Language: English
Currency: Pound sterling (GBP)
Calling Code: 44
Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, the full
official form is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, a sovereign state off the northwestern coast of continental
Europe, consisting of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The
United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the northeastern
part of the island of Ireland and many of the smaller British Isles.
Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland;
otherwise, Great Britain is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North
Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total
area of the United Kingdom is 242,500 km², and the population in 2020
was estimated at over 67 million people.
The UK is a unitary
parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. King Charles III
has ruled since 2022. The capital and largest city is London, a global
financial center with over 14 million people. Other major cities are
Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Leeds. Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland have their own governments, each with different
powers.
The United Kingdom emerged from a series of annexations,
unions, and secessions of its member countries over several hundred
years. The Kingdom of Great Britain was formed in 1707 as a result of
the signing of the Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which
already included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland. In
1800, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland united to
form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which, after the
separation of the Irish Free State from it in 1922, became known as the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1927.
The neighboring Isles of Man, Guernsey and Jersey are not part of the UK
as they are crown holdings and the British government is responsible for
defense and international representation. Today, the 14 British Overseas
Territories are the last remnants of the British Empire, which at its
height in the 1920s covered nearly a quarter of the land mass and a
third of the world's population, becoming the largest empire in history.
British influence is seen in the language, culture, legal and political
systems of many of the country's former colonies.
The UK economy
ranks sixth in the world in terms of nominal gross domestic product
(GDP) and eighth in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). The
country's economy is characterized by a high level of income and a very
high human development index (13th in the world). Great Britain became
the world's first industrialized country and was the foremost world
power in the 19th century and early 20th century. Today, Great Britain
remains one of the great powers of the world, with significant economic,
cultural, military, scientific, technological and political influence at
the international level. It is a recognized nuclear power, ranking
fourth in the world in terms of military spending. The UK has been a
permanent member of the UN Security Council since its first session in
1946.
The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of
Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7 (G7), the Group of Ten, the G20
(G20), the UN, NATO, AUKUS, the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD), Interpol and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The UK was a member state of the European Communities and their
successor, the European Union (EU), from accession in 1973 until leaving
the EU in 2020 following a referendum held in 2016.
East Sussex
The origin of the word "Great" in the name "Great Britain"
Claudius Ptolemy in his Almagest (147-148 AD) calls the larger island
"Greater Brittany" (Old Greek μεγάλης Βρεττανίας), and Ireland "Little
Brittany". In his later work Geography (A.D. 150) he calls these islands
"Alvion", "Ivernia" and "Mona" (Isle of Man). It is assumed that these
names were not known to him at the time of writing the Almagest. The
name "Albion" apparently fell out of use some time after the conquest of
the islands by the Romans, and the island began to be called "Great
Britain".
After the Anglo-Saxon period, the name "Britain" began
to be referred to only as a historical term. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his
semi-legendary work "History of the Kings of Britain" calls Great
Britain "Greater Britain" ("Greater Britain"), which is separated from
"Little Britannia" ("Little Britain") - an area in continental Europe
where Celtic immigrants from the British Isles settled in the 5th-6th
century. The name "Great Britain" was first used officially in 1474, in
a marriage proposal letter between Cecily, daughter of Edward IV of
England, and James, son of James III of Scotland, which said "this noble
island called Great Britain". Officially, this word sounded again in
1604, when King James VI proclaimed himself "King of Great Britain,
France and Ireland."
Use of the name "UK"
In Russian, "Great
Britain" is the most common designation for the United Kingdom. "Great
Britain" is also the name of the island on which England, Scotland and
Wales are located.
In English, the acronyms GB and GBR are used
in documents to represent the United Kingdom in some international
organizations such as the Universal Postal Union, sports teams, NATO,
the International Organization for Standardization, and in international
codes.
On the Internet, the ".uk" domain is used to designate
sites belonging to the United Kingdom. The ".gb" domain, which was used
earlier, is outdated, new site registrations are not accepted for it.
The name "Team GB" is used by the British Olympic Association to
name the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team at the Olympics.
Another example of the use of the name "Britain" instead of "United
Kingdom" is the use of the name "British Grand Prix" in motorsport.
The state is located on the British Isles (the island of Great
Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, as well as a
large number of smaller islands and archipelagos, including the
Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland Islands, Anglesey, Arran, White) in the
Atlantic Ocean. It is washed by the Northern, Irish, Celtic and Hebrides
seas. The southeast coast is located just 35 km from the northern coast
of France, which are separated by the English Channel.
The area
of Great Britain is 243,809 km², of which land - 240,579 km², inland
waters - 3230 km². According to 1993 data, 10% of the land was covered
with forest, 46% was used for pasture, and another 25% was used in
agriculture.
The coastline is 17,820 km long.
The southern
coast is connected to continental Europe through a 50 km long Eurotunnel
(of which 38 km are under water). This is the longest underwater tunnel
in the world.
Northern Ireland shares a 499 km land border with
the Republic of Ireland and is the UK's only land border.
The
Greenwich Observatory in London is the place where the prime meridian
passes. In general, Great Britain is located between latitudes 49° and
61° north and between longitudes 9° west and 2° east.
England
occupies a little more than half of the entire territory of Great
Britain, covering 130,395 km².
Most of it consists of lowlands.
Uplands are concentrated in the north (Pennines) and northwest
(Cumberland Mountains). Among the latter, the highest peak in England is
Scafell Pike (978 m).
The longest rivers are the Thames, the
Severn and the Humber.
Scotland occupies a little less than a
third of the entire territory of Great Britain, covering 78,772 km². It
includes about eight hundred islands - mainly in the west and north of
the main territory. Among them, it is worth highlighting the Hebrides,
Orkney and Shetland Islands. The topography of Scotland is largely
defined by the Highland Boundary Fault, which cuts across Scotland from
the Isle of Arran in the west to Stonehaven in the east. A fault line
separates two very different regions: the Scottish Highlands in the
northwest and the Lowlands in the southeast. The rugged Highlands
contain almost all of Scotland's mountains, including Ben Nevis, which
at 1,343m is the highest point in the British Isles.
Lowland
(Lowland "lowland"), especially the Lowlands between the Firth of Clyde
and the Firth of Forth, also known as the "Central Belt", is much
flatter; most of the population lives here, including in the largest
cities of Scotland Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Wales occupies only
less than one tenth of the entire territory of Great Britain, covering
20,779 km². Wales is mostly mountainous, although South Wales is less
mountainous than the rest. The main population and industrial zones are
located in South Wales, including the coastal cities of Cardiff, Swansea
and Newport. The highest mountains in Wales are located in Snowdonia
(including Mount Snowdon with a height of 1085 m). The coastline of
Wales has a length of 1200 km.
The largest island is Anglesey in
the northwest.
Northern Ireland covers only 13,843 km² and is
mostly hilly. Here is Loch Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles
(388 km²).
The highest point in Northern Ireland is Slieve Donard
in the Morne Mountains with a height of 852 m.
Great Britain has a temperate oceanic climate with a lot of rain throughout the year. Temperatures vary seasonally but rarely fall below -12°C or rise above 35°C. The main winds come from the southwest and often bring cold and wet weather from the Atlantic Ocean, however, the eastern parts of the country are mostly protected from these winds and, since most of the precipitation falls in the western regions, the eastern ones are the driest. Atlantic currents, heated by the Gulf Stream, bring mild winters; it occasionally snows in winter and early spring, although the snow usually does not last long.
Regional and local government
Each of the four autonomous parts of
the United Kingdom has its own system of administrative and geographical
divisions, which often date back to pre-United Kingdom times.
Accordingly, "there is no standard level of administrative division
linking the whole of Great Britain". Until the 19th century, there were
practically no changes in the old divisions, but then a constant
evolution of roles and functions began. However, these changes were not
universal, and the further transfer of powers to Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland means that they are unlikely to be universal in the
future.
The organization of local government in England is very
complex, with the distribution of functions depending on local orders.
The legislative framework for English self-government is set by the UK
Parliament and Government, as England does not have its own Parliament.
The highest level of division of England is made up of nine government
regions or government regions of the European Union. One region, Greater
London, has had its own elected assembly and mayor since 2000 after
supporting the issue in a referendum in 1998. It was assumed that other
regions would also get their own regional assemblies, but the refusal of
one in North East England in a referendum in 2004 stopped this idea.
Below the regional level comes either a county council and then district
councils, or unitary councils, while London has its own system of 32
London boroughs. Council members are elected by majority system.
