingdom’s most prominent
exports have been cultural, including
literature, theatre, film, television, and
popular music that draw on all parts of
the country. Perhaps Britain’s greatest
export has been the English language,
now spoken in every corner of the world
as one of the leading international
mediums of cultural and economic
exchange.

The United Kingdom retains links with

parts of its former empire through the
Commonwealth. It also benefits from
historical and cultural links with the
United States and is a member of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). Moreover, the United Kingdom
became a member of the European Union
in 1973. Many Britons, however, were
sometimes reluctant EU members,
holding to the sentiments of the great
wartime prime minister Winston
Churchill, who sonorously remarked,
“We see nothing but good and hope in a
richer, freer, more contented European
commonalty. But we have our own dream
and our own task. We are with Europe,
but not of it. We are linked, but not
comprised. We are interested and
associated, but not absorbed.” Indeed, in
June 2016, in a referendum on whether
the United Kingdom should remain in
the EU, 52 percent of British voters chose
to leave. After much negotiation, several
deadline extensions, prolonged domestic
political discord, and two changes of
prime minister, an agreement on “Brexit”
(British exit from the EU) was reached
that satisfied both the EU and the
majority of Parliament. Thus, on January
31, 2020, the United Kingdom would
become the first country to withdraw
from the EU.

Ralph Charles Atkins

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Land

Windermere, Cumbria, England

The United Kingdom comprises four

geographic and historical parts—
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern
Ireland. The United Kingdom contains
most of the area and population of the
British Isles—the geographic term for the
group of islands that includes Great
Britain, Ireland, and many smaller
islands. Together England, Wales, and
Scotland constitute Great Britain, the
larger of the two principal islands, while
Northern Ireland and the republic of
Ireland constitute the second largest
island, Ireland. England, occupying most
of southern Great Britain, includes the
Isles of Scilly off the southwest coast and
the Isle of Wight off the southern coast.
Scotland, occupying northern Great
Britain, includes the Orkney and
Shetland islands off the northern coast
and the Hebrides off the northwestern
coast. Wales lies west of England and
includes the island of Anglesey to the
northwest.

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Apart from the land border with the Irish

republic, the United Kingdom is
surrounded by sea. To the south of
England and between the United
Kingdom and France is the English
Channel. The North Sea lies to the east.
To the west of Wales and northern
England and to the southeast of Northern
Ireland, the Irish Sea separates Great
Britain from Ireland, while southwestern
England, the northwestern coast of
Northern Ireland, and western Scotland
face the Atlantic Ocean. At its widest the
United Kingdom is 300 miles (500 km)
across. From the northern tip of Scotland
to the southern coast of England, it is
about 600 miles (1,000 km). No part is
more than 75 miles (120 km) from the
sea. The capital, London, is situated on
the tidal River Thames in southeastern
England.

North Channel coast, Northern Ireland The

North Channel coast south of Torr Head, Northern
Ireland.

The archipelago formed by Great Britain

and the numerous smaller islands is as
irregular in shape as it is diverse in
geology and landscape. This diversity
stems largely from the nature and
disposition of the underlying rocks,
which are westward extensions of
European structures, with the shallow
waters of the Strait of Dover and the
North Sea concealing former land links.
Northern Ireland contains a westward
extension of the rock structures of
Scotland. These common rock structures
are breached by the narrow North
Channel.

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On a global scale, this natural

endowment covers a small area—
approximating that of the U.S. state of
Oregon or the African country of Guinea
—and its internal diversity, accompanied
by rapid changes of often beautiful
scenery, may convey to visitors from
larger countries a striking sense of
compactness and consolidation. The
peoples who, over the centuries, have
hewed an existence from this Atlantic
extremity of Eurasia have put their own
imprint on the environment, and the
ancient and distinctive palimpsest of
their field patterns and settlements
complements the natural diversity.

