Britain: What is it?
My grandfather was born prior to the Crimean War --his views permutated though my father to me.The English are the master race. God is an Englishman. English history tells us such. The Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish are lesser Celtic breeds who thanks to the English enlightened colonisation became English speaking. Good Celts aped their English superiors and by so doing these captive peoples were allowed to go forth on their masters’ behalf and forge a mighty empire.
Yet, the English being an open-minded people, instead of calling it the English Empire named it the British Empire. Britain then to my grandfather referred to that land immediately dominated by the English – namely the geographic areas of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; and Greater Britain or GB referred to the British Empire. This Britain is dead. What now is Britain and does Britishness exist?
I will attempt to answer in the following:
1.A Celt’s historical perspective of Britain
2.An etymological analysis of the term Britain
3.Britain – the CIA Analysis of a ‘country’.
The main island, the Great Isle, of what became known, centuries later, as the British Isles had a peculiar geography. It was ideally proportioned for the division that was eventually made of it. No inland location lay more than two days' march from the coast, which gave a marked advantage to maritime invaders. The position of the main estuaries — the Solway, the Clyde, the Forth, the Dee, the Severn, the Thames and the Humber - made it possible for each of the more mountainous parts of the island to be isolated by invaders and guarded by them. When they lost the towns and forts commanding these estuaries, the resident Celts were pushed back into their mountain fastnesses. The inhabitants at this time mostly were Celts, of the British rather than Southern European variety -we're speaking of the turn of the fifth and sixth centuries. The invaders were Angles, or rather Germanic peoples, and they created a chaotic patchwork of statelets which took half a millennium to evolve into larger political and cultural units.
This did not have to happen. It wasn't inevitable. But about two hundred years later, after countless battles, marriages, mergers and chance occurrences, a dozen rival kingdoms emerged, followed, in another two hundred, by settlement in two distinct zones, one mainly Celtic — behind those mountains, and on the Green Isle to the west - the other exclusively Germanic. Thus the conditions had been created where England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales could begin the initial and most tentative phase of their crystallization'. The Isles' deep history, therefore, was Celtic and, before that, genetically Continental. These were lands of migration from the east, which the Celtic strain came to dominate long before the later wave of Germanics.
'Britain' has been Britain, in the sense of a unified island, in only two brief phases of geological time, first when, with the exception of Scotland, it was under Roman occupation (55 BC — AD 4O7) and known as Britannia, and then since the Act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707. Otherwise there has been no such place as Britain, and therefore no proper repository for the kind of British nationalism, imbued with the sanctity of ages, that now excites so much political interest. Britain is a brief artefact, not a continuous entity, and it is a profound falsehood that generation after generation should have grown up imagining the opposite.
This ferocious contention has produced error. Historians have a lot to answer for. They have misread, and more important, ideologically miswritten these islands' past --from a perspective which refuses to be merely English. The Englishing of history has been a betrayal of scholarship and a serious disservice to understanding, not least about the nature of the country and civilization that is now being asked to make an irreversible commitment to the European Union. 'Britain' cannot last. As an internally united entity, the Great Isle is finished, and ready to recede back into the shape it held at roughly the mid-term of its broken past. It seems incomprehensible that the divided bits of the former Britain — and England above all - should imagine they either have, or need to lust after, a future separated from the Continent, all in the name of a precious British identity that faces imminent liquidation.
The Englishness of received history has produced not only falsehood but massive intellectual aggrandizement. The English have been taught for centuries that their civilization is superior to that of the Celts ... the weight of popular admiration, and indeed a strong sense of identification, has been attached to the Roman occupiers of Britain rather than to the native British.' The Romans, though invaders, had the merit of not being Celts. The Roman Empire worked as a psychic forebear to the British Empire: a noble legitimation, which accounted for a whole literary genre, epitomized by Kipling, stressing the bond of identity between imperial Britons and ancient Romans. Rome provided the model for the civilizing mission of a multinational empire, and the precursor of centuries of English leaders who suppressed or ignored the Celts while still, at any rate latterly, grandly proclaiming Britain's rulership of the waves. In conventional histories, it is as if Anglo-Saxon England were bordered by an ocean to the north and the west as well as by a channel to the south. The mental planet that is peopled by Alfred and the Danes and Harold and the Conquerer has no place whatsoever for Hywell Dda, for Brian Boru, for Kenneth Mac Alpin or Macbeth.