Scotland is administratively divided into 32 counties with a wide
variation in size and population among them. The cities of Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee have the status of separate districts, as
does the Highlands, which includes the territory of a third of Scotland,
but has a population of just over 200,000 people. Local government
rights are exercised by elected deputies, who now number 1,222 and
receive part-time salaries. Elections are held under the system of a
single non-transferable vote and select three or four deputies, who then
choose a chairman who chairs the meetings and speaks on behalf of the
entire region.
Wales is administratively made up of 22 unitary
entities, including Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, each of which has the
status of a separate entity. Elections are held every 4 years according
to the majority system. Northern Ireland has been divided into 26
districts since 1973. Their rights are limited to service functions such
as garbage collection, pet control, and park maintenance. On March 13,
2008, a decision was made to create 11 new districts and replace the
existing system. The next local elections were canceled until 2011 to
organize a new system.
British territories outside the United
Kingdom
Britain extends its sovereignty over seventeen territories
that are not part of the United Kingdom: 14 British Overseas Territories
and three Crown Lands.
Fourteen overseas territories: Anguilla
(capital of the Valley), Bermuda (capital of Hamilton), British
Antarctic Territory (capital of Rothera), British Indian Ocean Territory
(capital of Diego Garcia), British Virgin Islands (capital of Road
Town), Gibraltar (capital of Gibraltar) ), Cayman Islands (capital
Georgetown), Montserrat Island (capital Plymouth), Saint Helena,
Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (capital Jamestown), Pitcairn Island
(capital Adamstown), Turks and Caicos Islands (capital Coburn Town),
Falklands islands (the capital is Stanley), South Georgia and the South
Sandwich Islands (the capital is Grytviken) and Sovereign Military Bases
in Cyprus (the capital is Episkopi). British claims in Antarctica are
not universally recognized, the presence of military bases in Cyprus is
disputed by the Republic of Cyprus, and the rights to the Falkland
Islands by Argentina. Together, the Overseas Territories cover 1,727,527
km² (excluding the British Antarctic Territory, 18,127 km²) and have a
population of 260,000. These territories are the legacy of the British
Empire and have made their own choice to retain British sovereignty.
The Crown lands are the domains of the Crown, as opposed to overseas
territories. This includes the Balleys of the Channel Islands of Jersey
and Guernsey in the English Channel and the Isle of Man in the Irish
Sea. All three Crown Lands have an area of 766 km² and a population of
235,000. Being self-governing jurisdictions, they, like the Overseas
Territories, are not part of the United Kingdom or the European Union,
although the government of the United Kingdom is responsible for foreign
policy and defense matters, and the British Parliament has the right to
legislate on behalf of the territories. The power to make laws
concerning the island co-exists with the territories' own legislative
assemblies, subject to the consent of the Privy Council of the Crown.
The Heads of Government of the Crown Lands are their respective Chief
Ministers (Maine since 1986, Guernsey since 2004, Jersey since 2005).
The UK census takes place simultaneously in all its parts every ten
years.
According to the 2011 census, the total population of the
UK was 63,181,775. According to this indicator, the country ranks 3rd in
the EU, 5th in the Commonwealth of Nations and 21st in the world. By
mid-2011, it is estimated at 62,698,362. In 2008, natural population
growth began to influence population growth more than migration for the
first time since 1998. From 2001 to 2008, the population grew at an
average annual rate of 0.5%, up from 0.3% from 1991 to 2001 and 0.2% in
the previous decade. Population figures released in 2008 in mid-2007
suggest that for the first time in UK history there were more people of
retirement age than children under 16. According to some estimates, the
number of people aged 100 years and over will rise to 626,000 by 2080.
England's population in mid-2008 was estimated at 51.44 million,
making it one of the highest population densities in the world, with 383
inhabitants per square kilometer as of mid-2003, with a particular
concentration in London and the South East. Mid-2008 estimates suggest a
population of 5.17 million for Scotland, 2.99 million for Wales and 1.78
million for Northern Ireland, with much lower populations in these
areas. As a percentage, population growth in Northern Ireland was the
highest among other regions of the UK in all four years prior to 2008.
The largest cities include London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool,
Leeds.
In 2008, the UK's total fertility rate was 1.96 children
per woman. While rising birth rates do contribute to population growth,
they remain relatively below the 1964 baby boom peak of 2.95 children
per woman and below the replacement rate of 2.1, but above the 2001
record low of 1 .63 children per woman. Scotland has the lowest rate of
1.8 children per woman, while Northern Ireland had a rate of 2.11 in
2008.
Historically, the inhabitants of Great Britain are considered a
mixture of various ethnic groups that settled on its territory before
the 11th century: Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans.
Recent genetic studies have shown that more than 50 percent of English
genes contain Germanic Y chromosomes, although other recent genetic
analyzes suggest that "approximately 75% of the traceable ancestors of
the modern British population arrived in the British Isles approximately
6200 years ago, at the beginning of the British Neolithic or Stone Age."
century”, and also the British have in many respects common ancestors
with the Basques.
The United Kingdom has a history of little
non-white immigration, Liverpool has the oldest black population in the
country dating back to at least the 1730s, and the oldest Chinese
community dating back to the first arrival of Chinese sailors in the
19th century.
In 1950 there were less than 20,000 non-whites in
the UK, almost all of whom were born overseas.
Since 1945 there
has been constant immigration from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia
as a legacy of the links established by the British Empire. Migration
from the new EU members to Central and Eastern Europe since 2004 has led
to a rapid growth of communities from these countries, but by 2008 this
trend began to reverse as many migrants returned home.
The racial
composition varies in different parts of the country. 30.4% of the
London population and 37.4% of the Leicester population in 2005 were
non-white, while less than 5% of the population of North East England,
Wales and South West England were ethnic minorities in the 2001 census.
Languages
The official language of Great Britain is English (de
facto) - a West Germanic language that developed from Old English, which
had a large number of borrowings from Old Norse, Norman, French and
Latin. Thanks in large part to the British Empire, English has spread
throughout the world and has become the international language of
business and the most popular second language spoken. It was assumed
that after leaving the EU, English would lose its status as one of the
24 official languages of the EU.
Scots (Germanic), which
developed from Early Northern Middle English, is prominent at the
European level, as is its dialect in the northern counties of Ireland,
Ulster-Scots.
Four more Celtic languages are used in Great
Britain: Welsh, Irish, Scottish (Gaelic) and Cornish.
During the
2001 census, about 21% of the Welsh population said they could speak
Welsh, up from 18% in the 1991 census. Another 200,000 people living in
England also speak Welsh.
The 2001 census in Northern Ireland
showed that 167,487 (10.4%) people "had some knowledge of Irish", nearly
all from the Catholic or Nationalist population. Over 92,000 in Scotland
(just under 2%) had some knowledge of Scottish Celtic, including 72% of
the Outer Hebrides. The number of students being taught Welsh, Scottish
Celtic or Irish is also on the rise.
Welsh and Scots Celtic are
also spoken by small groups of people in the world outside the UK - for
example, Scots Celtic is spoken by a few people in Nova Scotia and
Canada (especially on Cape Breton Island), and a few people in the
Argentine province of Chubut (Patagonia) speak Welsh.
In the UK
as a whole, schoolchildren are required to learn a second language up to
a certain point: up to 14 in England, and up to 16 in Scotland. French
and German are the two most studied second languages in these two
regions. In Wales, children under 16 are either taught in Welsh or
taught Welsh as a second language.
The social structure of Great Britain was historically formed under
the influence of the concept of social class, which has its influence on
British society at the present time. British society before the
Industrial Revolution, like the societies of Britain's European
neighbors and most of the societies of world history, was feudal and
divided into groups according to a hierarchical principle, based on the
hereditary transmission of occupation, social status and political
influence. After the start of industrialization, this system began to be
constantly revised, and now the formation of personality depends not
only on origin, but also on many other factors (including education).
While definitions of social class in the UK vary and are often quite
subjective, many of them depend on factors such as wealth, occupation
and education. Before the Life Peerage Act 1958 came into force, the
British Parliament was organized along class lines: the House of Lords
consisted only of the hereditary representatives of the upper class, and
the House of Commons of all the rest. The British monarch, as a rule, is
at the top of the entire class society.
British society has
changed significantly since the end of the Second World War, namely in
terms of increased opportunities for higher education and property
ownership, a shift towards a service-oriented national economy, mass
migration, an expansion of the role of women in society and a shift of
culture towards individualism. At the same time, statements that a
classless society has formed in the UK are quite often perceived with
skepticism. Research shows that social status in the UK is influenced by
social class. The largest research survey on social stratification in
the UK is the so-called UK Class Survey.
