_#_Capital: London
_#_Administrative divisions: 47 counties, 7 metropolitan counties, 26 districts, 9 regions, and 3 islands areas;
England—39 counties, 7 metropolitan counties*; Avon, Bedford,
Berkshire, Buckingham, Cambridge, Cheshire, Cleveland, Cornwall, Cumbria,
Derby, Devon, Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucester, Greater
London*, Greater Manchester*, Hampshire, Hereford and Worcester,
Hertford, Humberside, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicester,
Lincoln, Merseyside*, Norfolk, Northampton, Northumberland,
North Yorkshire, Nottingham, Oxford, Shropshire, Somerset, South
Yorkshire*, Stafford, Suffolk, Surrey, Tyne and Wear*, Warwick, West
Midlands*, West Sussex, West Yorkshire*, Wiltshire;
Northern Ireland—26 districts; Antrim, Ards, Armagh, Ballymena,
Ballymoney, Banbridge, Belfast, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Coleraine,
Cookstown, Craigavon, Down, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady,
Lisburn, Londonderry, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey,
North Down, Omagh, Strabane;
Scotland—9 regions, 3 islands areas*; Borders, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Orkney*, Shetland*, Strathclyde, Tayside, Western Isles*;
Wales—8 counties; Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan,
Powys, South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan
_#_Independence: 1 January 1801, United Kingdom established
_#_Constitution: unwritten; partly statutes, partly common law and practice
_#_Dependent areas: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Hong Kong (scheduled to become a Special Administrative Region of China in 1997), Jersey, Isle of Man, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands
_#_Legal system: common law tradition with early Roman and modern continental influences; no judicial review of Acts of Parliament; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations