United Kingdom


Year of EU entry: 1973
Political system: Constitutional monarchy
Capital city: London
Total area: 242 500 km²
Population: 60.4 million
Currency: Pound sterling
Listen to the official EU language:
English



The United Kingdom consists of England, Wales, Scotland (who together make up Great Britain) and Northern Ireland. The highest mountain is Ben Nevis in Scotland which reaches a height of 1 343m.



The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The main chamber of parliament is the lower house, the House of Commons, which has 646 members elected by universal suffrage. About 700 people are eligible to sit in the upper house, the House of Lords, including life peers, hereditary peers, and bishops. There is a Scottish parliament in Edinburgh with wide-ranging local powers, and a Welsh Assembly in Cardiff with more limited authority for Welsh affairs.

The English account for more than 80% of the population. The Scots make up nearly 10% and the Welsh and Irish most of the rest. The UK is also home to diverse immigrant communities, mainly from its former colonies in the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Africa.

The economy - one of the largest in the EU - is increasingly services-based although it maintains industrial capacity in high-tech and other sectors. The City of London is a world centre for financial services.

Home to the industrial revolution, the United Kingdom has produced many great scientists and engineers including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. The father of modern economics, Adam Smith, was a Scot. English literature has produced an endless stream of poets, dramatists, essayists and novelists from Geoffrey Chaucer via Shakespeare and his contemporaries to a plethora of modern writers.



Introduction to the country and travel infos:
http://www.visitbritain.com/