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Country name
(long form): United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Government type:
Constitutional monarchy. Constitution unwritten; partly statutes, partly common
law and practice.
Capital:
London.
Currency:
British pound (GBP).
GDP
(purchasing power parity): US$ 1.528 trillion (2002 est.).
GDP per capita
(purchasing power parity): US$ 25,500 (2002 est.).
Population:
60,095,000 (July 2003).
Population growth
rate:
0.3% (2003).
Life expectancy at
birth: 78.2 years.
Total area:
244,820 km².
Coastline:
12,429 km. 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.
Highest point:
Ben Nevis 1,343 m.
Religions:
Anglican and Roman Catholic 40 million, Muslim 1.5 million, Presbyterian
800,000, Methodist 760,000, Sikh 500,000, Hindu 500,000, Jewish 350,000 .
Languages:
English, Welsh (about 26% of the population of Wales), Scottish form of Gaelic
(about 60,000 in Scotland).
Background
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 European 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.
 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.
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, South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands.
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.
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 only 1%
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. Still, 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, however, that the economy is doing well outside
of EMU, and they point to public opinion polls that continue to show a majority
of Britons opposed to the single currency. Meantime, the government has been
speeding up the improvement of education, transport, and health services, at a
cost in higher taxes. The war in March-April 2003 between a US-led coalition and
Iraq, together with the subsequent problems of restoring the economy and the
polity, involve a heavy commitment of British military forces.
Disputes - international
Gibraltar residents vote overwhelmingly in referendum against "total shared
sovereignty" arrangement worked out between Spain and UK to change 300-year rule
over colony; Mauritius and Seychelles claim the Chagos Archipelago (British
Indian Ocean Territory) and its former inhabitants, who reside chiefly in
Mauritius, but in 2001 were granted UK citizenship and the right to repatriation
since eviction in 1965; Argentina claims the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)
and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Rockall continental shelf
dispute involving Denmark and Iceland; territorial claim in Antarctica (British
Antarctic Territory) overlaps Argentine claim and partially overlaps Chilean
claim; disputes with Iceland, Denmark, and Ireland over the Faroe Islands
continental shelf boundary outside 200 NM.
(Main source: CIA - The
World Factbook 2003)
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