Names:
conventional long form: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland
conventional short form: United Kingdom
Abbreviation: UK
Digraph: UK
Type: constitutional monarchy
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
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 on 1 July 1997), Jersey, Isle of Man, Montserrat,
Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands
Independence: 1 January 1801 (United Kingdom established)
National holiday: Celebration of the Birthday of the Queen (second
Saturday in June)
Constitution: unwritten; partly statutes, partly common law and
practice