The principal culprits were the Victorian historians, writing from and into their imperial time, as if all previous English events had led up to the glorious British present. They were mired in a mental framework that simply could not conceive of a world that did not place the greatest country, occupying a fourth of the globe, at its centre — and this held true even when they were writing about the Plantagenets and the Tudors. Moreover, not only was their work not read elsewhere, they were unaware of the existence of such a subject as comparative history. Some of the myths and oversights these historians produced have a sharp contemporary relevance.
Two oversights with special piquancy to the heart of the present obsession with British/English identity:
First, this was that for many centuries England was dominated and peopled by the French. The Norman and Plantagenet kings never fully distanced themselves from their French roots. In Crusader times, England was a part of the French empire. Its kings were Guillaume and Edouard and Jean. With the monarchs came many French settlers and a French ruling class; French was the language of the court and elite, and the insistent reach of French influence prevented the formation of a true national identity on the part of the natives. This mongrel country, after a century as a dependency of Denmark, became little more than an extension of France. The period of the Crusades, indeed, saw the beginning of something more than the Continent's genetic aggrandizement: the reach of its culture overcame anything that could be called typically English. This happened elsewhere. 'England, Sicily and Jerusalem,’ all formed part of what some historians have seen as the first experiment in the overseas export of European civilization. The first year the Lord Chancellor opened a parliamentary session using the English language was 1362. This was the session in which a statute was passed allowing English to stand alongside Latin in legal pleadings. But French remained the professional language of English lawyers until 1600. All in all we have to conclude that even the English, let alone the British, have a very different national essence from the one which has penetrated so deep into their modern psyche that it may never be successfully extracted. Maybe the uncomfortable truth will always be resisted.
But a nationalism did emerge, thanks mainly to the Reformation. Until then, the Isles remained intimately bonded with the mainland. The Reformation cut the Isles off from a connection that had lasted a millennium. This spiritual isolation was arguably more profound than anything that resulted from all the political invasions and geographical changes since the Ice Age. The religious break didn't just have political and religious effects. The definitive severance of the previously interwoven relationships with the people on the other side of twenty-two miles of Channel determined the only identity available: the Channel, by the way, far from being the defensive moat or sea-girt wall, was for many centuries the facilitator of the contacts that made the Isles the multi-tribal place they were. Since the Reformation, however, the English have had little choice but to take pride in their isolation and eccentricity. Indeed they have recruited it as a virtue.
This leads to a second undeceiving for modern British nationalists, whoever and whatever, exactly, they may be. The sacred date of 1066, since when the Isles have legendarily survived without foreign invasion, becomes a moment of reduced importance. Cultural if not military links with the Continent reached a peak in the era of Erasmus and Thomas More: 1534 was the year of greater truth, when Henry Vlll's Act of Supremacy created an independent Church in England with him as its head.
Other adjustments of traditional English thought must be:
Simon de Montfort, conventionally presented as the originator of English parliamentary freedom, may well, it now seems (the matter is under much scholarly debate), have been following French ideas.
The very idea of Parliament's Englishness, in fact, is one of the myths promoted by the Anglo centric Victorians, who regarded the imperial triumphs of Westminster as requiring an inexorable narrative to lead up to them: the story that parliamentarianism was a uniquely local invention. Though absolutism came to grip the Continent in later centuries in a way that Britain escaped, parliaments, diets and assemblies were thick on the ground in late medieval and early modern Europe.
Poland and Lithuania developed a legal and parliamentary tradition which 'in several respects - such as the principles of habeas corpus and "no taxation without representation" - foreshadowed later developments in England'.
In any case, the Mother of Parliaments harbours within her past the Court of Star Chamber which, for most of a century from 1540, mattered more than any Parliament, in a society that permitted no independence for judges, no immunity for jurors, no free press, no freedom of speech even for parliamentarians.
This English land of the uniquely free, in short, is not and never has been quite so unique or quite so free as its mythologists have contended, especially its modern ones. Victorian Britishness did not account for Wales or Scotland, its view of Ireland excluded Ulster, and presented a view of England that, regardless of history, was depicted as a place on which any European influence can work only as a contaminant. Not so different to views found today -- brushing over the historic truth is a habit by no means confined to the Victorians. Periods that the Victorians simply left untouched - as if they were undiscoverable or, if unearthed, were likely to be uncongenial to progressive English history -are now exposed, and become part of the whole. The fact that much new or awakened material concerns the Celts is a rebuke to all history teachers. Simply – when Celtic history is truly put alongside the real English history – the English concept of Britain may be perceived as the myth it truly was.
