United Kingdom is island country located off
the northwestern coast of mainland Europe. The United Kingdom comprises the
whole of the island of Great Britain—which contains England, Wales,
and Scotland—as well as the northern portion of the island of Ireland.
The name Britain is sometimes used to refer to the United
Kingdom as a whole. The capital is London, which is among the
world’s leading commercial, financial, and cultural centres. Other major cities
include Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester in
England, Belfast and Londonderry in Northern
Ireland, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland,
and Swansea and Cardiff in Wales.
The United Kingdom has made
significant contributions to the world economy, especially in technology and
industry. Since World War II, however, the United Kingdom’s most
prominent exports have been cultural, including literature, theatre, film,
television, and popular music that draw on all parts of the
country. Perhaps Britain’s greatest export has been the English
language, now spoken in every corner of the world as one of the leading
international mediums of cultural and economic exchange.
The United Kingdom retains
links with parts of its former empire through the Commonwealth. It
also benefits from historical and cultural links with the United
States and is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO). Moreover, the United Kingdom became a member of the European
Union in 1973. Many Britons, however, were sometimes reluctant EU members,
holding to the sentiments of the great wartime prime minister Winston
Churchill, who sonorously remarked, “We see nothing but good and hope in a
richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dream
and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised.
We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.” Indeed, in June 2016, in a
referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the EU, 52 percent of
British voters chose to leave. After much negotiation, several deadline
extensions, prolonged domestic political discord, and two changes
of prime minister, an agreement on “Brexit” (British exit from the EU) was
reached that satisfied both the EU and the majority of Parliament.
Thus, on January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom would become the first country to
withdraw from the EU.
Religion
Religion in the United Kingdom, and in the
countries that preceded it, has been dominated for over 1,000 years by various
forms of Christianity. Religious affiliations of United Kingdom citizens
are recorded by regular surveys, the four major ones being the national
decennial census, the Labour Force Survey, the British Social
Attitudes survey and the European Social Survey.
According to the 2011 Census, Christianity is the majority religion, followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism in terms of number of adherents. Among Christians, Anglicans are the most common denomination, followed by the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. This, and the relatively large number of individuals with nominal or no religious affiliations, has led commentators to variously describe the United Kingdom as a post-Christian, multi-faith and secularized society.
Economy
The United Kingdom has a
fiercely independent, developed, and international trading economy
that was at the forefront of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution.
The country emerged from World War II as a
military victor but with a debilitated manufacturing sector. Postwar recovery
was relatively slow, and it took nearly 40 years, with additional stimulation
after 1973 from membership in the European Economic Community (ultimately
succeeded by the European Union [EU]), for the British economy
to improve its competitiveness significantly. Economic growth rates in the
1990s compared favourably with those of other top industrial countries.
Manufacturing’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP)
has declined to about one-fifth of the total, with services providing the
source of greatest growth. The United Kingdom’s chief trading ties shifted from
its former empire to other members of the EU, which came to account for more
than half its trade in tangible goods. The United
States remained a major investment and trading partner, and Japan also
became a significant investor in local production. American and Japanese companies
have often chosen the United Kingdom as their European base. In addition, other
fast-developing East Asian countries with export-oriented economies included
the United Kingdom’s open market among their important outlets.
During the
1980s the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher pursued
the privatization,
or denationalization, of publicly owned corporations that had been nationalized
by previous governments. Privatization, accompanied by widespread labour
unrest, resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the coal-mining
and heavy industrial sectors. Although there was some improvement in the standard
of living nationally, in general there was greater prosperity in the South
East, including London, than in the heavily industrialized regions of the West
Midlands, northern England, Clydeside, and Belfast, whose economies
suffered during the 1980s. During the 1980s and ’90s, income disparity also
increased. Unemployment and inflation rates were gradually reduced
but remained high until the late 1990s. The country’s role as a major world
financial centre remained a source of economic strength. Moreover, its
exploitation of offshore natural gas since 1967 and oil since 1975 in the North
Sea has reduced dependence on coal and imported oil and provided a further
economic boost.
Trade has long been pivotal to the United Kingdom’s economy. The total
value of imports and exports represents nearly half the country’s GDP.
(By comparison, the value of foreign trade amounts to about
one-fifth of the GDP of the United States.) The volume of both the exports and
the imports of the United Kingdom has grown steadily in recent years. Principal
British exports include machinery, automobiles and other transport equipment,
electrical and electronic equipment (including computers), chemicals, and oil.
Services, particularly financial services, are another major export and
contribute positively to Britain’s trade balance. The country
imports about one-tenth of its foodstuffs and about one-third of its machinery
and transport equipment.
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