Relief

Great Britain is traditionally divided into

a highland and a lowland zone. A line
running from the mouth of the River Exe,
in the southwest, to that of the Tees, in
the northeast, is a crude expression of
this division. The course of the 700-foot
(213-metre) contour, or of the boundary
separating the older rocks of the north
and west from the younger southeastern
strata, provides a more accurate
indication of the extent of the highlands.

The highland zone

Ben Nevis, Scotland Ben Nevis from Loch Linnhe,

Scotland.

The creation of the highlands was a long

process, yet elevations, compared with
European equivalents, are low, with the
highest summit, Ben Nevis, only 4,406
feet (1,343 metres) above sea level. In
addition, the really mountainous areas
above 2,000 feet (600 metres) often form
elevated plateaus with relatively smooth
surfaces, reminders of the effects of
former periods of erosion.

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Ben Macdui Ben Macdui, Cairngorm

Mountains, Scotland.

Scotland’s three main topographic

regions follow the northeast-to-
southwest trend of the ancient
underlying rocks. The northern
Highlands and the Southern Uplands are
separated by the intervening rift valley,
or subsided structural block, called the
Midland Valley (or Central Lowlands).
The core of the Highlands is the elevated,
worn-down surface of the Grampian
Mountains, 1,000–3,600 feet (300–1,100
metres) above sea level, with the
Cairngorm Mountains rising to
elevations of more than 4,000 feet (1,200
metres). This majestic mountain
landscape is furrowed by numerous wide
valleys, or straths. Occasional large areas
of lowland, often fringed with long lines
of sand dunes, add variety to the east.
The Buchan peninsula, the Moray Firth
estuarine flats, and the plain of Caithness
—all low-lying areas—contrast sharply
with the mountain scenery and show
smoother outlines than do the glacier-
scoured landscapes of the west, where
northeast-facing hollows, or corries,
separated by knife-edge ridges and deep
glens, sculpt the surfaces left by earlier
erosion. The many freshwater lochs
(lakes) further enhance a landscape of
wild beauty. The linear Glen Mor—where
the Caledonian Canal now threads the
chain of lakes that includes Loch Ness—is
the result of a vast structural sideways
tear in the whole mass of the North West
Highlands. To the northwest of Glen Mor
stretches land largely divided among
agricultural smallholdings, or crofts;
settlement is intermittent and mostly
coastal, a pattern clearly reflecting the
pronounced dissection of a highland
massif that has been scored and plucked
by the Ice Age glaciers. Many sea-
drowned, glacier-widened river valleys
(fjords) penetrate deeply into the
mountains, the outliers of which rise
from the sea in stately, elongated
peninsulas or emerge in hundreds of
offshore islands.

In comparison with the Scottish

Highlands, the Southern Uplands of
Scotland present a more subdued relief,
with elevations that never exceed 2,800
feet (850 metres). The main hill masses
are the Cheviots, which reach 2,676 feet
(816 metres) in elevation, while only
Merrick and Broad Law have elevations
above the 2,700-foot (830-metre)
contour line. Broad plateaus separated by
numerous dales characterize these
uplands, and in the west most of the
rivers flow across the prevailing
northeast-southwest trend, following the
general slope of the plateau, toward the
Solway Firth or the Firth of Clyde. Bold
masses of granite and the rugged imprint
of former glaciers occasionally engender
mountainous scenery. In the east the
valley network of the River Tweed and its
many tributaries forms a broad lowland
expanse between the Lammermuir and
Cheviot hills.

The Midland Valley lies between great

regular structural faults. The northern
boundary with the Highlands is a wall-
like escarpment, but the boundary with
the Southern Uplands is sharp only near
the coast. This vast trench is by no means
a continuous plain, for high ground—
often formed of sturdy, resistant masses
of volcanic rock—meets the eye in all
directions, rising above the low-lying
areas that flank the rivers and the deeply
penetrating estuaries of the Firth of Clyde
and the Firth of Forth.

Mourne Mountains, Northern Ireland Part of the

Mourne Mountains astride Down district and Newry
and Mourne district, Northern Ireland.