Religion
Main
religions: Christianity, the most common religion (42,079,000) - 71.6%,
Islam (1,591,000) - 2.7%, Hinduism (559,000) - 1%, Sikhism (336,000) -
0.6% , Judaism (267,000) - 0.5%, Buddhism (152,000) - 0.3%, other
religions (179,000) - 0.3%, atheists (9,104,000) - 15.5%, refrained from
answering (4,289,000) - 7.3%.
On the territory of England there
is a church with state status - the Church of England, the secular head
of which is the British monarch. The Church of England is one of the
local churches belonging to the Anglican Communion, which has its
spiritual leader in the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The largest
Christian denominations in the UK are Anglicans (more than 25 million),
Catholics (5.6 million), Presbyterians (more than 1 million). The
fastest growing denomination in the country is represented by the
Pentecostals (about 1 million).
According to research, the United
Kingdom is a country with a predominantly secular population, with only
38% of people claiming to believe in God (“a God”), although according
to the Church of England in 2005, “72% of the population of England
indicated their religious affiliation as Christian ".
According
to an April 2008 study by the Christian charity Joseph Rowntree
Foundation, the "prevailing view" is that of religion as a "social
evil". The same results were obtained as a result of other similar
studies.
Before 1707
The settlement by modern people of the territories
that later became part of Great Britain began about 30,000 years ago and
occurred in waves.
It is believed that by the end of the
prehistoric period, the population mainly belonged to the culture of the
Island Celts, which included the Britons of the island of Britain and
the Gaels of the island of Ireland.
The Roman conquest of Britain
began in 43 AD, led to 400 years of Roman rule over southern Britain,
followed by an invasion by Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers, leading to
assimilation with the Celts. At the same time, some tribes of the Celtic
Britons settled in what is now Wales. The territories inhabited by
Anglo-Saxons and Celts united to form the Kingdom of England in the 10th
century, while the Gaels of northwestern Britain (presumably migrating
from northwestern Ireland in the 5th century) united with the Picts to
form the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century.
In 1066, the
Normans invaded England, and after its conquest, they captured most of
Wales and Ireland and received an invitation to settle in Scotland. They
brought to all these countries northern French feudalism and
Norman-French culture. The Norman elite strongly influenced all local
cultures, but eventually assimilated with them. Subsequent kings of
England completed the conquest of Wales and unsuccessfully attempted to
annex Scotland. After that, Scotland maintained its independence,
despite the almost constant conflicts with England. Inheritance of large
territories of France and claims to the French throne incessantly
involved the English monarchs in conflicts with France, the most
significant of which was the Hundred Years War.
In 1536, the
Parliament of England unilaterally formally annexed Wales, and Ireland
from 1542 (Crown of Ireland Act 1542) found itself in a personal union
with the English crown. In what would become Northern Ireland, the lands
of the independent Catholic Gaelic nobility were confiscated and
distributed to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.
In
the 16th century, the countries that make up Great Britain underwent
Reformation processes, which led to the establishment of Protestant
state religions in each of the countries, in particular in England (the
Reformation in England) and Scotland (the Reformation in Scotland).
In 1603 the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were united in
a personal union when King James VI of Scotland inherited the crowns of
England and Ireland and transferred his court from Edinburgh to London.
However, each country retained a separate political identity and its own
political institutions.
In the middle of the 17th century, all
three kingdoms were involved in a series of military conflicts
(including civil war), which led to the temporary overthrow of the
monarchy in 1649 and the short-lived establishment of the unitary state
of the English Republic. Although the monarchy was restored in 1660, the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 made it clear that, unlike the rest of
Europe, absolute monarchy had no future. The political structure of the
state was formed on the basis of a constitutional monarchy and a
parliamentary system. During this period, especially in England, the
development of sea power (and interest in geographical discovery) led to
the annexation and settlement of overseas colonies, mainly in North
America.
After the Act of Union of 1707
On May 1, 1707, the
Kingdom of Great Britain came into existence, created by the political
union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland in accordance with the
Treaty of Union of 1706, which was agreed upon the previous year and
ratified by the English and Scottish Parliaments.
In the 18th
century, the country played an important role in the development of
Western ideas of parliamentarism, and also contributed to literature,
art and science. The British-led industrial revolution changed the
country and ensured the growth of the British Empire. At this time,
Britain, like other great powers, was involved in colonial development,
including the slave trade, although after the passage of the Slave Trade
Act in 1807, the United Kingdom took a leading role in the fight against
it. Britain was primarily focused on the colonies in North America.
After their loss due to the American War of Independence, imperial
ambitions turned to other parts of the planet, in particular to India.
In 1800, the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland passed the Act
of Union, uniting the two kingdoms and creating the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, which came into existence on January 1, 1801.
After the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
(1792-1815), Great Britain became the main maritime and economic power
(with London being the largest city in the world from about 1830 to
1930) and remained a superpower until the middle of the 20th century.
With no competition at sea, Britain assumed the role of world arbiter, a
state of affairs later known as "Pax Britannica". It was also a period
of rapid economic, colonial and industrial growth. England was
metaphorically called "the workshop of the world"; The British Empire
annexed India, significant possessions in Africa and other territories
around the world. In addition to the formal control it exercised over
its colonies, Britain's dominance of world trade meant de facto economic
control over many countries such as China, Argentina and Siam. In the
domestic market, however, there was a transition to a policy of free
trade and laissez-faire and a significant expansion of trade. The
country experienced rapid population growth during the century,
accompanied by rapid urbanization, resulting in significant social and
economic disruption. By the end of the century, other states began to
compete with Britain in industrial dominance.
Britain, along with
Russia, France and the United States (since 1917), was one of the main
powers waging war against the German Empire and its allies in the First
World War (1914-1918). The military forces of Britain exceeded 5 million
people, collected from all over the empire and some regions of Europe,
and played one of the main roles on the Western Front. The nation had an
estimated 2.5 million wounded and ended the war with a huge sovereign
debt. After the war, Britain received a League of Nations mandate for
the former German and Ottoman colonies, which expanded the British
Empire to its largest extent, covering one-fifth of the land, home to a
quarter of the world's population. However, the rise of Irish
nationalism and disputes within Ireland over the terms of Home Rule led
to the virtual partition of the island in 1921, with the independent
Irish Free State and Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK.
The Great Depression (1929–1932) came while the United Kingdom was still
far from recovering from the effects of the war and caused unrest,
including political and social unrest.
Britain, along with France
and its colonies, declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, which
turned the earlier Polish-German conflict into a global war; was one of
the three main allies in World War II against the Axis countries. After
the defeats of its European allies, Great Britain continued to fight
Germany, in particular in the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the
Atlantic. During the war and after the victory over Germany, the United
Kingdom was one of the three powers participating in a series of
conferences on the post-war order of the world: the Tehran Conference
(1943), the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the Potsdam Conference
(summer 1945). The war left the country in dire financial straits and
heavily indebted to the United States, which began in 1948 a program of
aid to Europe known as the Marshall Plan. Britain paid the last amount
of the war debt to America only towards the end of 2006.
The
Labor government in the post-war years initiated a radical program of
change that influenced British society in the following decades.
Domestically, many industries and service companies were nationalized, a
state social security system and a publicly funded health care system
were created. In response to rising local nationalism, the decline of
the British economy, and US government demands for colonial
independence, decolonization began with the independence of India and
Pakistan in 1947. Over the next few decades, most of the territories of
the Empire gained independence and became sovereign members of the
Commonwealth of Nations.
After World War II
After the Second
World War, Britain lost control of most of the former colonies, but
received a seat as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council, and after 7 years became the third country of the nuclear club
(the first test of the atomic bomb in 1952), having independently
developed atomic weapons after being denied 1945, the US government to
provide Britain with the results of joint research in the nuclear field
in accordance with previous agreements.
After the Suez crisis of 1956, which was a painful geopolitical
defeat for Britain, caused primarily by a direct ultimatum from the
United States, the country finally ceased to play an independent role in
international relations as a great power and has since then strictly
followed the US foreign policy line.
The international reach of
the English language ensured the continued international influence of
British literature and culture, and from the 1960s pop culture began to
influence overseas.
Due to labor shortages in the 1950s, the
British government began to encourage immigration from the Commonwealth
countries, thus transforming Britain into a multi-ethnic society. In
1973 the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community. From the
late 1960s until the Belfast Agreement in 1998, there was conflict in
Northern Ireland between radical factions of the Protestant majority and
the Catholic minority, also involving the police and the British armed
forces.
