Portal:United Kingdom

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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering 94,354 square miles (244,376 km²). Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The UK maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The United Kingdom had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom is London. The cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively.

The UK has been inhabited continuously since the Neolithic. In AD 43, the Roman conquest of Britain began; the Roman departure was followed by Anglo-Saxon settlement. In 1066, the Normans conquered England. With the end of the Wars of the Roses, the English state stabilised and began to grow in power, resulting by the 16th century in the annexation of Wales, and the establishment of the British Empire. Over the course of the 17th century, the role of the British monarchy was reduced, particularly as a result of the English Civil War. In 1707, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In the Georgian era, the office of prime minister became established. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present United Kingdom.

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 the Pax Britannica between 1815 and 1914. The British Empire was the leading economic power for most of the 19th century, a position supported by its agricultural prosperity, its role as a dominant trading nation, a massive industrial capacity, significant technological achievements, and the rise of 19th-century London as the world's principal financial centre. At its height in the 1920s, the British Empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and the Second World War damaged Britain's economic power and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. (Full article...)

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Sheerness is a town located beside the mouth of the River Medway on the northwest corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 12,000, it is the largest town on the island. Sheerness began as a fort built in the sixteenth century to protect the River Medway from naval invasion. After a Dutch attack in 1692, Samuel Pepys, the Secretary to the Admiralty, established a Royal Navy dockyard in the town, where warships were built and repaired until its closure in 1960. In the nineteenth century, Sheerness also became a seaside resort, when a pier and promenade were constructed. Industry remains an important part of the town, and the port of Sheerness is one of the United Kingdom's leading car and fresh produce importers. The town is the site of one of the UK's first co-operative societies and the world's first multi-storey building with a rigid metal frame. (Full article...)

