Scotland, occupying northern Great Britain, includes the Orkney and Shetland islands off the northern coast and the Hebrides off the northwestern coast. United Kingdom, 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 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 UK became the first industrialised country and was the world’s foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during non gamstop casinos the Pax Britannica between 1815 and 1914.
The United Kingdom comprises four geographic and historical parts—England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom contains most of the area and population of the British Isles—the geographic term for the group of islands that includes Great Britain, Ireland, and many smaller islands. Together England, Wales, and Scotland constitute Great Britain, the larger of the two principal islands, while Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland constitute the second largest island, Ireland. England, occupying most of southern Great Britain, includes the Isles of Scilly off the southwest coast and the Isle of Wight off the southern coast.
Other statistics on the topicInflation in the UK
Meanwhile, Reeves has a bunch of spending commitments aimed at easing the cost of living as inflation remains stubbornly high, including making up for a series of about-faces on planned welfare cuts. Overall, the budget was strikingly similar to Reeves’ first budget a little more than a year ago, even though she insisted at the time that it would be the one and only big tax-raising budget in this parliamentary term, due to run to 2029. UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) is responsible for making millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit or stay in the country, with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally. England, Wales and Scotland each have their own national symbols, including their national flags. Northern Ireland also has symbols, many of which are shared with the Republic of Ireland. Although the Retail Price Index is a commonly utilized inflation indicator, the UK also uses a newer method of calculating inflation, the Consumer Price Index.
North-east of England film and TV itinerary
- In the three months to September 2025, average weekly earnings in the United Kingdom grew by 4.6 percent.
- In December 2022, for example, there were approximately 830,000 working days lost due to labor disputes.
- This fall was largely due to slower price increases in key sectors such as energy, which drove a significant amount of the 2022 wave of inflation.
The entire contents of the budget were leaked half an hour before Treasury chief Rachel Reeves delivered the budget statement in the House of Commons. Prof Peter Murphy says working together would give the islands more influence in negotiations. The possibility of redesigning the Union Flag to include representation of Wales was discussed in 2007.541 The national anthem of the United Kingdom is “God Save the King”, with “King” replaced with “Queen” in the lyrics whenever the monarch is a woman. The UK has many gastropubs and is the birthplace of many alcoholic drinks including several beer styles such as pale ale, India pale ale, bitter, brown ale, porter, and stout. The number of craft beers and microbreweries has expanded rapidly in the last two decades.512 Other popular alcoholic drinks produced in the UK include Scotch whisky, English wine, gin, perry and cider.
The Welsh Government is currently a Welsh Labour minority government led by the first minister, Eluned Morgan. Local government in Wales consists of 22 unitary authorities, each led by a leader and cabinet elected by the council itself. England accounts for 53 per cent of the UK, covering 50,350 square miles (130,395 km2).153 Most of the country consists of lowland terrain,154 with upland and mountainous terrain northwest of the Tees–Exe line which roughly divides the UK into lowland and upland areas. Lowland areas include Cornwall, the New Forest, the South Downs and the Norfolk Broads. Upland areas include the Lake District, the Pennines, the Yorkshire Dales, Exmoor and Dartmoor.
Inflation nevertheless remains elevated, fueled not only by high food inflation, but also by underlying core inflation. As of February 2025, the overall CPI inflation rate was 2.8 percent, although an uptick in inflation is expected later in the year, with a rate of 3.7 percent forecast for the third quarter of the year. The origins of the United Kingdom can be traced to the time of the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan, who in the early 10th century ce secured the allegiance of neighbouring Celtic kingdoms and became “the first to rule what previously many kings shared between them,” in the words of a contemporary chronicle. Through subsequent conquest over the following centuries, kingdoms lying farther afield came under English dominion.
Relations between these constituent states and England have been marked by controversy and, at times, open rebellion and even warfare. These tensions relaxed somewhat during the late 20th century, when devolved assemblies were introduced in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The UK has a highly developed social market economy.262263 With an estimated nominal GDP of £2.765 trillion in 2024,264 it is the sixth-largest national economy in the world and the second-largest in Europe. Since 2022 the UK has been both the world’s fourth-largest exporter266 and fourth-largest importer267 of goods and services.