Following a period of worldwide economic slowdown and
underperformance in the 1970s, the Conservative government in the 1980s
embarked on a radical deregulation policy, particularly in the financial
sector and the labor market, privatizing state-owned companies and
eliminating subsidies for those that remained. Supported since 1984 by
financial revenues from North Sea oil, the UK experienced a period of
great economic growth. Towards the end of the 20th century, great
changes in government took place with the establishment of a devolved
national administration in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales,
following pre-legal referendums and the introduction of laws in line
with the European Convention on Human Rights. Britain's foreign military
operations in the first decade of the 21st century, especially the
invasion of Iraq and the Afghan campaign, caused great controversy at
home. Same-sex marriage was legalized in 2013.
The entry of
Britain in 1973 into the European Economic Community (since 1993 the
European Union) drew a line under the history of the country as a
colonial metropolis, and the transfer of Hong Kong under the sovereignty
of the PRC in 1997 deprived it of its last significant colonial
possession. On June 23, 2016, the country passed a vote on membership in
the European Union. 51.9% of those who came to the referendum (37% of
all voters) voted for the exit, and the population of Scotland, Northern
Ireland and London voted against leaving the EU. On June 24, 2016, Prime
Minister David Cameron, who advocated maintaining EU membership,
announced his early resignation. On July 13, 2016, Theresa May was
appointed Prime Minister, having led the Conservative Party two days
earlier. On March 29, 2017, President of the European Council Donald
Tusk received a letter from Theresa May announcing the UK's withdrawal
from the EU.
The state was expected to leave the European Union
on 29 March 2019 at 23:00 GMT. However, as a result of fierce
disagreement between the positions of all parties in Parliament, as well
as in the UK Government, the release date was postponed by an amendment
to the law to April 12 or May 22, 2019. On March 29, the House of
Commons for the third time rejected the draft agreement on leaving the
European Union, submitted for discussion by the government of Theresa
May, thus plunging the country into a protracted political crisis.
The UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020 at 23:00 London
time.
On September 8th 2022 Queen Elizabeth II has died. Her son Charles became king Charles III.
Chronology
54 BC Julius Caesar lands in Britain with his legions, but
withdraws later.
43AD Roman army during reign of Emperor
Claudius invade the island and establish their presence.
61
Queen Boadicea leads rebellion against the Romans. She captures
and burns down Saint Albans and Colchester. Eventually she was
defeated by the Roman army.
70 Romans conquer Wales and the
North.
74- 84 Agricola wages war against tribes of Scotland.
Eventually he retreats with his legions.
120 The
Wall of Hadrian
is constricted on the border with Scotland during reign of
Emperor Hadrian.
140- 143 Romans invade
Southern Scotland, acquire new lands and construct
Antonine Wall to
mark new frontier between Roman Empire and barbaric tribes.
254 Saint Alban in beheaded and becomes the first Christian martyr of
Britain.
306 Roman soldiers in York make Constantine a new Roman
Emperor.
350- 69 Picts and Scots attack the Roman outposts on the
frontier.
410 Roman begin their withdrawal from the island.
440s-
Angle, Saxon, Jute tribes invade the island as Roman influence
decreases.
470- 495 Saxons and Angles settle Essex, Sussex and East
Anglia.
563 Saint Columba lands on Iona.
597 Saint Augustine is
sent by Rome to convert pagan tribes to Christianity.
617- 85
Northumbrian kingdom gains influence in the region.
635 Saint Aidan
establishes a monastery on Lindisfarne.
867 Northumbria is captured
by the invading groups of the Vikings
878 King Alfred defeats the
Vikings, but then allows them to settle in Eastern England.
1016
Danish king Canute becomes king of England.
1034 Duncan I becomes the
king of Scotland.
1066 William the Conqueror crosses the English
Channel from France and invades Britain. He defeats Anglo- Saxon king
Harold at the battle of Hasting and becomes the first Norman king of
England and is crowned in Westminster.
1071 Hereward the Wake leads
Anglo- Saxon resistance against the Normans. He is defeated at Ely.
1086 The Domesday Book is compiled for tax purposes.
1154 Henry II,
the first Plantagenet king, destroys castles and collects money from the
aristocracy as an exempt from military royal service.
1215 King John
is forced by his barons to sign Magna Carta.
1256 First British
Parliament that includes commoners.
1282- 83 Edward I conquers Wales.
1296 Edward I invades Scotland and fights Scottish resistance that
includes such famous heroes as William Wallace (aka"The Braveheart")
1314 Battle of Bannockburn. Scottish army under Richard the Bruce
defeats English armies.
1348 Black Death kills large European
population.
1381 Peasants' revolt against imposition of poll taxes on
everyone in the country over 14.
1387 Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales.
1415 Battle of
Agincourt, English are victorious.
1453 Hundred Years' War against
France is over.
1485 Battle of Bosworth ends Wars of the Roses.
1497 John Cabot explores North America.
John Colet denounces the
corruption of the church clergy. He is supported by Sir Thomas More and
Erasmus.
1513 Battle of Flodden. English defeat the Scottish army.
1533- 34 Marriage troubles of Henry VIII forces the king to separate
from Catholic Church and form Church of England.
1535 Act of Union
with Wales.
1536- 40 Monasteries in England are abandoned by royal
edict. Remaining monks are expelled by force.
1542- 67 Queen Mary,
Queen of Scots rules Scotland.
1549 First Book of Common Prayer is
published.
1553 Edward VI dies, throne passes to the Catholic Mary I.
1558- 1603 Reign of Elizabeth I, Virgin Queen and daughter of Henry
VIII.
1559 Queen Mary lays claim to English throne.
1570 Sir
Francis Drake takes his first voyage to the West Indies, the Carribean.
1584 Sir Walter Raleigh attempts to colonize Virginia in the New World.
1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed by the orders of Elizabeth I.
1588 Spanish Invincible Armada is defeated.
1591 Shakespeare's first
play is performed.
1600 East Indian Company is found.
1603 Union
of England and Scotland. James VI of Scotland becomes James I of
England.
1605 "Gunpowder Plot" against the Parliament is foiled.
1611 King James Version of the Bible is published.
1614 "Addled
Parliament" refuses to vote money for James I.
1620 Mayflower trip of
Pilgrim Fathers to the New World.
1638 Scots sign National Covenant
against Catholic leanings of king Charles I.
1642 English Civil War
between Royalists and supporters of Parliament.
1649 King Charles I
is executed outside Banqueting House and Commonwealth.
1653- 58
Oliver Cromwell is proclaimed as Lord Protector.
1660 King Charles
II, son of executed Charles I, becomes a new king upon Restoration of
the Monarchy.
1665- 66 Great Plague.
1666 Great Fire of London.
1688 The Glorious Revolution. Catholic
James II is deposed by the British Parliament.
1690 Battle of the
Boyne. William's joint English and Dutch army defeat James II who leads
Irish and French armies.
1692 Glencoe Massacre of Jacobites (Stuart
supporters) by troops of William III.
1707 Act of Union with
Scotland.
1721 Robert Walpole becomes first Prime Minister of Great
Britain.
1776 American Declaration of Independence
1788 First
convicts are sent to Australia.
1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Admiral
Lord Nelson defeat French fleet.
1815 Battle of Waterloo. Duke
Wellington blows a final defeat to Napoleon Bonaparte.
1825 Railway
between Stockton and Darlington opens.
1839 Catholic Emancipation Act
is passed.
1837- 1901 Reign of Queen Victoria.
1854- 56 British
join Allies in a war against Russia during Crimean War.
1863 London
Underground Subway system is open.
1899- 1902 Boer War. Britain
defeats Dutch settlers in South Africa. First massive concentration
camps were constructed by the British forces.
1908 Old age pensions
are introduced by Liberal Government of British Prime Minister Henry
Asquith (1852- 1928).
1914- 18 World War I.
1918 All women over 30
get a right to vote.
1924 First Labour government.
1928 Men and
women over 21 can vote.
1936 Abdication of Edward VIII. He chooses to
marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson instead of taking up a throne.
1939 UK joins World War I after Hitler invades Poland.
1940 German
air force Luftwaffe attempts to bomb the country into submission and
future invasion. It failed.
1944 Allied invasion of mainland France
from England.
1945 World War II ends. Partition of Berlin and most of
Europe between the Allies and the Soviet side.
1947 India and
Pakistan gain their independence.
1948 National Health Service is
introduced.
1973 Great Britain joins European Community.
1999
Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are formed.
2005 Terrorist
bomb attacks in London kill 52 people, hundreds are injured.