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George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland, from 1 August 1714 until his death. At the age of 54, he ascended the British throne as the first monarch of the House of Hanover. Although many bore closer blood-relationships to the childless Queen Anne, the Act of Settlement 1701, which prohibits Catholics from inheriting the throne, designated her cousin, Sophia of Hanover, as heiress to the throne. Sophia was Anne's closest living Protestant relative but died a matter of weeks before Anne leaving the Protestant succession to her son, George. In reaction, the Jacobites attempted to depose George and replace him with Anne's Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart, but their attempts failed. During George's reign in Britain, the powers of the monarchy diminished and the modern system of Cabinet government led by a Prime Minister underwent development. Towards the end of his reign, actual power was held by Sir Robert Walpole. George died on a trip to his native Hanover, where he was buried. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various United Kingdom-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Royal Stewart tartan. It is also the personal tartan of Queen Elizabeth II Tartan is used in clothing, such as skirts and scarves, and has also appeared on tins of Scottish shortbread. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 2Animator Nick Park with his Wallace and Gromit characters (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 3The first colour photograph in 1861. Produced by the three-colour method suggested by James Clerk Maxwell in 1855, it is the foundation of all colour photographic processes. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 4Westminster Abbey is an example of English Gothic architecture. Since 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned, the coronations of British monarchs have been held here. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 5Centre Court at Wimbledon. The world's oldest tennis tournament, it has the longest sponsorship in sport with Slazenger supplying tennis balls to the event since 1902. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 6King Alfred the Great statue in Winchester, Hampshire. The 9th-century English king encouraged education in his kingdom, and proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 7Stonehenge, Wiltshire at sunset (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 8R. White's soft drinks sold in London. Selling carbonated lemonade in 1845, by 1887 they sold strawberry soda, raspberry soda and cherryade. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 9Featherweight champion "Prince" Naseem Hamed was a major name in boxing and 1990s British pop culture. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 10Two of the current Ravens of the Tower of London. The ravens' presence is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the tower; a superstition holds that "if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it". (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 11The Forth Railway Bridge is a cantilever bridge over the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland. It was opened in 1890, and is designated as a Category A listed building. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 12Broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 13Welsh native Roald Dahl is frequently ranked the best children's author in British polls.
Image 14William III and Mary II Presenting the Cap of Liberty to Europe, 1716, Sir James Thornhill. Enthroned in heaven with the Virtues behind them are the royals William and Mary who had taken the throne after the Glorious Revolution and signed the English Bill of Rights of 1689. William tramples on arbitrary power and hands the red cap of liberty to Europe where, unlike Britain, absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution. Below William is the French king Louis XIV. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 15Queen Victoria in her white wedding dress with Prince Albert on their return from the marriage service at St James's Palace, London, 10 February 1840 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 16Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785) (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 17The British Shorthair was an inspiration for the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 18Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse, 9 miles out to sea. John Smeaton pioneered hydraulic lime in concrete which led to the development of Portland cement in England and thus modern concrete. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 19A 21st-century detached Mock Tudor house in Scotland. Its timber framing is typical of English Tudor architecture. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 20Emmeline Pankhurst. Named one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century by Time, Pankhurst was a leading figure in the suffragette movement. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 21Tea, biscuits, jam and cakes. Tea is the most popular beverage in the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 22Caricature of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in Vanity Fair, 30 January 1869 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 23Physicist Stephen Hawking set forth a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. His 1988 book A Brief History of Time appeared on The Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 24John Speed's Genealogies Recorded in the Sacred Scriptures (1611), bound into first King James Bible in quarto size (1612) (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 25The Battle of Trafalgar is an oil painting executed in 1822 by J. M. W. Turner (c.1775–1851). The experience of military, political and economic power from the rise of the British Empire led to a very specific drive in artistic technique, taste and sensibility in the United Kingdom. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 26Charles Darwin established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 27The Christmas Pantomime 1890. Pantomime plays a prominent role in British culture during the Christmas and New Year season. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 28Josiah Wedgwood was a leading entrepreneur in the Industrial Revolution. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 29Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales prior to a Wales vs England Six Nations Championship game. The annual rugby union tournament (which includes Scotland and Ireland) takes place over six weeks from late January/early February to mid March. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 30Mo Farah is the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history, winning the 5000 m and 10,000 m events at two Olympic Games. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 31One of Britain's oldest indigenous breeds, the Bulldog is known as the national dog of Great Britain. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 32Chicken tikka masala, served atop rice. An Anglo-Indian meal, it is among the UK's most popular dishes. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 33Robert Burns is regarded as the national poet of Scotland.
Image 34New College, University of Edinburgh (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 35The wizard Merlin features as a character in many works of fiction, including the BBC series Merlin. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 36The red telephone box and Royal Mail red post box appear throughout the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 37Typical 20th-century, three-bedroom semi-detached houses in England (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 38The Examination and Trial of Father Christmas (1686), published after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 39A Watt steam engine, the steam engine that propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 40Jack In the Green, a traditional English folk custom being celebrated in Hastings Old Town, known for its many historic buildings. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 41The Beatles are the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed band in popular music, with estimated sales of over one billion.
Image 42Terraced houses are typical in inner cities and places of high population density. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 43The Oxford Union debate chamber. Called the "world's most prestigious debating society", the Oxford Union has hosted leaders and celebrities. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 44An award-winning Victoria sponge from an English village fête. Competitive baking is part of the traditional village fête, inspiring The Great British Bake Off television series. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 45Hadrian's Wall was built in the 2nd century AD. It is a lasting monument from Roman Britain. It is the largest Roman artefact in existence. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 46Sunday league football (a form of amateur football). Amateur matches throughout the UK often take place in public parks. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 47Yard, foot and inch measurements at the Royal Observatory, London. The British public commonly measure distance in miles and yards, height in feet and inches, weight in stone and pounds, speed in miles per hour. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 48Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 49Wembley Stadium, London, home of the England football team and FA Cup finals. Wembley also hosts concerts: Adele's 28 June 2017 concert was attended by 98,000 fans, a stadium record for a music event in the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 50Queen Victoria's Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, published in the Illustrated London News, 1848 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 51Bodiam Castle is a 14th-century moated castle in East Sussex. Today there are thousands of castles throughout the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 52Cricketer W. G. Grace, with his long beard and MCC cap, was the most famous British sportsman in the Victorian era. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 53The British Heart Foundation is the biggest funder of cardiovascular research in the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 54A Christmas dinner plate in Scotland, featuring roast turkey, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 55The Notting Hill Carnival is Britain's biggest street festival. Led by members of the British African-Caribbean community, the annual carnival takes place in August and lasts three days. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 56Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano, in Dundee, Scotland. Launched in 1938, The Beano is known for its anarchic humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 57King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey. A 13th-century wooden throne on which the British monarch sits when he or she is crowned at the coronation, swearing to uphold the law and the church. The monarchy is apolitical and impartial, with a largely symbolic role as head of state. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 58Banksy's Grin Reaper (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 59Titanic Belfast museum on the former shipyard in Belfast where the RMS Titanic was built (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 60Naomi Campbell appeared on the era-defining January 1990 cover of British Vogue. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 61The full breakfast is among the best known British dishes, consisting of fried egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, baked beans, toast, fried tomatoes, and sometimes white or black pudding. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 62Music hall evolved into variety shows. First performed in 1912, the Royal Variety Performance was first held at the London Palladium (pictured) in 1941. Performed in front of members of the Royal Family, it is held annually in December and broadcast on television. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 63English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Sir Alfred Hitchcock at 153 Cromwell Road, London (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 64The Old English heroic poem Beowulf is located in the British Library. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 65One of the UK's many stately homes, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, surrounded by an English garden. The house is one of the settings of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 66Union Flag being flown on The Mall, London looking towards Buckingham Palace (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 67Old Bushmills Distillery, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1608, it is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 68Highland dancing in traditional Gaelic dress with its tartan pattern (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 69Engraving of the English pirate Blackbeard from the 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates. The book is the prime source for many famous pirates of the Golden Age. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 70Statue of a tripod from The War of the Worlds in Woking, England, the hometown of author H. G. Wells. The book is a seminal depiction of a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 71The founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale tending to a patient in 1855. An icon of Victorian Britain, she is known as The Lady with the Lamp. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 72Scouts, Brownies, and Cubs with the local community in Tiverton, Devon on Remembrance Sunday (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 73The Proms are held annually at the Royal Albert Hall during the summer. Regular performers at the Albert Hall include Eric Clapton who has played at the venue over 200 times. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 74Cadbury chocolate bars (Dairy Milk back of tray), circa 1910 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 75The Grenadier Guards band playing "The British Grenadiers" at Trooping the Colour. Formed in 1685 the band performs at British ceremonial events. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 76Concorde (and the Red Arrows with their trail of red, white and blue smoke) mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee. With its slender delta wings Concorde won the public vote for best British design. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 77McVitie's chocolate digestive is routinely ranked the UK's favourite snack, and No. 1 biscuit to dunk in tea. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 78Ice dancers Torvill and Dean in 2011. Their historic gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics was watched by a British television audience of more than 24 million people. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 7910 Downing Street, official residence of the Prime Minister (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 80William Shakespeare has had a significant impact on British theatre and drama. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 81Trooping the Colour is an annual ceremony, most notably associated with the British Army, and involves a grand parade featuring hundreds of soldiers, horses, and musicians. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)