The summary is this. There has been no long-lasting British nation. It came into brief existence as a product of, and accessory to, the making of an empire. When the empire broke up, it had served its purpose. Such as it is, it will not last. All its foundations are in an advanced state of decay. The so-called United Kingdom is not and never has been a nation-state. It has no single Established Church, no single legal system, no centralized education system, no common cultural policy, no common history - 'none of the things, in other words, on which nation-states are built'. These were replaced by an invented belief system, which made people die for Britain, but can no longer hold out against the centrifugal experience of the nations that were suppressed by it, and are now regaining their ascendancy in the larger context of a European community of nations that can give each of them succour and protection. That, however, requires the nation that dominates the anachronism called Britain to abandon its attachment to the vestiges of superior status and national domination.
The word Britain is an informal term used to refer to
The island of Great Britain which consists of the nations of England, Scotland and Wales.
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or UK, sometimes the Roman province called "Britain" or "Britannia"
The word British generally means belonging to or associated with Britain in one of the first two senses above (i.e. the United Kingdom or the island of Great Britain). However, the term has a range of related usages, as described in this article.
The etymology of the name Britain is thought to derive from a Celtic word, Pritani, "painted people/men", a reference to the inhabitants of the islands' use of body-paint and tattoos. If this is true, there is an interesting parallel with the name Pict, connected with a Latin word of the same meaning. The modern Welsh name for Britain is Prydain. The Q-Celtic form was Cruithin, showing that the Common Celtic singular form was qr[ui]tanos. The root is presumably that of the modern Gaelic/Irish word cruth 'shape, form'.
It has also been postulated that Britain may derive from the Celtic goddess Brigid; the form of the word, however, is against this postulation.
In 325 BC the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia visited a group of islands which he called Pretaniké, the principal ones being Albionon (Albion) and Ierne (Erin). The records of this visit date from much more recent times, so there is room for these details to be disputed, but it does seem to attest pre-Roman use of the name by Celtic-speaking inhabitants of the islands - or the names used by the Phoenecians Pytheas went with.
The Roman geographer Ptolemy called the larger island Megale Brettania (Great Britain), and the smaller island Micra Bretannia (Little Britain) although some consider it to be derived from the French distinction between Great Britain and Brittany.
The original reference seems to have been to the territory in which the Brythonic languages were spoken, which more or less coincided with the Roman province of Britannia, an area equivalent to modern England, Wales and southern Scotland. In the Early Middle Ages speakers of a Brythonic language which later evolved into Breton migrated from Cornwall to Armorica, Western France, possibly because of pressure from Saxon invasions. This is why different forms of the same name apply to insular Britain and continental Brittany. In French the similarity is even more obvious: Bretagne and Grande Bretagne.
Geoffrey of Monmouth used the names Britannia minor to refer to the Armorican region and Britannia major for the island. The element great in the term Great Britain thus simply means large, to make the distinction from Brittany.
In keeping with the mediaeval penchant for etymologising country names in terms of eponymous heroes, English historians of the late mediaeval and early modern periods charted the history of the nation from Brutus of Troy, supposedly a hero of the Trojan war who founded Britain just as Aeneaus' descendant Romulus founded Rome, Frankus France, and so forth. The life of Brutus, anglicised as Brute, was recorded in the literary tradition of the Prose Brute. This was long accepted as the etymology of Britain.
The kingdoms established on the island of Great Britain were perceived to be dominant over the whole archipelago, which thus came to be known as the British Isles. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, the queen's astrologer and alchemist, John Dee, wrote mystical volumes predicting a British Empire and using the terms Great Britain and Britannia. After Elizabeth's death in 1603 the kingdoms shared one King, James VI of Scotland and I of England. On 20 October 1604 he proclaimed himself "King of Great Brittaine" (thus including Wales and also avoiding the cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland"). This title was eventually adopted formally in 1707 when the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.
Politically, then, British has been used to described someone or something from the United Kingdom, in its various forms, since 1707. Briton or Brit are also used colloquially in this form, though the use of Briton here is incorrect.
Since its formation, the kingdom was enlarged in 1801 by the addition of the island of Ireland - already ruled by the British monarchy - to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was then reduced in 1922 by the independence of the Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland. The name of the kingdom changed accordingly, in 1927 becoming The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
British was also used to describe members of nations that formed part of the British Empire. This use now, however, could be seen as justifying the colonial era, even if only applied historically.
The modern use of the term 'British' is as an adjective to describe someone or something from the United Kingdom. It is officially used as the term to describe the nationality of a citizen of the United Kingdom. Irish Nationalists may reject this term as offensive, as it is used to describe Irish people in Northern Ireland. Many people from England, Scotland and Wales also dislike the term, preferring to define themselves as natives of their own particular country.
