Factfile

Official name of the country: long form: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; short form: the United Kingdom (UK)

Type of the state: constitutional monarchy

Area: ▪ 244, 820 sq km; Britain is just 1, 000 km from the south coast to the extreme north of Scotland and just under 500 km at the widest point

Comparative area: twice smaller than France, one fifth smaller than Spain

Independence: 1 January 1801, United Kingdom established

National holiday: Celebration of the Birthday of the Queen (the second Saturday in June)

Executive branch: monarch, prime minister, Cabinet

Head of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952)

Head of government: Prime Minister

Cabinet: Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister

Legislative branch: Parliament which consists of an upper house or the House of Lords and a lower house or the House of Commons and the sovereign as its head; House of Lords (consists of approximately 500 life peers, 92 hereditary peers and 26 clergy) and House of Commons (646 seats since 2005 elections)

Judicial branch: the House of Lords; Supreme Courts of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; Scotland's Court of Session and Court of the Justiciary

Political parties: the two largest parties are the Conservative and Labour parties, the third largest party is the Liberal Democrats (LD)

Elections: to the House of Commons, at least once in every five years, every citizen over 18 has the right to vote; to the House of Lords – no elections

Constitution: unwritten

Flag: known as the Union Jack, with the crosses of patron saints of England (St George), Scotland (St Andrew), Ireland (St Patrick). It is blue with three red crosses edged in white

Population: over 60 million people

Nationality: поиn: Briton(s), British (collective plural); adjective: British

Ethnic groups: English 81.5%, Scottish 9.6%, Irish 2.4%, Welsh 1.9%, Ulster 1.8%, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, and other 2.8%

Religions: Christian (Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presby­terian, Methodist) 71.6%, Muslim 2.7%, Hindu 1%, Sikh 0.6%, Jewish 0.5%, Buddhist 0.3%, other 0.3%, none 23% (2001)

Languages: English, Welsh (about 26% of the population of Wales), Scottish form of Gaelic (about 60.000 in Scotland)

Capital: London

Longest river: the Severn, 354 km (220 miles) long

Largest lake: Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland, 396 sq km (153 sq miles)

Highest mountain: Ben Nevis, in the highlands of Scotland, 1.343 m Highest waterfall: Eas a'Chual Aluinn, from Glas Bheinn, in the highlands of Scotland, 200 m (660 ft)

Deepest cave: Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, Wales, 308 m (1, 010 ft) deep

Climate: often changes, mild and temperate; influenced by southwest winds over the North Atlantic Current; more than one-half of the days are cloudy

Natural resources: oil and natural gas, coal, iron ore, lead, zinc, gold, salt, clay, chalk, gypsum, sand and gravel, dolomite, sandstone, fluorspar and some other minerals

Currency: British pound or pound sterling (plural – pounds); 1 British pound (£)= 100 pence.

1. GENERAL FACTS OF THE BRITISH HISTORY

From the earliest known times up to about 900 years ago invaders and colonizers moved westwards towards the British Isles. First, from Iberia, now known as Spain and Portugal, came the New Stone Age Men about whom little is known. After 800 BC the Celts arrived from Central Europe. The name ''Britain'' comes from the name of a Celtic tribe known as the Britons. Then came the Romans. They occupied the area of what is now England from 43 AD until 410 AD. The Romans built many towns and connected them by good roads. The largest of the towns was called Londinium. The town was built on the River Thames.

A few years after the last Roman troops had been withdrawn, the country was occupied by Germanic tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came over from north-central Europe in vast numbers. It is from the Angles that the name 'England' derives. The Anglo-Saxons spoke a Germanic language which forms the basis of modern English.

In 829 the greater part of the country was united under the name England. The Northern part was called Scotland. In the 11^th century united Scottish kingdom was formed.

The Norsemen and Danes from Scandinavia (the Vikings) were occasional invaders and largely mixed their blood with the Angles and Saxons and, to some extent, with the Celts in north Scotland.

In 1066 the last invaders, William the Conqueror and his people, came to England from Normandy in France. The French language became the official language of the ruling class for the next three centuries. England began to spread its power on Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Wales became formally part of England in 1536. The marriage between the Norman-French and the Anglo-Saxon tongues became the language of most of England and the Lowlands of Scotland. Celtic dialects kept up in Wales, Cornwall, the Highland of Scotland, and in Ireland, where they are still spoken by many people. Today English vocabulary is approximately half Germanic (from the Saxons and Vikings) and half Romance (from French and Latin). There are however considerable borrowings from other languages.

Scotland and England had quite separate monarchies until 1603. A full merger between the two countries into the Kingdom of Great Britain followed in 1707. Meanwhile Ireland was not united to Great Britain until 1801.

In 1922 southern Ireland withdrew from the union and became a free state, the Irish Republic. Since then, the United Kingdom has stayed complete and continued to absorb newcomers from all over the world.

The United Kingdom today consists of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was created by Act of Parliament in 1801 and its peoples are known collectively as the British.

The British Empire became the biggest in the world's history. In 1914 it comprised a quarter of the world's population living on a fifth of its land surface. It expanded most dramatically in Queen Victoria's later years, while the United Kingdom enjoyed a period of so-called Splendid Isolation from European affairs. Trade and overseas assets were increasingly concentrated in this vast Empire which, by 1931, had developed into the more informal, voluntary confederation of the Commonwealth.