2022 Elizabeth II has died
Great Britain is a quasi-unitary state with a
parliamentary monarchy. King Charles III is the reigning monarch of the
United Kingdom, as well as the reigning monarch of fourteen other
independent states of the Commonwealth. It has been erroneously believed
that the British monarch has a symbolic rather than a political role,
having, in the words of Walter Budget, in relation to the government
"the right to be advised, the right to induce and the right to warn";
however, the monarch - as head of state, represented by the institution
of the Crown - heads all three branches of government, has the right to
dissolve parliament, appoint ministers, and also, as supreme commander,
has the right to declare war on other countries. Great Britain does not
have a constitution as a single document. The British Constitution
consists mainly of a collection of various written sources, including
statutes, judicial precedents and international treaties, as well as
constitutional custom. The Parliament is the supreme legislative body of
Great Britain, while the devolved Parliament of Scotland, as well as the
assemblies of Northern Ireland and Wales, make laws exclusively within
the framework of delegated powers and within the boundaries of their
jurisdictions. The UK Parliament cannot abolish the legislatures of
autonomies, the permanent constitutional status of which is guaranteed
by the laws of the Parliament itself, as well as by international
treaties (see, for example, the Scotland Act 1998 and 2016; Belfast
Agreement 1998). Since there is no technical difference between ordinary
statutes and "constitutional law", the UK Parliament can carry out
"constitutional reform" simply by passing another law, and thus has the
ability to change or repeal almost any written or unwritten element of
the constitution. However, in accordance with the constitutional
doctrine of "parliamentary sovereignty", no parliament will be able to
pass a law that the next convocation could not change.
Government
The United Kingdom has a parliamentary government based on the
Westminster system, which is also used in a number of former colonies of
the British Empire. The Parliament of Great Britain, sitting in the
Palace of Westminster, has two chambers: the elected House of Commons
and the appointed House of Lords. Any document passed requires Royal
Assent to become law.
For the post of prime minister, the head of
the government of Great Britain, according to custom, a member of
parliament is appointed by the monarch, who can get the support of a
majority in the House of Commons and thus form a government, since the
beginning of the 20th century he has always been a member of the House
of Commons, the leader of the majority political party in the house. The
ministers who make up Her Majesty's Government are also appointed by the
monarch, but the prime minister himself convenes the Cabinet and, as is
customary, the monarch respects the choice of the prime minister.
The UK cabinet is usually chosen from members of the prime
minister's party in both houses of parliament, but mostly from the House
of Commons, to which it is responsible. Executive power is exercised by
the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who all take an oath of office to the
Privy Council of Great Britain. For the purposes of elections to the
House of Commons, Great Britain is divided into 650 constituencies where
each individual Member of Parliament is chosen by ordinary majority.
General elections are called by the monarch when advised to do so by the
prime minister. The Acts of Parliament of 1911 and 1949 require that new
elections be called no later than five years after the previous one.
The four main parties in the UK are the Conservative Party, the
Labor Party, the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats.
During the last general election (2017), these four parties won 627 out
of a possible 650 seats in the House of Commons. Most of the rest of the
seats were won by smaller parties that contested only in one part of the
UK: the Party of Wales (Wales only) and the Democratic Unionist Party,
the Social Democratic and Labor Party, the Ulster Unionist Party and
Sinn Féin (all in North America only). Ireland, although Sinn Féin also
contests elections in the Republic of Ireland). In line with party
policy, no Sinn Féin MP has ever been present in the House of Commons to
represent their constituency, as MPs are required to take oath to the
monarch, which is against party policy. The current seven Sinn Féin
members have used their offices and other facilities in Westminster
since 2002. For elections to the European Parliament, Britain has 72
MEPs, elected from 12 constituencies with multiple winners each.
Political parties
Left
The Green Party of
England and Wales is a left-wing environmentalist party.
Scottish
Green Party
Respect - left-wing socialist anti-war coalition, then
party
The Socialist Workers' Party is a Trotskyist organization
centre-left
The Labor Party is a social democratic party that
proclaimed the ideology of the "Third Way"
The Scottish National
Party is a center-left political party in Scotland that advocates for
the country's withdrawal from the United Kingdom.
centrists
Liberal Democrats - Social Liberal Party
centre-right
The
Conservative Party is a conservative, Eurosceptic party
Rights
The United Kingdom Independence Party is a Eurosceptic party.
British
National Party - neo-fascist party
Unions
The largest trade union
center is the British Trades Union Congress, which unites more than 6
million employees.
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland have had their own
executive bodies since the 1990s, headed by a First Minister, and a
devolutionary unicameral legislature. England, the largest part of Great
Britain, has no executive or legislative power and is governed directly
by the British Government and Parliament in all matters. This situation
has created the so-called "West Lothian problem", in which MPs from
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can vote, and sometimes have a
decisive role, on matters relating to England, which are decided by
delegated legislators themselves in their regions. Nevertheless, already
in 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron achieved the adoption of a new
parliamentary procedure (EVEL - English Votes for English Laws),
neutralizing this legislative imbalance in favor of England.
Interbudgetary relations of various territorial-administrative parts of
Great Britain are built on the basis of the so-called. The Barnett
formula, used by the Treasury to allocate public spending since the
early 1970s.
Scotland
The Scottish Government and Parliament
have broad powers in all matters not within the exclusive competence of
the British Parliament, including education, health care, Scottish law,
transport, local taxation, the judiciary, law enforcement and local
government. After winning the 2007 election, the pro-independence
Scottish National Party formed the first Scottish government and has
held power in all subsequent administrations to this day. The consistent
policy of autonomization, as well as the inability of London to maintain
a course towards federalism in the country, created the prerequisites
for holding the first, unsuccessful independence referendum in 2014, as
well as demanding a second referendum from the UK government on the
results of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. The Unionist parties have
responded by setting up several Scottish Devolution Commissions which,
in 2009 and 2015 respectively, made recommendations for the delegation
of additional power, including control of half of the taxes collected in
Scotland, powers of public borrowing, and the like.
Wales
The
Welsh Government and the Welsh National Assembly have less power than
the Scottish authorities. Initially, after the adoption of the
Governance for Wales Act in 2006, the Assembly could make local laws
only after obtaining the approval of Westminster for each specific law,
however, since May 2011, the Assembly can legislate through the adoption
of Acts of Assembly already without the need for additional permissions.
The current government was formed after the 2018 election by a Labor
administration led by Mark Drakeford and is also pursuing a
pro-independence course.
Northern Ireland
The Northern Ireland
Cabinet and Assembly have special powers as a result of the 1998 Belfast
Agreement. In accordance with the treaty, the territory has the
constitutional right to secession based on the results of a popular
referendum. The Cabinet of Ministers is formed on the basis of the
consociational principle of government, in which the leading parties are
equally represented, and the first minister and his deputy have equal
powers. The elected members of the Assembly do not take the oath to the
British monarch, but to the letter of the law, and only one of the
ruling parties of the territory (DUP) is represented in the British
Parliament, while representatives of the Sinn Féin party use the policy
of abstinenceism, refusing to swear allegiance to the monarch after
being elected to Parliament.
The United Kingdom does not have a unified legal
system, since, in accordance with clause 19 of the 1706 unification
agreement, Scotland retained its own legal system. Today the UK has
three different legal systems: English law, Northern Irish law and
Scottish law. Recent constitutional changes led to the creation of the
Supreme Court in October 2009 to replace the House of Lords Appeals
Committee. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which includes
all members of the Supreme Court, is the supreme appellate body for
several independent countries of the Commonwealth, the British Overseas
Territories and the Crown Lands.
In the UK there is no single
written constitution, it is replaced by a set of acts of a different
nature, as well as common law and some constitutional customs. The most
important acts forming the British constitution are the Magna Carta
(1215), the Habeas Corpus Act, the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of
Succession to the Throne (1701).
Most of the legal rules
governing English companies (company law) are reflected in the Companies
Act 2006 (Companies Act), one of the largest laws in the history of
English law: it consists of 1300 articles and 16 annexes, occupying
about 700 pages.
.
English law applicable in England and Wales
and Northern Irish law are based on common law. The peculiarity of
common law is that it includes judicial precedents - decisions made by
the court in specific cases, which become the rule that all courts of
the same or lower instance must apply in a similar case. Thus, the law
is created by the courts themselves in the process of litigation of
various cases through the application of laws (statutes) and their
interpretation. The higher courts are not bound by the decisions of the
lower courts, but may take them into account. The Courts of England and
Wales are headed by the Chief Court of England and Wales, which consists
of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice (for civil cases) and
the Crown Court (for criminal cases). The Supreme Court is the final
authority in both civil and criminal cases in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland, and any decision it makes sets an example for every
other court in those jurisdictions, and has great influence in other
jurisdictions as well. Legal capacity in English law (as opposed to
Scottish law) is vested in persons who have reached the age of 18.