It is also frequently used to describe residents of the United Kingdom's current colonies. This may still offend some people, though since the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 all residents of the United Kingdom's remaining colonies have been eligible for British citizenship, making the term more apt.
British occurs in the legal term British Islands. This was coined to describe all of the islands of the British Isles, excluding those that form part of the Republic of Ireland, when they act together as a political whole.
Geographically, the term can be used in various ways:
To describe someone from the island of Great Britain
In the term British Isles, the traditional term for the entire archipelago of islands that lie off the north west coast of France, of which Great Britain and Ireland are the two biggest. Note that this is not intended to imply that all of these islands are part of the United Kingdom, for many of them are part of the Republic of Ireland. However, confusion caused by this term can lead to offence.
The term has historically been used to describe someone or something from the British Isles. Due to the above mentioned potential for offence, this rarely happens today. For example the British Lions a rugby team which draws players from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland has been renamed the British and Irish Lions.
Sometimes British applies to an area or territory currently or formerly governed by or a dependent territory of the United Kingdom, for example the British Virgin Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territory, or British Columbia which is now a province of Canada
Updated on 1 November, 2005
INTRODUCTION
United KingdomBackground:
Great Britain, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing parliamentary democracy and in advancing literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-fourth of the earth's surface.
The first half
of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted in two
World Wars. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and
the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous European nation.
As one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, a founding
member of NATO, and of the Commonwealth, the UK pursues a global
approach to foreign policy; it currently is weighing the degree of its
integration with continental Europe. A member of the EU, it chose to
remain outside the Economic and Monetary Union for the time being.
Constitutional reform is also a significant issue in the UK. The
Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern
Ireland Assembly were established in 1999, but the latter is suspended
due to bickering over the peace process.
| GEOGRAPHY | United Kingdom |
| Location: | Western Europe, islands
including the northern one-sixth of the island
of Ireland between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea,
northwest of France |
| Geographic coordinates: | 54 00 N, 2 00 W |
| Map references: | Europe |
| Area: | total: 244,820 sq km and: 241,590 sq km water: 3,230 sq km note: includes Rockall and Shetland Islands |
| Area - comparative: | slightly smaller than Oregon |
| Land boundaries: | total: 360 km border countries: Ireland 360 km |
| Coastline: | 12,429 km |
| Maritime claims: | territorial sea: 12 nm exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm continental shelf: as defined in continental shelf orders or in accordance with agreed upon boundaries |
| Climate: | temperate; moderated by
prevailing southwest winds over the North Atlantic Current; more than
one-half of the days are overcast |
| Terrain: | mostly rugged hills and low mountains; level to rolling plains in east and southeast |
| Elevation extremes: | lowest point: The Fens -4
m highest point: Ben Nevis 1,343 m |
| Natural resources: | coal, petroleum, natural
gas, iron ore, lead, zinc, gold, tin,
limestone, salt, clay, chalk, gypsum, potash, silica sand, slate,
arable land |
| Land use: | arable land: 23.46% permanent crops: 0.21% other: 76.33% (2001) |
| Irrigated land: | 1,080 sq km (1998 est.) |
| Natural hazards: | winter windstorms; floods |
| Environment - current issues: | continues to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions (has met Kyoto Protocol
target of a 12.5% reduction from 1990 levels and intends to meet the
legally binding target and move towards a domestic goal of a 20% cut in
emissions by 2010); by 2005 the government aims to reduce the amount of industrial and commercial waste disposed of in landfill sites to 85% of 1998 levels and to recycle or compost at least 25% of household waste, increasing to 33% by 2015; between 1998-99 and 1999-2000, household recycling increased from 8.8% to 10.3% |
| Environment - international agreements: | party to: Air Pollution,
Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air
Pollution-Sulfur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds,
Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources,
Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change,
Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species,
Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine
Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship
Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants |
| Geography - note: | lies near vital North
Atlantic sea lanes; only 35 km from France and
now linked by tunnel under the English Channel; because of heavily
