United Kingdom country profile

28 August 2006
by eub2 -- last modified 06 January 2008

The United Kingdom consists of England, Wales, Scotland (who together make up Great Britain) and Northern Ireland. Great Britain entered the European Community in 1973, but London has opted out of EMU and the European single currency.

United Kingdom

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.

Area: 243 000 km²
Population: 59.8 million
Capital city: London
Currency: 1 pound sterling = 100 pence, 1 euro = 0.68 pounds sterling (GBP) (Dec. 2006)
National day: Queen's Birthday (celebrated on second Saturday in June)
EU-membership: 1 January 1973 (EC)

Head of State: Queen Elizabeth II
Head of Government: Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Foreign Minister: David Miliband

GDP: € 1 636.6 billion (2005)
GDP per capita in PPS: € 27 352 (2005)
Economic growth in real terms: + 1.9% (2005)

Links:
Head of State: http://www.royal.gov.uk
Head of Government: http://www.number-10.gov.uk
Foreign Minister: http://www.fco.gov.uk
Parliament: http://www.parliament.uk

Map of the United Kingdom



Source: European Commission, Slovenia EU Presidency, World Factbook