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Featured pictures

Image 1
Inveraray Castle
Photograph: Son of Groucho
Inveraray Castle is a country house near Inveraray in the county of Argyll, in western Scotland, on the shore of Loch Fyne, Scotland’s longest sea loch. Designed in part by William Adam and Roger Morris, work on the Gothic Revival castle began in the 1740s. The castle, the seat of the Duke of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, is open to the public.
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Image 2
Bibury
Photo: Saffron Blaze
Arlington Row, a row of Cotswold stone cottages in Bibury, Gloucestershire, England. Built in 1380 as a monastic wool store, the buildings were converted into weavers' cottages in the 17th century. William Morris declared the village to be the most beautiful in England.
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Image 3
City of London
Photo credit: David Iliff
The City of London skyline as viewed toward the northwest from the top floor viewing platform of London City Hall on the southern side of the River Thames. Not to be confused with the London metropolitan area, the City covers 1.12 sq mi (2.90 km²) and, along with Westminster is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew.
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Image 4
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania
Painting: Joseph Noel Paton
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania is an oil painting on canvas by the Scottish artist Joseph Noel Paton. Painted in 1849, it depicts the scene from William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the fairy queen Titania and fairy king Oberon quarrel. When exhibited in Edinburgh in 1850, it was declared the "painting of the season". The painting was acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland in 1897, having initially been bought by the Royal Association for Promoting the Fine Arts.
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Image 5
British First World War recruitment poster
Poster: Parliamentary Recruiting Committee; restoration: Adam Cuerden
A British recruitment poster from the First World War, featuring imagery of Saint George and the Dragon. Britain in the First World War fielded more than five million troops. Enrollment was initially voluntary, and in 1914 and 1915 the British military released numerous recruitment posters to attract troops. As the war progressed there were fewer volunteers to fill the ranks, and in 1916 the Military Service Act, which provided for the conscription of single men aged 18–41, was introduced. By the end of the war the law's scope had been extended to include older and married men.
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Image 6
Gilbert and Sullivan
Image credit: Alfred Bryan
Gilbert and Sullivan created fourteen comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, many of which are still frequently performed today. However, events around their 1889 collaboration, The Gondoliers, led to an argument and a lawsuit dividing the two. In 1891, after many failed attempts at reconciliation by the pair and their producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan's music publisher, Tom Chappell, stepped in to mediate between two of his most profitable artists, and within two weeks he had succeeded. This cartoon in The Entr'acte expresses the magazine's pleasure at the reuniting of D'Oyly Carte (left), Gilbert (centre), and Sullivan (right).
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Image 7
Loch Torridon
Photo: Stefan Krause
Loch Torridon is a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland in the Northwest Highlands. The 15 mile- (25 km-) long body of water is home to several islets and a prominent prawn and shellfish fishery.
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Image 8
Caterpillar, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Artist: Sir John Tenniel
Sir John Tenniel's illustration of the Caterpillar for Lewis Carroll's classic children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The illustration is noted for its ambiguous central figure, which can be viewed as having either a human male's face with pointed nose and protruding lower lip or as the head end of an actual caterpillar, with the right three "true" legs visible. The small symbol in the lower left is composed of Tenniel's initials, which was how he signed most of his work for the book. The partially obscured word in the lower left-center is the last name of Edward Dalziel, the engraver of the piece.
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Image 9
Roundabout
Photo credit: Fredrik and Mintguy
A diagram of movement within a roundabout in a country where traffic drives on the left.