indented coastline, no location is more than 125 km from tidal waters |
| Population: | 60,441,457 (July 2005
est.) |
| Age structure: | 0-14 years: 17.7% (male
5,490,592/female 5,229,691) 15-64 years: 66.5% (male 20,329,272/female 19,855,862) 65 years and over: 15.8% (male 4,063,357/female 5,472,683) (2005 est.) |
| Median age: |
total: 38.99 years male: 37.89 years female: 40.13 years (2005 est.) |
| Population growth
rate: |
0.28% (2005 est.) |
| Birth rate: | 10.78 births/1,000 population (2005 est.) |
| Death rate: | 10.18 deaths/1,000 population (2005 est.) |
| Net migration rate: | 2.18 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2005 est.) |
| Sex ratio: |
at birth: 1.05
male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.74 male(s)/female total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2005 est.) |
| Infant mortality rate: | total: 5.16 deaths/1,000
live births male: 5.76 deaths/1,000 live births female: 4.53 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.) |
| Life expectancy at birth: |
total population: 78.38
years male: 75.94 years female: 80.96 years (2005 est.) |
| Total fertility rate: |
1.66 children born/woman (2005 est.) |
| HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate | 0.2% (2001 est.) |
| HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: | 51,000 (2001 est.) |
| HIV/AIDS - deaths | less than 500 (2003 est.) |
| Nationality: | noun: Briton(s), British
(collective plural) adjective: British |
| Ethnic groups: |
white (English 83.6%,
Scottish 8.6%, Welsh 4.9%, Northern Irish 2.9%)
92.1%, black 2%, Indian 1.8%, Pakistani 1.3%, mixed 1.2%, other 1.6%
(2001 census) |
| Religions: | Christian (Anglican, Roman
Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist) 71.6%,
Muslim 2.7%, Hindu 1%, other 1.6%, unspecified or none 23.1% (2001
census) |
| Languages: | English, Welsh (about 26%
of the population of Wales), Scottish form of Gaelic (about 60,000 in
Scotland) |
| Literacy: | definition: age 15 and
over has completed five or more years of schooling total
population: 99% (2000 est.) male: NA% female: NA% |
| Government United Kingdom
|
|
| Country name | conventional long form:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland; note - Great Britain includes England, Scotland, and Wales conventional short form: United Kingdom abbreviation: UK |
| Government type | constitutional monarchy |
| Capital: | London |
| Administrative divisions: |
England - 47 boroughs, 36 counties, 29 London boroughs, 12 cities and boroughs, 10 districts, 12 cities, 3 royal boroughs |
| boroughs: | Barnsley, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Bolton, Bournemouth, Bracknell Forest, Brighton and Hove, Bury, Calderdale, Darlington, Doncaster, Dudley, Gateshead, Halton, Hartlepool, Kirklees, Knowsley, Luton, Medway, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, North Tyneside, Oldham, Poole, Reading, Redcar and Cleveland, Rochdale, Rotherham, Sandwell, Sefton, Slough, Solihull, Southend-on-Sea, South Tyneside, St. Helens, Stockport, Stockton-on-Tees, Swindon, Tameside, Thurrock, Torbay, Trafford, Walsall, Warrington, Wigan, Wirral, Wolverhampton |
| counties: | Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall,
Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex,
Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of
Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk,
Northamptonshire, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire,
Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey,
Warwickshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire |
| London boroughs: | Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth |
| cities and boroughs: | Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Sheffield, Sunderland, Wakefield, Westminster |
| districts: | Bath and North East Somerset, East Riding of Yorkshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, North Somerset, Rutland, South Gloucestershire, Telford and Wrekin, West Berkshire, Wokingham |
| cities: | City of Bristol, Derby, City of Kingston upon Hull, Leicester, City of London, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, York |
| royal boroughs: | Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Windsor and Maidenhead |
| Northern Ireland - 24 districts, 2 cities, 6 counties | |
| districts: | Antrim, Ards, Armagh, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Banbridge, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Craigavon, Down, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane |
| cities: | Belfast, (London) Derry |
| counties: | County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry, County Tyrone |
|
Scotland
|
|
| 32 council areas: | Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, The Scottish Borders, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee City, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, City of Edinburgh, Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow City, Highland, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Moray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Orkney Islands, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Shetland Islands, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling, West Dunbartonshire, Eilean Siar (Western Isles), West Lothian; |
| Wales | |
| county boroughs |
Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Conwy, Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Torfaen, Wrexham |