In Northern Ireland, structural

extensions of the Scottish Highlands
reappear in the generally rugged
mountain scenery and in the peat-
covered summits of the Sperrin
Mountains, which reach an elevation of
2,241 feet (683 metres). The uplands in
the historic counties Down and Armagh
are the western continuation of
Scotland’s Southern Uplands but reach
elevations of more than 500 feet (150
metres) only in limited areas; the one
important exception is the Mourne
Mountains, a lovely cluster of granite
summits the loftiest of which, Slieve
Donard, rises to an elevation of 2,789 feet
(850 metres) within 2 miles (3.2 km) of
the sea. In the central region of Northern
Ireland that corresponds to Scotland’s
Midland Valley, an outpouring of basaltic
lavas has formed a huge plateau, much of
which is occupied by the shallow Lough
Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the
British Isles.

The highland zone of England and Wales

consists, from north to south, of four
broad upland masses: the Pennines, the
Cumbrian Mountains, the Cambrian
Mountains, and the South West
Peninsula. The Pennines are usually
considered to end in the north at the
River Tyne gap, but the surface features
of several hills in Northumberland are in
many ways similar to those of the
northern Pennines. The general surface
of the asymmetrically arched backbone
(anticline) of the Pennines is remarkably
smooth because many of the valleys,
though deep, occupy such a small portion
of the total area that the windswept
moorland between them appears almost
featureless. This is particularly true of the
landscape around Alston, in Cumbria
(Cumberland), which—cut off by faults
on its north, west, and south sides—
stands out as an almost rectangular block
of high moorland plateau with isolated
peaks (known to geographers as
monadnocks) rising up above it. Farther
south, deep and scenic dales (valleys)
dissect the Pennine plateau. The dales’
craggy sides are formed of millstone grit,
and beneath them flow streams stepped
by waterfalls. The most southerly part of
the Pennines is a grassy upland. More
than 2,000 feet (610 metres) above sea
level in places, it is characterized by the
dry valleys, steep-sided gorges, and
underground streams and caverns of a
limestone drainage system rather than
the bleak moorland that might be
expected at this elevation. At lower levels
the larger dales are more richly wooded,
and the trees stand out against a
background of rugged cliffs of white-gray
rocks. On both Pennine flanks, older
rocks disappear beneath younger layers,
and the uplands merge into flanking
coastal lowlands.

Esthwaite Water in the Lake District,

England Mountain-encircled Esthwaite Water in the
Lake District of northwestern England.

The Cumbrian Mountains, which include

the famous Lake District celebrated in
poetry by William Wordsworth and the
other Lake poets, constitute an isolated,
compact mountain group to the west of
the northern Pennines. Many deep
gorges, separated by narrow ridges and
sharp peaks, characterize the northern
Cumbrian Mountains, which consist of
tough slate rock. Greater expanses of
level upland, formed from thick beds of
lava and the ash thrown out by ancient
volcanoes, lie to the south. The volcanic
belt is largely an irregular upland
traversed by deep, narrow valleys, and it
includes England’s highest point, Scafell
Pike, with an elevation of 3,210 feet (978
metres), and Helvellyn, at 3,116 feet (950
metres). Nine rivers flowing out in all
directions from the centre of this uplifted
dome form a classic radial drainage
pattern. The valleys, often containing
long, narrow lakes, have been widened to
a U shape by glacial action, which has
also etched corries from the
mountainsides and deposited the debris
in moraines. Glacial action also created a
number of “hanging valleys” by
truncating former tributary valleys.

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park,

Wales Coastline, Pembrokeshire Coast National
Park, Wales.

The Cambrian Mountains, which form

the core of Wales, are clearly defined by
the sea except on the eastern side, where
a sharp break of slope often marks the
transition to the English lowlands. Cycles
of erosion have repeatedly worn down
the ancient and austere surfaces. Many
topographic features derive from glacial