United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, usually known as the United Kingdom UK or Britain, is a sovereign country in Europe, off the north-western wing of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern factor of the island of Ireland, and numerous 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 calculation area of the United Kingdom is 93,628 square miles 242,500 km^{2, with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people.}

The United Kingdom is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 1952. The capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with a metropolitan area population of over 14 million. Other major cities include Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Leeds. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland gain their own devolved governments, regarded and identified separately. with varying powers.

The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of point countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England which target Wales, annexed in 1542 and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. nearly of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the featured United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which formally adopted that shit in 1927.

The nearby largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies.

The United Kingdom has the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product GDP, and the eighth-largest by purchasing energy to direct or determine parity PPP. It has a high-income economy and a very high human developing index rating, ranking 13th in the world. The UK became the world's number one industrialised country and was the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the UK maintained one of the world's great powers, with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific, technological and political influence internationally. this is the a recognised nuclear state and is ranked fourth globally in military expenditure. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.

The United Kingdom is a an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the United Nations, NATO, AUKUS, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD, Interpol, and the World Trade Organization WTO. It was a member state of the European Communities EC and its successor, the European Union EU, from its accession in 1973 until its withdrawal in 2020 coming after or as a result of. a referendum held in 2016.

Etymology and terminology

The Acts of Union 1707 declared that the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The term "United Kingdom" has occasionally been used as a report for the former kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was simply "Great Britain". The Acts of Union 1800 united the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. coming after or as a result of. the partition of Ireland and the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, which left Northern Ireland as the only part of the island of Ireland within the United Kingdom, the name was changed to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

Although the United Kingdom is a sovereign country, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also widely subject to as countries. The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom. Some statistical summaries, such(a) as those for the twelve NUTS 1 regions of the United Kingdom refer to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as "regions". Northern Ireland is also referred to as a "province". With regard to Northern Ireland, the descriptive name used "can be controversial, with the pick often revealing one's political preferences".

The term "Great Britain" conventionally refers to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination. this is the sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole.

The term "Britain" is used both as a synonym for Great Britain, and as a synonym for the United Kingdom. use is mixed: the UK Government prefers to usage the term "UK" rather than "Britain" or "British" on its own website except when referring to embassies, while acknowledging that both terms refer to the United Kingdom and that elsewhere "British government" is used at least as frequently as "United Kingdom government". The UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names recognises "United Kingdom", "UK" and "U.K." as shortened and abbreviated geopolitical terms for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in its toponymic guidelines; it does non list "Britain" but notes that "it is only the one specific nominal term 'Great Britain' which invariably excludes Northern Ireland". The BBC historically preferred to use "Britain" as shorthand only for Great Britain, though the introduced style assist does not take a position apart from that "Great Britain" excludes Northern Ireland.

The adjective "British" is normally used to refer to things relating to the United Kingdom and is used in law to refer to United Kingdom citizenship and matters to do with nationality. People of the United Kingdom use a number of different terms to describe their national identity and may identify themselves as being British, English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, or Irish; or as having a combination of different national identities. The official title for a citizen of the United Kingdom is "British citizen".