| counties | Isle of Anglesey, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire, Powys, The Vale of Glamorgan |
| cities and counties | Cardiff, Swansea |
| Dependent areas: | Anguilla, Bermuda, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena and Ascension, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands |
| Independence: |
England has existed as a
unified entity since the 10th century; the
union between England and Wales, begun in 1284 with the Statute of
Rhuddlan, was not formalized until 1536 with an Act of Union; in
another Act of Union in 1707, England and Scotland agreed to
permanently join as Great Britain; the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented in 1801, with the adoption of the name the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 formalized a partition of Ireland; six northern Irish counties remained part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland and the current name of the country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was adopted in 1927 |
| National holiday | the UK does not celebrate one particular national holiday |
| Constitution | unwritten; partly
statutes, partly common law and practice |
| Legal system |
common law tradition with
early Roman and modern continental
influences; has judicial review of Acts of Parliament under the Human
Rights Act of 1998; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with
reservations |
| Suffrage | 18 years of age; universal
|
| Executive branch |
|
| chief of state | Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952); Heir Apparent Prince CHARLES (son of the queen, born 14 November 1948) |
| head of government | Prime Minister Anthony (Tony) BLAIR (since 2 May 1997) |
| cabinet | Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister |
| elections | none; the monarchy is hereditary; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition is usually the prime minister |
| Legislative branch | |
| bicameral | Parliament comprised of House of Lords (consists of approximately 500 life peers, 92 hereditary peers and 26 clergy) and House of Commons (646 seats since 2005 elections; members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms unless the House is dissolved earlier) |
| elections | House of Lords - no
elections (note - in 1999, as provided by the House
of Lords Act, elections were held in the House of Lords to determine
the 92 hereditary peers who would remain there; pending further
reforms, elections are held only as vacancies in the hereditary peerage
arise) House of Commons - last held 5 May 2005 (next to be held by May 2010) |
| election results | House of Commons - percent of vote by party - Labor 35.2%, Conservative 32.3%, Liberal Democrats 22%, other 10.5%; seats by party - Labor 356, Conservative 197, Liberal Democrat 62, other 31; note - as of 30 September 2005 the seats by party - Labor 354, Conservative 196, Liberal Democrat 62, other 34 |
| note: | in 1998 elections were
held for a Northern Ireland Assembly (because of
unresolved disputes among existing parties, the transfer of power from
London to Northern Ireland came only at the end of 1999 and has been
suspended four times the latest occurring in October 2002); in 1999
there were elections for a new Scottish Parliament and a new Welsh
Assembly |
| Judicial branch | House of Lords (highest
court of appeal; several Lords of Appeal in
Ordinary are appointed by the monarch for life); Supreme Courts of
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (comprising the Courts of Appeal,
the High Courts of Justice, and the Crown Courts); Scotland's Court of
Session and Court of the Justiciary |
| Political parties and leaders: | Conservative and Unionist Party [Michael HOWARD]; Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland) [Rev. Ian PAISLEY]; Labor Party [Anthony (Tony) BLAIR]; Liberal Democrats [Charles KENNEDY]; Party of Wales (Plaid Cymru) [Dafydd IWAN]; Scottish National Party or SNP [Alex SALMOND]; Sinn Fein (Northern Ireland) [Gerry ADAMS]; Social Democratic and Labor Party or SDLP (Northern Ireland) [Mark DURKAN]; Ulster Unionist Party (Northern Ireland) [Sir Reg EMPEY] |
| Political pressure groups and leaders: | Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Confederation of British Industry; National Farmers' Union; Trades Union Congress |
| International organization participation: | AfDB, AsDB, Australia Group, BIS, C, CDB, CE, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, EIB, ESA, EU, FAO, G- 5, G- 7, G- 8, G-10, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, MIGA, MONUC, NAM (guest), NATO, NEA, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OPCW, OSCE, Paris Club, PCA, UN, UN Security Council, UNAMSIL, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNFICYP, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNITAR, UNMIK, UNMIL, UNMOVIC, UNOMIG, UNRWA, UPU, WCO, WEU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, ZC |
| Diplomatic representation in the US: | chief of mission:
Ambassador David G. MANNING chancery: 3100 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008 telephone: [1] (202) 588-6500 FAX: [1] (202) 588-7870 consulate(s) general: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco consulate(s): Dallas, Denver, Miami, and Seattle |
| Diplomatic representation
from the US: |
chief of mission:
Ambassador (vacant); Charge d'Affaires David T.
