United Kingdom

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

The United Kingdom (UK) or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a country in northwest Europe. It is made up of the separate countries of England, Scotland, and Wales (together known as Great Britain), and Northern Ireland (on the island of Ireland).

About 60 million people live in the UK. English is the language most people speak, but many other languages are spoken. These include Cantonese and Hindi. The native languages, other than English, are Welsh in Wales, Cornish in Cornwall, Scottish (Gaelic) and Scots in Scotland, and Irish in Northern Ireland.

The capital city of the United Kingdom is London, a large city on the River Thames in south-eastern England. Other large cities in the UK are Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, York, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Belfast, and Londonderry (also called Derry).

The UK is north-west off the coast of mainland Europe. Around the UK are the North Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean.

The UK is also in charge of a few smaller places around the world, most of them are islands, which are known as overseas territories.

[edit] Politics

The UK is a constitutional monarchy. The people of the United Kingdom vote for a Member of Parliament to speak for them and to help make laws for them. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the queen of the UK and is the head of state (Person in charge of the country). Even though she is the head of state, she does not choose what the United Kingdom should do about things like education (teaching people), healthcare (making sick people better) or other choices. The person who chooses for the people in the United Kingdom is the Prime Minister, who is in charge of the government. Today, the Prime Minister is Tony Blair, who is the leader of the Labour party.

Parliament, where laws are made, has three constituent parts: the House of Commons and the House of Lords and the Queen in Parliament. The House of Commons generally holds primacy. The Members of Parliament serve in the Commons, as has every Prime Minister since the Marquess of Salisbury resigned in 1902. The peers sitting in the House of Lords are not chosen by all of the people of the United Kingdom. They are people who are peers, because their parents were peers (ie. they are hereditary peers), they have been created peers or they are important officials in the established Church of England. The 92 hereditary peers are the only elected members of the House of Lords.

Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have their own devolved Assemblies, which do less than the UK Parliament. The UK Parliament remains sovereign and it can suspend the devolved administrations at any time. The Northern Ireland Assembly is currently suspended whilst extensive negotiations are underway to resolve concerns between the two major parties. Usually there is agreement about what types of law are made by each Assembly.

[edit] History of the United Kingdom

Wales was taken over by England in the 13th century. When Queen Elizabeth I of England died, her closest relative was James the King of Scotland. He was king of both England and Scotland, but they stayed as two countries. In 1707, the Scottish and English Parliaments passed the Treaty of Union, which joined them as one country called Great Britain.

By the year 1800, England had already had much influence over Ireland for over 600 years. In that year laws were passed in Great Britain and Ireland to merge the two states. This was against the wishes of many of the Irish people, as they had in previous centuries already suffered much English oppression. The new country was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 much of Ireland achieved autonomy as the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom. However, the northern counties continued to remain a part of the United Kingdom. The union was renamed The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Countries and territories of Europe
Albania - Andorra - Austria - Azerbaijan1 - Belarus - Belgium - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Croatia - Cyprus2 - Czech Republic - Denmark - Estonia - Finland - France - Germany - Georgia1 - Greece - Hungary - Iceland - Ireland - Italy - Latvia - Liechtenstein - Lithuania - Luxembourg - Malta - Moldova - Monaco - Montenegro - Netherlands - Norway - Poland - Portugal - Republic of Macedonia - Romania - Russia1 - San Marino - Serbia - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Sweden - Switzerland - Turkey1 - Ukraine - United Kingdom - Vatican City
Dependencies: Akrotiri and Dhekelia2 - Faroe Islands - Gibraltar - Guernsey - Jan Mayen - Jersey - Isle of Man - Svalbard
Unrecognised countries: Abkhazia | Nagorno-Karabakh2 | South Ossetia | Transnistria | Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus2
1. Country partly in Asia. 2. Geographically in Asia, but often counted as part of Europe for cultural and historical reasons.

Members of the European Union (EU)
Austria - Belgium - Cyprus - Czech Republic - Denmark - Estonia - Finland - France - Germany - Greece - Hungary - Ireland - Italy - Latvia - Lithuania - Luxembourg - Malta - Netherlands - Poland - Portugal - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Sweden - United Kingdom

G8
Canada · France · Germany · Japan · Italy · United Kingdom · Russia · United States