Scottish law is a hybrid of common law and continental law. The main
courts are the Court of Session for civil matters and the Supreme
Criminal Court for criminal matters (its decisions are final). The
Supreme Court of Great Britain serves as the final court of appeal for
civil cases under Scottish law, but not for criminal ones. Scottish case
law is unique in that there are three possible jury verdicts: guilty,
not guilty, and not proven. The last two are acquittals without the
possibility of a retrial, and the "not proven" verdict is also sometimes
jokingly referred to as "not guilty, but don't do it again." Legal
capacity in Scottish law is held by persons who have reached the age of
16.
From 1981 to 1995, the number of crimes in England and Wales
increased strongly, but then, by 2008, fell from its peak value by 48%.
The prison population almost doubled over the same period to over
80,000, meaning that England and Wales have the highest relative prison
population in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000. low in the last 32
years, falling 10%. At the same time, the number of prisoners exceeded
80,000, breaking all records.
General information
Great Britain is a permanent
member of the UN Security Council, G7, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, Council of
Europe, OSCE; its monarch leads the Commonwealth of Nations. From 1973
to 2020, the UK was a member of the European Union, but following a
referendum, the country left the EU.
Relations with the USA
The UK has what has been unofficially referred to since World War II as
a "special relationship" with the US and a close partnership with
France, the "Cordial Deal", and has a common nuclear weapons program
with the two countries. Other close allies include a number of EU
members, NATO, Commonwealth countries, and Japan. Britain's global
presence and influence are also enhanced by trade relations, foreign
investment, official development assistance and military power.
The United States cooperates most closely with Britain in the military
sphere (under the 1958 Mutual Defense Treaty) and in the field of global
espionage under the 1946 UKUS SIGINT agreement. According to a number of
senior British officials, in particular the head of the Joint
Intelligence Committee, Rodrik Braithwaite (1992-1993) and Foreign
Minister Robin Cook (1997-2001), Britain has de facto lost its
sovereignty and is in a completely subordinate and dependent role in the
United States areas such as national defense, security, espionage, and
extradition of its citizens. The relevance of the term “special
relationship” with the United States was called into question at the
beginning of the 21st century, among other things, due to the
recognition by a special commission in July 2016 of the unjustified US
and British invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Commitment to the "special"
nature of relations between the US and the UK at the end of January 2017
was confirmed by US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Theresa
May, who became the first foreign leader to visit Washington after
Trump's inauguration. Trump described the European Union as Germany's
"tool to achieve its goals" and called the UK's decision to leave the EU
"a great thing."
Relations with the Russian Federation
Great
Britain established diplomatic relations with the USSR in 1924. In 1968,
the USSR and Britain ratified the Consular Convention.
In the
second half of the 2000s, relations became tense due to disagreements
over extradition cases and events like the Litvinenko case, which
"remains a significant irritant in our bilateral relations."
In
October 2015, Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko said that
the political dialogue between London and Moscow had practically come to
naught. A year later, he said that the diplomatic institution does not
have the necessary number of employees, since the British authorities
for several months do not issue visas to diplomats who were supposed to
replace their colleagues returning to Russia.
Mutual sanctions
introduced in 2014 in connection with the annexation of Crimea to Russia
and the conflict in eastern Ukraine remain in force.
Speaking to
the press after a meeting with EU leaders in Brussels, on October 20,
2016, the new British Prime Minister Theresa May said that the country
would continue to actively cooperate with the EU and advocated increased
pressure on Russia if the Syrian army continued to attack Aleppo with
the assistance of Russian aviation.
Entry restrictions
On May
1, 2012, the British Foreign Office announced the introduction of a ban
on entry into the country for violators of human rights. The Foreign
Ministry report says:
The ban on entry into the UK will generally
apply to persons for whom there is independent, reliable and credible
information about their involvement in human rights violations
- BBC:
"Britain closes entry to human rights violators"
The 2011 State
of Democracy and Human Rights Report contains a separate article on
Russia. It refers, in particular, to the case of Sergei Magnitsky. The
report emphasizes that none of those responsible for the arrest and
death of Magnitsky in the pre-trial detention center, as well as the
officials accused by him of corruption, have ever been punished.
Relations with the European Union
During the 2016 referendum, 51.9%
of those who voted for the UK to leave the European Union, respectively,
48.1% of voters supported the continuation of EU membership. In the
various constituent parts of the UK, the voting results differed: for
example, the inhabitants of Scotland and Northern Ireland were
predominantly against leaving, while the representatives of England (not
counting the capital) and Wales were in favor. The first reaction of the
world community was somewhat surprised - the results of the referendum
even shocked some, as many political scientists predicted a different
outcome of the vote.
On January 31, 2020 at 23:00 (London time),
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, after 47 years
of membership, formally withdrew from the European Union, and on
December 31, 2020 - from the European Economic Area.
British Armed Forces
The UK has one of the most
technologically advanced and well-trained armies in the world and as of
2008 had about 20 military bases around the world. According to various
sources, Britain has the third or fourth military spending in the world,
although it ranks only 27th in terms of the number of troops. General
military spending is approximately 2.5% of the country's GDP. The
British Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy together make up the
British Armed Forces, officially known as Her Majesty's Armed Forces.
All three types of armies are controlled by the Ministry of Defense and
controlled by a special Defense Council headed by the Secretary of State
for Defense. The Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces is the
British monarch, Charles III.
The UK has the largest air force
and navy in the EU and the second largest in NATO. The Department of
Defense signed contracts worth £3.2 billion for two new Queen
Elizabeth-class supercarriers on 3 July 2008. At the start of 2009, the
British Army had 105,750 troops, the Air Force 43,300 and the Navy
38,160. UK Special Forces such as the Special Air Service and the
Special Boat Service have dedicated troops for the rapid mobile conduct
of military counter-terrorism operations on land, water and in the air,
usually in cases where secrecy is needed. There is also a reserve force
called upon in case of need, numbering 404,090.
The primary
mission of the British Armed Forces is to protect the United Kingdom and
its overseas territories, advance the UK's security interests and
support international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular
members of NATO. Foreign garrisons and bases are located on Ascension
Island, Belize, Brunei, Canada, Cyprus, Diego Garcia, Germany, the
Falklands, Gibraltar, Kenya and Qatar.
Despite the military
capabilities of the UK, in recent times the country's military policy is
based on the fact that the "most resource-intensive operations" are
carried out as part of a coalition. Apart from the intervention in
Sierra Leone in 2000, British military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and most recently in Libya, follow this statement.
The last war the UK fought alone was the Falklands War in 1982, which
ended in victory.
General review
Great Britain is a highly developed
post-industrial state. The UK has a partially regulated market economy.
Based on market exchange rates, the UK is the sixth largest economy in
the world and the second largest in Europe after Germany. Her Majesty's
Treasury, headed by the Chancellor, is responsible for the development
and execution of the British Government's public financial and economic
policies. The Bank of England is the central bank of Great Britain and
is responsible for issuing the national currency pounds sterling. The
Banks of Scotland and Northern Ireland also have the right to issue
their own notes, but are required to hold sufficient Bank of England
notes to cover their entire issue. The pound sterling is the third
largest reserve currency in the world (after the US dollar and the
euro). Since 1997, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England
has been responsible for setting the interest rate at the level
necessary to meet the inflation target set by the Chancellor each year.
The British service industry is the main sector of the country's
economy, accounting for approximately 75% of GDP. London, one of the
three "control centers" of the world economy (along with New York and
Tokyo), is the largest financial center on a par with New York and the
largest urban GDP in Europe. Edinburgh is also a major European
financial centre.
The contribution of tourism to the country's
economy is significant: in 2014, the industry was estimated at £ 121.1
billion, which amounted to 7.1% of British GDP, the country ranked
eighth among the world's tourist destinations by number of visitors, and
London is visited by the largest number of visitors of all cities of the
world.
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain with an
initial focus on the textile industry, followed by heavy industries such
as shipbuilding, coal mining and steelmaking. The empire created
overseas markets for British products, allowing Britain to dominate
international trade in the 19th century. As other countries
industrialized, along with the two world wars, Great Britain began to
lose competitive advantages and heavy industry began to fade. Today,
manufacturing still plays an important role in the economy, but
accounted for only one-sixth of GDP in 2003.
