Languages:
English, Welsh (about 26% of the population of Wales), Scottish
form of Gaelic (about 60,000 in Scotland)
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over has completed five or more years of
schooling
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.)
Government United Kingdom
Country name:
conventional long form: United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland; note - Great Britain includes England, Scotland,
and Wales
conventional short form: United Kingdom
abbreviation: UK
Government type:
constitutional monarchy
Capital:
name: London
geographic coordinates: 51 30 N, 0 10 W
time difference: UTC 0 (5 hours ahead of Washington, DC during
Standard Time)
daylight saving time: +1hr, begins last Sunday in March; ends last
Sunday in October
Administrative divisions:
England: 47 boroughs, 36 counties, 29 London boroughs, 12 cities
and boroughs, 10 districts, 12 cities, 3 royal boroughs
boroughs: Barnsley, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Bolton,
Bournemouth, Bracknell Forest, Brighton and Hove, Bury, Calderdale,
Darlington, Doncaster, Dudley, Gateshead, Halton, Hartlepool,
Kirklees, Knowsley, Luton, Medway, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes,
North Tyneside, Oldham, Poole, Reading, Redcar and Cleveland,
Rochdale, Rotherham, Sandwell, Sefton, Slough, Solihull,
Southend-on-Sea, South Tyneside, St. Helens, Stockport,
Stockton-on-Tees, Swindon, Tameside, Thurrock, Torbay, Trafford,
Walsall, Warrington, Wigan, Wirral, Wolverhampton
counties (or unitary authorities): Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon,
Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire,
Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire,
Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, North Yorkshire,
Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire,
Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire,
West Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire
London boroughs: Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent,
Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney,
Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon,
Hounslow, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge,
Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham
Forest, Wandsworth
cities and boroughs: Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Leeds,
Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Sheffield,
Sunderland, Wakefield, Westminster
districts: Bath and North East Somerset, East Riding of Yorkshire,
North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, North Somerset,
Rutland, South Gloucestershire, Telford and Wrekin, West Berkshire,
Wokingham
cities: City of Bristol, Derby, City of Kingston upon Hull,
Leicester, City of London, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth,
Portsmouth, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, York
royal boroughs: Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames,
Windsor and Maidenhead
Northern Ireland: 24 districts, 2 cities, 6 counties
districts: Antrim, Ards, Armagh, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Banbridge,
Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Craigavon, Down,
Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Magherafelt, Moyle,
Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane
cities: Belfast, Londonderry (Derry)
counties: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County
Fermanagh, County Londonderry, County Tyrone
Scotland: 32 council areas: Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Angus,
Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee
City, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, East
Renfrewshire, City of Edinburgh, Eilean Siar (Western Isles),
Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow City, Highland, Inverclyde, Midlothian,
Moray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Orkney Islands, Perth and
Kinross, Renfrewshire, Shetland Islands, South Ayrshire, South
Lanarkshire, Stirling, The Scottish Borders, West Dunbartonshire,
West Lothian;
Wales: 11 county boroughs, 9 counties, 2 cities and counties
county boroughs: Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Conwy,
Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Rhondda Cynon
Taff, Torfaen, Wrexham
counties: Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Denbighshire, Flintshire,
Isle of Anglesey, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire, Powys, The Vale of
Glamorgan
cities and counties: Cardiff, Swansea
Dependent areas:
Anguilla, Bermuda, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin
Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat,
Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena and Ascension, 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, 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
National holiday:
the UK does not celebrate one particular national holiday