JOHNSON embassy: 24/31 Grosvenor Square, London, W1A 1AE mailing address: PSC 801, Box 40, FPO AE 09498-4040 telephone: [44] (0) 20 7499-9000 FAX: [44] (0) 20 7629-9124 consulate(s) general: Belfast, Edinburgh |
| Flag description: |
blue field with the red cross of Saint George (patron saint of England) edged in white superimposed on the diagonal red cross of Saint Patrick (patron saint of Ireland), which is superimposed on the diagonal white cross of Saint Andrew (patron saint of Scotland); properly known as the Union Flag, but commonly called the Union Jack; the design and colors (especially the Blue Ensign) have been the basis for a number of other flags including other Commonwealth countries and their constituent states or provinces, as well as British overseas territories |
| Economy | |
| overview: | The UK, a leading trading power and financial center, is one of the quartet of trillion dollar economies of Western Europe. Over the past two decades the government has greatly reduced public ownership and contained the growth of social welfare programs. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanized, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with less than 2% of the labor force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial nation. Services, particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account by far for the largest proportion of GDP while industry continues to decline in importance. GDP growth slipped in 2001-03 as the global downturn, the high value of the pound, and the bursting of the "new economy" bubble hurt manufacturing and exports. Output recovered in 2004, to 3.2% growth. The economy is one of the strongest in Europe; inflation, interest rates, and unemployment remain low. The relatively good economic performance has complicated the BLAIR government's efforts to make a case for Britain to join the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Critics point out that the economy is doing well outside of EMU, and they cite public opinion polls that continue to show a majority of Britons opposed to the euro. Meantime, the government has been speeding up the improvement of education, transport, and health services, at a cost in higher taxes. |
| GDP (purchasing power parity) | $1.782 trillion (2004 est.) |
| GDP - real growth
rate: |
3.2% (2004 est.) |
| GDP - per capita: | purchasing power parity - $29,600 (2004 est.) |
| GDP - composition by sector: | agriculture: 1% industry: 26.3% services: 72.7% (2004 est.) |
| Labor force: |
29.78 million (2004 est.) |
| Labor force - by
occupation: |
agriculture 1.5%, industry
19.1%, services 79.5% (2004) |
| Unemployment rate: | 4.8% (2004 est.) |
| Population below poverty line: | 17% (2002 est.) |
| Household income or consumption by percentage share: | lowest 10%: 2.1% highest 10%: 28.5% (1999) |
| Distribution of family income - Gini index: | 36.
1.4% (2004 est.) 8 (1999) |
| Investment (gross fixed): | 16.2% of GDP (2004 est.) |
| Budget: |
|
| revenues: | $834.9 billion |
| expenditures: | $896.7 billion, including capital expenditures of NA (2004 est.) |
| Public debt: |
39.6% of GDP (2004 est.) |
| Agriculture - products: |
cereals, oilseed,
potatoes, vegetables; cattle, sheep, poultry;
fish |
| Industries: |
machine tools, electric
power equipment, automation equipment, railroad
equipment, shipbuilding, aircraft, motor vehicles and parts,
electronics and communications equipment, metals, chemicals, coal,
petroleum, paper and paper products, food processing, textiles,
clothing, and other consumer goods |
| Industrial production
growth rate: |
0.9% (2004 est.) |
| Electricity - production: | 395.9 billion kWh (2003) |
| Electricity -
consumption: |
337.4 billion kWh (2003) |
| Electricity - exports: | 2.959 billion kWh (2003) |
| Electricity - imports: |
5.119 billion kWh (2003) |
| Oil - production: | 1.957 million bbl/day (2003 est.) |
| Oil - consumption: | 1.692 million bbl/day
(2003 est.) |
| Oil - exports: |
1.498 million bbl/day (2001) |
| Oil - imports: |
1.084 million bbl/day (2003) |
| Oil - proved reserves: | 25.41 billion bbl (2003) |
| Natural gas - production: | 105.9 billion cu m (2001
est.) |
| Natural gas - consumption:
|
92.85 billion cu m (2001 est.) |
| Natural gas - exports: | 15.75 billion cu m (2001 est.) |
| Natural gas - imports: |
2.7 billion cu m (2001 est.) |
| Natural gas - proved reserves: | 714.9 billion cu m (2003) |
| Current account
balance: |
$-33.46 billion (2004 est.) |
| Exports: |
$347.2 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.) |
| Exports - commodities: | manufactured goods, fuels, chemicals; food, beverages, tobacco |
| Exports - partners: |
US 15.3%, Germany 10.8%,
France 9.2%, Ireland 6.8%, Netherlands 6%,
Belgium 5.1%, Spain 4.5%, Italy 4.2% (2004) |