The automotive
industry is one of the main industries in the UK; it employs over
800,000 with a total turnover of £52 billion and generates £26.6 billion
of exports. The UK aviation industry is the second or third largest in
the world (depending on the calculation methods) and has a total
turnover of £20 billion. The pharmaceutical industry in the UK also
plays an important role and has the third largest research spending in
the world (after the US and Japan).
The UK is known for its low
labor productivity rates compared to other developed countries; in one
working hour, a British worker produces about 20% less output than
workers in other G7 countries.
The poverty rate is usually
defined as 60% of the average household income. In 2007-2008, 13.5
million people in the UK (22% of the population) lived below the poverty
line. This is the highest relative figure in the EU apart from four
countries. An independent review prepared by the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation in 2017 noted that 14 million people live below the poverty
line.
In the last quarter of 2008, the British economy entered a
recession for the first time since 1991. The unemployment rate rose from
5.2% in May 2008 to 7.6% in May 2009, and by January 2011, unemployment
among young people aged 18 to 24 had risen from 11.9% to 20.3%, the
highest indicator for the history of calculations of this indicator
since 1992. The UK's total government debt rose from 44.5% of GDP in
December 2007 to 76.1% of GDP in December 2010; in 2016, the public debt
was estimated at £ 1.6 trillion, amounting to a record for a hundred
years in peacetime in 2015, 89.20% of GDP. GDP growth in 2015 was 2.2%
against 2.9% in 2014.
A well-developed banking sector and
comparatively liberal regulation make the country, above all the City of
London, a global center for laundering criminal proceeds from around the
world, according to a number of studies and publications from the
mid-2010s, as well as tax avoidance of wealthy individuals, including
Russian citizens, permanent residents in Britain, which the British
government provides preferential tax treatment. Publications about the
Panama Papers, made public in April 2016, singled out the UK as a
country "at the heart of a tax-avoidance network for the super-rich".
After the referendum on leaving the EU, many of the world's leading
banks, as well as some Russian banks, decided to transfer their
headquarters from London to other EU countries.
The road network comprises 3,497 kilometers of main
roads, 3,497 kilometers of motorways and 344,000 kilometers of secondary
roads. The largest highway in the country is called A1. In 2009 there
were 34 million registered cars in the UK. The rail network has 16,116
km on the British Isle and 303 km in Northern Ireland, carrying 18,000
passengers and 1,000 freight wagons daily.
For the year from
October 2009 to September 2010, British airports served a total of 211.4
million passengers. During this period, the largest airports were London
Heathrow (65.6 million passengers), Gatwick (31.5 million passengers)
and Stansted (18.9 million passengers). Heathrow, located 24 kilometers
west of the capital, serves the largest number of international
passengers in the world and is a hub for the country's main carrier -
British Airways, as well as for BMI and Virgin Atlantic.
Energy
In 2006, the UK was the world's ninth energy consumer and fifteenth
producer. In 2007, the country's total energy consumption was 9.5
quadrillion BTU, which consisted of oil (38%), natural gas (36%), coal
(13%), nuclear (11%) and other renewable sources (2%). In 2009, the
United Kingdom produced 1.5 million barrels of oil per day and consumed
1.7 million barrels. Recently, the volume of oil production began to
decline, and since 2005 the UK has been an importer of oil. As of 2010,
Britain had about 3.1 billion barrels of proven reserves of crude oil,
the largest among EU members.
In 2009, the UK was also the 13th
largest producer of natural gas in the world and the largest in the EU.
As well as with oil, recently production volumes began to decline and
since 2004 the country began to import gas. The UK is one of the largest
importers of liquefied natural gas in Europe and is forecast to grow
rapidly over the next decade.
In the same 2009, the United
Kingdom produced 19.7 million tons of coal and consumed 60.2 million
tons. In 2005, the total reserves of coal available for mining were 171
million tons, but the vast coastal zone allows for potential reserves of
7 to 16 billion tons thanks to underground coal gasification technology.
If calculated from the country's current coal consumption, these
reserves of Britain will last for a period of 200 to 400 years.
Several large energy companies are based in the UK, including two of the
six largest private energy companies, BP and Royal Dutch Shell.
England and Scotland have been the leading centers of
the scientific revolution since the 17th century, and Great Britain led
the industrial revolution in the 18th century and has been producing
renowned scientists and engineers ever since. Among the main scientists
of the XVII-XVIII centuries, one can single out Isaac Newton, whose laws
of motion are one of the foundations of modern science, in the XIX
century it is worth remembering Charles Darwin, whose theory of
evolution by natural selection is the basis of all modern biological
science, and James Clerk Maxwell, who formulated the classical
electromagnetic theory, as well as more modern Stephen Hawking, who
developed the main theories in cosmology, quantum gravity and the study
of black holes. Major discoveries in the 18th century include hydrogen
discovered by Henry Cavendish, penicillin discovered by Alexander
Fleming in the 20th century, and the structure of DNA discovered by
Francis Crick. Major British engineering projects and inventions include
the steam locomotive developed by Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian
in the 18th century, the electric motor by Michael Faraday in the 19th
century, the incandescent lamp by Joseph Swan, and the first used
telephone patented by Alexander Graham Bell, and the first used
telephone invented in the 20th century. John Logie Baird's working TV,
Frank Whittle's jet engine, Alan Turing's modern computer, and Tim
Berners-Lee's World Wide Web. Don't forget about the Royal Society of
London, one of the oldest scientific societies in the world, founded in
1660.
Modern Britain plays one of the leading roles in the
aviation industry, including Rolls-Royce, the market leader in aircraft
engines; BAE Systems, Britain's largest military supplier and sixth for
the Pentagon; as well as other supplier companies for Airbus projects.
Two British companies, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, are among the
five largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and in general, more
drugs are discovered and developed by British companies than in any
other country except the United States. Britain also remains one of the
leaders in the automotive industry, in particular engines, with about
2,600 component manufacturers. Research is also one of the main
activities of British universities, many of which create technoparks to
simplify production and work with companies. Between 2004 and 2008, 7%
of the world's scientific research was created in the UK, third in the
world after the US and China. British scientific journals include
Nature, British Medical Journal and The Lancet.
The culture of the United Kingdom is rich and varied.
It was influenced by many factors: the island character of the state,
the history of the country as one of the leaders of Western democracy
and a prominent military-political player, as well as the fact that the
country was formed as a result of the union of four separate states,
each of which retained its own traditions and habits. and symbols.
Through the British Empire, the influence of British culture can in turn
be seen in the language, culture and legal system of many of the
countries of the former colonies, including Australia, Canada, India,
Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States and Singapore.
Literature
The term British Literature refers to both Great
Britain itself and the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and the
literature of England, Wales and Scotland before their unification. The
bulk of British literature is written in English. Approximately 260,000
books were printed in the UK in 2005, and in 2006 the country was the
world's leader in the number of published titles.
The English
playwright and poet William Shakespeare is considered one of the
greatest in history in his field, but his contemporaries Christopher
Marlowe and Ben Jonson are also well known. Later playwrights such as
Alan Ayckbourn, Harold Pinter, Michael Frain and Tom Stoppard combined
elements of surrealism, realism and other cultural movements.
Notable English authors of the Middle Ages include Geoffrey Chaucer
(14th century), Thomas Malory (15th century), Thomas More (16th century)
and John Milton (17th century). In the 18th century, Daniel Defoe
(author of Robinson Crusoe) and Samuel Richardson pioneered the modern
novel. Further developments followed in the 19th century in Jane Austen,
the gothic writer Mary Shelley, the children's writer Lewis Carroll, the
Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, the naturalist Thomas Hardy, the
realist George Eliot, and the poets William Blake and William
Wordsworth. English writers of the 20th century include: science fiction
writer HG Wells; children's writers Rudyard Kipling, Alan Milne (creator
of Winnie the Pooh) and Enid Blyton; the controversial David Lawrence,
the modernist Virginia Woolf; satirist Evelyn Waugh; prophetic novelist
George Orwell; the popular Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene; detective
writer Agatha Christie; Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond); poets
Thomas Eliot, Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes; fantasy writers John
Tolkien, Clive Lewis and JK Rowling.
Scotland's contributions
include detective writer Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock
Holmes), romantic literature by Walter Scott, children's writer James
Barry, adventure stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and the celebrated
poet Robert Burns. Contemporary Scottish writers include Ian Rankin and
Ian Banks.