A roundabout is a type of road junction, or traffic calming device, at which traffic streams circularly around a central island after first yielding to the circulating traffic. Unlike with traffic circles, vehicles on a roundabout have priority over the entering vehicle, parking is not allowed and pedestrians are usually prohibited from the central island.
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Image 10
Piccadilly Circus
Photo credit: Chalmers Butterfield
Shaftesbury Avenue from Piccadilly Circus, in the West End of London, c. 1949. The Circus, a famous traffic intersection and public space in the City of Westminster was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. Its status as a major traffic intersection has made it a busy meeting point and a tourist attraction in its own right.
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Image 11
Radcliffe Camera
Photo credit: Diliff
A stitched image of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, England, as seen from the tower of the Church of St Mary the Virgin. The building, often abbreviated as 'Rad Cam', was built by James Gibbs in 1737–1749 to house the Radcliffe Science Library. After the Radcliffe Science Library moved into another building, the Radcliffe Camera became a reading room of the Bodleian Library.
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Image 12
Beer Street and Gin Lane
Image credit: William Hogarth
Beer Street and Gin Lane are a pair of 1751 engravings by William Hogarth in support of the then-proposed Gin Act 1751. This Act of Parliament made the distillation of gin illegal in England. Beer Street shows a happy city drinking the "good" beverage of English beer, whereas Gin Lane claims to show what would happen if people started drinking gin, a harder liquor. People are shown as healthy, happy and hardworking in Beer Street, while in Gin Lane they are scrawny, lazy and acting carelessly, including a drunk mother accidentally sending her baby tumbling to its doom.
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Image 13
Elizabeth I of England
Artist: Steven van der Meulen
The "Hampden" portrait of Elizabeth I of England was painted by the Flemish artist Steven van der Meulen in the mid to late 1560s. Art historian Sir Roy Strong has suggested that this is "one of a group produced in response to a crisis over the production of the royal image" as a number of old-fashioned and unflattering portraits of the queen were then in circulation. This is the earliest full-length (2 m or 7 ft tall) portrait of the young queen, and depicts her in red satin trimmed with pearls and jewels. It represents a phase in the portraiture of Elizabeth I before the emergence of allegorical images representing the iconography of the "Virgin Queen". In November 2007 it was auctioned by Sotheby's for ₤2.6 million, more than twice the maximum predicted.
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Image 14
Red telephone box
Photograph: Christoph Braun
A 'K6' model red telephone box outside of St Paul's Cathedral in London. These kiosks for a public telephone were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and painted "currant red" for easy visibility. Although such telephone boxes ceased production when the KX series was introduced in 1985, they remain a common sight in Britain and some of its colonies, and are considered a British cultural icon.
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Image 15
Beachy Head
Photo: David Iliff
Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m (530 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast from Dungeness to the east, to Selsey Bill in the west.
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Did you know - load new batch

... that Ruth Northway is the United Kingdom's first professor of learning disability nursing?
... that in 1943, Bhicoo Batlivala led a group of Indian women to the House of Commons to request the release of Gandhi from prison?
... that despite being an independent candidate, Leanne Mohamad came within 528 votes of defeating shadow health secretary Wes Streeting in the 2024 UK general election?
... that, before same-sex unions were legally recognised in the UK, the London Partnership Register allowed nearly 1,000 couples to celebrate their relationships?
... that South African president Jacob Zuma requested a tour of a Sainsbury's supermarket during his state visit to the United Kingdom in 2010?
... that a yellow-spotted emerald specimen was found for the first time in the United Kingdom in 2018, when a wildlife photographer used Twitter to identify it?