| Imports: |
$439.4 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.) |
| mports - commodities: | manufactured goods, machinery, fuels; foodstuffs |
| Imports - partners: | Germany 13%, US 9.3%,
France 7.4%, Netherlands 6.6%, Belgium 4.9%,
China 4.3%, Italy 4.3% (2004) |
| Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: | $48.73 billion (2004) |
| Debt - external: |
NA |
| Economic aid - donor: |
ODA, $4.2 billion (2004) |
| Currency (code): | British pound (GBP) |
| Exchange rates: |
British pounds per US dollar - 0.5462 (2004), 0.6125 (2003), 0.6672 (2002), 0.6947 (2001), 0.6609 (2000) |
| Fiscal year: |
6 April - 5 April |
| Communications | |
| Telephones - main lines in use: | 34.898 million (2002) |
| Telephones - mobile
cellular: |
49.677 million (2002) |
| Telephone system: |
|
| general assessment: | technologically advanced domestic and international system |
| domestic: | equal mix of buried cables, microwave radio relay, and fiber-optic systems |
| international: | country code - 44; 40
coaxial submarine cables;
satellite earth stations - 10 Intelsat (7 Atlantic Ocean and 3 Indian
Ocean), 1 Inmarsat (Atlantic Ocean region), and 1 Eutelsat; at least 8
large international switching centers |
| Radio broadcast stations: | AM 219, FM 431, shortwave 3 (1998) |
| Television broadcast
stations: |
228 (plus 3,523 repeaters)
(1995) |
| Internet country code: | .uk |
| Internet hosts: | 3,398,708 (2004) |
| Internet users: | 25 million (2002) |
| Transportation |
|
| Railways |
|
| total: | 17,274 km |
| standard gauge: | 16,814 km 1.435-m gauge (5,296 km electrified) |
| broad gauge: | 460 km 1.600-m gauge (in
Northern Ireland) (2004) |
| Highways: | |
| total: | 392,931 km |
| paved: | 392,931 km (including 3,431 km of expressways) |
| unpaved: | 0 km (2003) |
| Waterways: | 3,200 km (620 km used for
commerce) (2004) |
| Pipelines: | condensate 370 km; gas 21,446 km; liquid petroleum gas 59 km; oil 6,420 km; oil/gas/water 63 km; refined products 4,474 km (2004) |
| Ports and harbors: |
Hound Point, Immingham,
Milford Haven, Liverpool, London, Southampton,
Sullom Voe, Teesport |
| Merchant marine: |
|
| total: | 429 ships (1,000 GRT or over) 9,181,284 GRT/9,566,275 DWT |
| by type: | bulk carrier 18, cargo 55,
chemical tanker 48, container 134,
liquefied gas 11, passenger 12, passenger/cargo 64, petroleum tanker
40, refrigerated cargo 19, roll on/roll off 25, vehicle carrier 3 foreign-owned: 202 (Australia 3, Canada 15, Denmark 38, Finland 2, Germany 56, Greece 4, Ireland 1, Italy 9, Netherlands 12, Norway 28, South Africa 4, Sweden 15, Taiwan 7, United States 8) |
| registered in other countries: | 446 (2005) |
| Airports: |
471 (2004 est.) |
| Airports - with paved
runways: |
total: 334 |
| over 3,047 m | 8 |
| 2,438 to 3,047 m: | 33 |
| 1,524 to 2,437 m: | 150 |
| 914 to 1,523 m: | 86 |
| under 914 m: | 57 (2004 est.) |
| Airports - with unpaved runways: | total: 137 |
| 2438 to 3047 m: |
1 |
| 1,524 to 2,437 m: |
1 |
| 914 to 1,523 m: |
23 |
| under 914 m: | 112 (2004 est.) |
| Heliports: | 11 (2004 est.) |
| Military | |
| Military branches: | Army, Royal Navy (includes Royal Marines), Royal Air Force |
| Military service age and
obligation: |
16 years of age for
voluntary military service (January 2004) |
| Manpower available for military service: | males age 16-49: 14,607,724 (2005 est.) |
| Manpower fit for military service: | males age 16-49: 12,046,268 (2005 est.) |
| Military expenditures - dollar figure: | $42,836.5 million (2003) |
| Military expenditures -
percent of GDP: |
2.4% (2003) |
|
Transnational Issues
|
|
| Disputes - international: |
in 2003, Gibraltar residents voted overwhelmingly by referendum to remain a British colony and against a "total shared sovereignty" arrangement while demanding participation in talks between the UK and Spain; Spain disapproves of UK plans to grant Gibraltar greater autonomy; Mauritius and Seychelles claim the Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory), and its former inhabitants since their eviction in 1965; most Chagosians reside in Mauritius, and in 2001 were granted UK citizenship but no right to patriation in the UK; UK rejects sovereignty talks requested by Argentina, which still claims the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; territorial claim in Antarctica (British Antarctic Territory) overlaps Argentine claim and partially overlaps Chilean claim; Iceland, the UK, and Ireland dispute Denmark's claim that the Faroe Islands' continental shelf extends beyond 200 nm |
| Illicit drugs: |
producer of limited amounts of synthetic drugs and synthetic precursor chemicals; major consumer of Southwest Asian heroin, Latin American cocaine, and synthetic drugs; money-laundering center |
Updated on 1 November, 2005