Government 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
note: England may now have 35 counties and Wales 9 counties
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
Independence: England has existed as a unified entity since the 10th century; the union between England and Wales was enacted under the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284; in the Act of Union of 1707, England and Scotland agreed to permanent union 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: Celebration of the Birthday of the Queen
(second Saturday in June)
Constitution: unwritten; partly statutes, partly common law and
practice
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; British courts and legislation are increasingly subject to review by European Union courts
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 C. L. (Tony) BLAIR (since
2 May 1997)
cabinet: Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister
elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; the prime minister is
the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons (assuming
there is no majority party, a prime minister would have a majority
coalition or at least a coalition that was not rejected by the
majority)