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. After much negotiation, several deadline extensions, prolonged domestic political discord, and two changes of prime minister, an agreement on “Brexit” (British https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/no-wageringcasino.com exit from the EU) was reached that satisfied both the EU and the majority of Parliament. 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. 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.
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The London bus network is extensive, with over 6,800 scheduled services every weekday carrying about 6 million passengers on over 700 different routes, making it one of the most extensive bus systems in the world and the largest in Europe. Another major infrastructure project is High Speed 2 (HS2), a high-speed railway under construction since 2019. England and Scotland were leading centres of the Scientific Revolution from the 17th century. It is rich in a variety of other natural resources including coal, petroleum, natural gas, tin, limestone, iron ore, salt, clay, chalk, gypsum, lead, and silica and has an abundance of arable land. The UK is one of Europe’s leading retail markets and its largest e-commerce market. The country’s tourism sector is important to the British economy; The creative industries accounted for 5.9 per cent of the UK’s GVA in 2019, and contributed £111 billion to the UK economy in 2018.
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In England and Wales, water and sewerage services are provided by 10 private regional water and sewerage companies and 13 mostly smaller private “water only” companies. In September 2024 the last coal power station was closed, making coal no longer a power source in the UK. Emissions from UK gas production are roughly four times lower than imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to the UK’s oil and gas regulator. In 2023 the UK had nine nuclear reactors generating about 15 per cent of the UK’s electricity.
London is also one of the world’s leading financial centres, ranking second in the 2025 Global Financial Centres Index. London is the world capital for foreign exchange trading, with a market share of 37.8 per cent in 2022 of the global turnover. As of 2023 it is the world’s second-largest exporter of services and in 2024 was the world’s largest net exporter of financial services. The Department for Business and Trade is responsible for business, international trade, and enterprise. Despite having one of the highest levels of income inequality in the OECD, the UK has a very high HDI ranking, including when adjusted for inequality.
- Theatre of United Kingdom plays an important part in British culture and has had a vibrant tradition of theatre since the Renaissance with roots going back to the Roman occupation.
- Increasingly, composers became inspired by the English countryside and its folk music, notably Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten, a pioneer of modern British opera.
- In 2012 and 2013 births contributed the most to population growth, while in 2014 and 2015 net international migration contributed more.
- A dynamic port city with a colourful past, Belfast is a vibrant cultural hub on Northern Ireland’s eastern coast.
- The number of transgender people in the UK was estimated to be between 65,000 and 300,000 by research between 2001 and 2008.
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Long-term net migration (the number of people immigrating minus the number emigrating) reached a record of 860,000 in 2023, with immigration at 1.326 million and emigration at 466,000. Immigration is contributing to a rising population in the United Kingdom, with arrivals and UK-born children of migrants accounting for about half of the population increase between 1991 and 2001. In the census of Northern Ireland, 42.3 per cent of the population was recorded as Catholic, 37.7% as Protestant or other Christian, 1.3 per cent as belonging to other religions, 17.4 per cent as having no religion and 1.6 per cent did not state a religion. Although a majority of citizens still identify with Christianity in surveys, regular church attendance has fallen dramatically since the middle of the 20th century, while immigration and demographic change have contributed to the growth of Islam and other faiths.
Since the majority of the rain falls over the western regions, the eastern parts are the driest. The length of coastline of Great Britain plus its principal islands is about 19,491 miles (31,368 km) long, with the coastline of the main island Great Britain being 11,073 miles (17,820 km) of that, though measurements can vary greatly due to the coastline paradox. The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to use an approved COVID-19 vaccine. The COVID-19 pandemic had a severe impact on the British economy, caused major disruptions to education and had far-reaching impacts on society and politics in 2020 and 2021. A referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 resulted in the Scottish electorate voting by 55.3 to 44.7 per cent to remain part of the United Kingdom.
Since 2022 the UK has been both the world’s fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer of goods and services. The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement states that the UK and EU have to cooperate and negotiate with each other with ‘full mutual respect and good faith’, as defined by international law. LGBT equality in the United Kingdom is considered advanced by modern standards. UK labour laws establish employment rights including a minimum wage, a minimum of 28 days annual holiday, parental leave, statutory sick pay and a pension. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, including the same members as the Supreme Court, is the highest court of appeal for several independent Commonwealth countries, the British Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies.
The Highlands to the north and west are the more rugged region containing the majority of Scotland’s mountainous land, including the Cairngorms, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs and Ben Nevis which at 1,345 metres (4,413 ft) is the highest point in the British Isles. It occupies the major part of the British Isles and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and some smaller surrounding islands, meaning it comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal, with its first atomic bomb test, Operation Hurricane, in 1952, but the post-war limitations of Britain’s international role were illustrated by the Suez Crisis of 1956. Nonetheless, Britain was described as “a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests and sitting at the heart of a global production system.” After Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain entered the Second World War. Beginning with the Great Reform Act in 1832, Parliament gradually widened the voting franchise, with the 1884 Reform Act championed by William Gladstone granting suffrage to a majority of males for the first time. After the defeat of France at the end of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815) the United Kingdom emerged as the principal naval and imperial power (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830).
The UK remained a great power with global diplomatic and military influence and a leading role in the United Nations and NATO. The Grand Alliance of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union formed in 1941, leading the Allies against the Axis powers. By the end of the region’s prehistoric period, the population is thought to have belonged largely to a culture termed Insular Celtic, comprising Brittonic Britain and Gaelic Ireland.