The oldest poem in Great Britain is considered to be Y
Gododdin, written around the end of the 6th century in Yr Hen Ogledd
(Ancient North). It was written in Cumbrian or Old Welsh and has the
first mention of King Arthur.
Starting around the 17th century,
the connection between Wales and the Ancient North was lost, and the
center of Welsh culture moved to modern Wales, where the Arthurian
legend was developed by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
The most famous
Welsh medieval poet is David ap Gwilym (1320-1370), who wrote about
nature, religion and love. He is also called one of the greatest poets
of Europe at that time.
Until the end of the 19th century, Welsh
literature was predominantly in the Welsh language, and most of the
prose was of a religious nature. Swansea native Dylan Thomas became
world famous in the mid-twentieth century. The influential priest and
nationalist Ronald Thomas was nominated for the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1996.
Contributors from other countries, mainly
from the Commonwealth countries, Ireland and the US, have lived and
worked in the UK. The most notable include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde,
Bram Stoker, Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Eliot, Ezra Pound, as
well as contemporary foreign-born British writers Kazuo Ishiguro and
Salman Rushdie.
A variety of musical styles are popular in the UK,
ranging from the local folk music of England, Scotland, Wales and
Ireland to heavy metal and trip hop. Among the classical composers of
Great Britain and its predecessors are such persons as William Byrd,
Henry Purcell, Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Arthur Sullivan (best known
for his work with librettist William Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams
and Benjamin Britten, a pioneer of modern British opera. Peter Maxwell
Davies is one of the most distinguished living composers and is the
current Master of the Royal Music. The UK is also home to the
world-renowned BBC Symphony Orchestra. Famous British conductors include
such names as Simon Rattle, John Barbirolli and Malcolm Sargent. Notable
film composers include John Barry, Clint Mansell, Mike Oldfield, John
Powell, Craig Armstrong, David Arnold, John Murphy and Harry
Gregson-Williams. Georg Friedrich Handel, although born in Germany, was
a naturalized British citizen, and some of his works, including the
Messiah, are written in English.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has achieved
significant worldwide success and is a composer of musical scores, and
his work has dominated London's West End for many years and has been
featured frequently on Broadway in New York.
With over a billion
sales, The Beatles are the best-selling songs in the history of music
and have had a huge impact on the development of popular music. Other
well-known representatives of British popular music of the last 50 years
include Queen, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, The Who, Cliff
Richard, Bee Gees, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Rolling
Stones, all of whom have overcome the mark 200 million copies sold.
According to a study by Guinness World Records, 8 of the 10 bands
and singers with the most UK chart wins come from the UK: Status Quo,
Queen, The Rolling Stones, UB40, Depeche Mode, Bee Gees, Pet Shop Boys
and Manic Street Preacher.
art
The history of British art is
an integral part of the history of European art. Notable British artists
include: the Romanticists William Blake, John Constable, Samuel Palmer
and William Turner; portrait painters Joshua Reynolds and Lucian Freud;
landscape painter Thomas Gainsborough; arts and crafts pioneer William
Morris; figurative Francis Bacon; pop artists Peter Blake, Richard
Hamilton and David Hockney; duet Gilbert and George; abstractionist
Howard Hodgkin; sculptors Anthony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Henry Moore.
British art is characterized by a wide range of styles and genres. In
the second half of the 19th century, there simultaneously existed such
radical currents as Victorian fairy-tale painting (John Anster
Fitzgerald and John Simmons) and naturalism (George Clausen and William
Stott). In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Saatchi Gallery in London
helped bring attention to a group of multi-genre artists who would
become known as the Young British Artists: Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili,
Rachel Whiteread, Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger, Sam Taylor -Wood and the
Chapman Brothers.
The Royal Academy of Arts in London is the main
organization for the development of the arts in the UK. Among the
largest galleries are London's National Gallery, National Portrait
Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, the most visited modern art
museum with approximately 4.7 million visitors a year.
Cinema
Great Britain has had a great influence on the history of cinema.
British directors Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean are considered among
the most popular directors in history, while other famous directors
include Charlie Chaplin, Michael Powell, Carol Reed and Ridley Scott.
Many British actors have achieved worldwide fame and recognition
including Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Michael Caine, Sean Connery,
Vivien Leigh, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Peter Sellers, Kate
Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Grant. Some of the world's most
commercially successful films have also been made in the UK, including
the world's most profitable film series (Harry Potter and James Bond).
Ealing Studios claims to be the oldest working film studio in the world.
Despite a long and successful history, the British industry is often
characterized by controversy over its identity and its American and
European influences. Many British films are co-produced with American
producers, they often feature American actors as well as British ones,
and British actors are often filmed in Hollywood. Many successful
Hollywood films are based on British people, literature or events, such
as Titanic, The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean.
In 2009, British films grossed $2 billion worldwide,
with a 7% market share globally and 17% domestically. In total, UK box
office grossed around £944 million in 2009 with 173 million cinema
admissions.
The British Film Institute has compiled a ranking of
the 100 best, in their opinion, British films. The annual BAFTA awards
are the British equivalent of the Oscars.
Sport
Many popular
sports, including football, rugby league, rugby-15, rowing, boxing,
badminton, cricket, tennis, darts and golf, appeared and were developed
in Great Britain and the countries that preceded it. In most
competitions, individual teams play for England, Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland, including the Commonwealth Games. However, there are
also cases when a single team plays for Great Britain, including the
Olympic Games, where it is represented by a single team. London hosted
the Olympic Games in 1908 and 1948, and in 2012 became the first city to
host the Olympic Games three times.
Each part of the country has
its own football association, national team and championship system,
although some clubs, for various historical and logistical reasons, play
in different associations to which they should belong on a territorial
basis (for example, Swansea City). England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland compete on the international stage as separate teams, which kept
the UK out of Olympic football until the 2012 London Olympics.
In
connection with the victory of the application for the Games in 2012,
there were proposals to revive a single team to participate in them, but
the football associations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland refused to
participate in this project, fearing that this would undermine their
independent status. The England team is the most successful team, having
won the World Cup at home in 1966, although historically there has been
a close rivalry between England and Scotland.
Cricket was
invented in England and is very popular throughout the country and
former colonies. Wales does not have its own national team and plays
jointly with England, as well as the representatives of Scotland and
Ireland, whose cricket teams have only recently begun to develop. Rugby
league is popular in parts of the UK. It originated in Huddersfield and
is mainly played in Northern England. The British Lions have previously
competed in the World Cup and Test matches, but since 2008 England,
Scotland and Ireland have competed as separate countries. In Rugby 15,
the teams of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are very strong in
their own right. The Six Nations Cup, played between the above teams, as
well as Italy and France, is considered the unofficial European
Championship.
The game of tennis appeared in the city of
Birmingham sometime between 1859 and 1865. The Wimbledon Tournament is
an international tournament held at Wimbledon in south London every
summer and is considered one of the most prestigious tournaments in the
world. Snooker is very popular in the UK and the annual World
Championship is held in Sheffield. Team sports such as Gaelic football
and Hurling are also popular in Northern Ireland, with large crowds of
spectators. The game of Shinty is popular in the Scottish Highlands.
The UK is also represented in motorsport. Many Formula One teams and
drivers are based here, and British drivers have won more titles than
any other country. In the UK, the very first Grand Prix of the World
Championships was held in 1950 at Silverstone, where the British Grand
Prix is now held almost annually. The country also hosts the stages of
the World Rally Championship.
For all the time of the Olympic
Games, the British team has won the most medals in sailing.
London dominates the media sector in the UK, with
national newspapers, TV channels and radio mostly based there, although
Manchester is also an important media centre. Edinburgh, Glasgow and
Cardiff are important centers for newspapers and broadcasters in
Scotland and Wales. In 2009, it was estimated that every person in the
UK spent 3.75 hours a day watching television and 2.81 hours listening
to the radio. In the same year, BBC public channels accounted for 28.4%
of television viewing; three independent channels had a total share of
29.5%, while the remaining 42.1% was occupied by satellite and digital
channels. Since the 1970s, newspaper sales have declined sharply, and by
2009, 42% of the population read daily newspapers.
Television and
radio broadcasting in the UK is divided into public and commercial.
Public broadcasting is represented by the BBC broadcaster, broadcasting
on Channel 1 (BBC One) and Channel 2 (BBC Two) and 4 radio stations (BBC
Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4).
Commercial
broadcasting is represented by ITV broadcasting on Channel 3, Channel 4
broadcasting on Channel 4 (like the BBC, which is a national treasure,
but fully funded by advertising) and Channel 5 broadcasting on Channel 5
on a permanent basis. licenses.
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www.australia.org.uk
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