United Kingdom
Name
| Official name | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — the UK, the United Kingdom; Britain and Great Britain in speech (Great Britain the island of England, Scotland and Wales, strictly; "Team GB" at the Olympics); Y Deyrnas Unedig (Welsh), an Rìoghachd Aonaichte (Scottish Gaelic), Ríocht Aontaithe (Irish); GBR the code (GB the vehicle code to 2021, UK since) |
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| Former names | The Kingdom of Great Britain (1 May 1707 – 1800; the Acts of Union of England and Scotland), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1 January 1801 – 1922/1927; the Act of Union with Ireland, the name kept in law until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act of 1927), the Kingdom of England (927–1707; Wales annexed 1536–43) and the Kingdom of Scotland (843–1707), the Commonwealth of England (1649–60), Britannia to Rome, Albion to the Greeks; the British Empire of the maps in red |
| Demonym | British (Briton, Brit); English, Scottish (Scots), Welsh and Northern Irish by nation, Cornish, Manx and the rest by pride; "Sassenach" and "Pom" abroad; the "Brits" of the beaches; the British subject of the old law and the British citizen of 1983 |
| Meaning of the name | "Britain" from the Britanni of the Roman name (Britannia, the province of the years 43 to 410), from the Greek Prettanike of Pytheas (c. 320 BC) — the "painted" or "tattooed" people of the Celtic word by one reading; "Great" Britain to tell it from Brittany, the Lesser Britain of the Bretons (the 13th century; James I's "Great Britain" of 1604); "England" the land of the Angles, "Scotland" the land of the Scoti of Ireland, "Wales" the Anglo-Saxon "foreigners" (the Welsh call it Cymru, "the compatriots"), "Northern Ireland" the six counties of 1921; "United Kingdom" the union of the crowns' realms |
| Motto | "Dieu et mon droit" ("God and my right"), the royal motto on the arms since Henry V (the French of the Plantagenet kings), with "Honi soit qui mal y pense" ("Shame on him who thinks ill of it") on the Garter that rings the shield; "Nemo me impune lacessit" ("No one provokes me with impunity") on the Scottish version and the Order of the Thistle; no motto of the state by law; "Keep calm and carry on" the poster of 1939 that became the joke of the 2000s |
Quick facts
| Capital | London — about 8.9 million in Greater London (the 32 boroughs and the City of London, the square mile of 1,000 residents and 500,000 workers) by the ONS's mid-2024 count, about 14 million in the metropolitan area; the Palace of Westminster (the Commons and the Lords; the Big Ben of 1859), Downing Street, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, the Supreme Court, the Bank of England, the Old Bailey, Lambeth Palace, St. Paul's and the Abbey, the Tower, the Underground of 1863 and the Elizabeth line of 2022, the Thames Barrier; the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (Labour; since 2016, the third term of 2024) and the Assembly; the tourists' 20 million and the world's most-visited museum of the free (the British Museum, with the Bayeux Tapestry on loan from September 2026); Londinium of the Romans (c. 47), the capital since the Norman kings |
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| Largest cities | London (about 8.9 million; 14 million in the metropolis), Birmingham (about 1.15 million; the West Midlands conurbation of 2.6 million), Glasgow (about 630,000; 1.8 million around it), Liverpool (about 500,000; the Merseyside of 1.4 million), Leeds (about 820,000 in its wide district; the West Yorkshire of 2.4 million), Sheffield (about 560,000), Manchester (about 550,000 in the city; Greater Manchester's 2.9 million), Edinburgh (about 530,000), Bristol (about 480,000), Leicester, Coventry, Bradford, Cardiff (about 380,000), Belfast (about 350,000), Nottingham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Kingston upon Hull, Stoke-on-Trent, Southampton, Portsmouth, Derby, Aberdeen, Dundee, Swansea — the counts of the ONS's mid-2024 estimates by council area; the Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Liverpool, West Yorkshire, North East, South Yorkshire and Tees Valley mayoralties; four in five Britons in the towns and cities |
| Official language | English by custom and use, not by law (the language of the state, the courts (since 1362/1731) and the schools; the world's language from the island of 60 million speakers) — Welsh official in Wales by the Welsh Language Measure of 2011 (about 540,000 speakers by the census of 2021, the target of a million by 2050), Scottish Gaelic by the act of 2005 (about 60,000 speakers, the Hebrides), Scots and Ulster Scots recognized, Irish official in Northern Ireland by the Identity and Language Act of 2022, Cornish and Manx revived; British Sign Language by the act of 2022; Polish, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic, Romanian, Portuguese and French the largest of the immigrants' tongues; the accents of the four nations and the 40 dialects of the island |
| Currency | Pound sterling (ISO code GBP; £; the quid), of 100 pence — about US$1.33 to the pound on 30 September 2026 by the market's counts and about 1.1 euros; the Bank of England (1694; Governor Andrew Bailey since March 2020), the Bank Rate 3.75% since December 2025, held 17 September 2026 by 6–3 (the three for 4%), the next meeting 5 November; the polymer notes of the King since June 2024, the Scottish and Northern Irish banks' notes; Decimal Day 15 February 1971; the euro never (the five tests of 1997); the pound's floor of the Truss days (US$1.03, 26 September 2022) |
| Time zone | Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0; the meridian of 1884 at the Royal Observatory) and British Summer Time (UTC+1) from the last Sunday of March to the last of October (the Summer Time Act of 1916; the double summer time of the war, the year-round BST of the experiment of 1968–71) |
| Calling code | +44 |
| Internet domain | .uk (since 1985; Nominet), with .gb reserved and unused, .scot (2014), .wales and .cymru (2014), .london (2014) |
| ISO 3166 codes | GB · GBR · 826 (the ISO's "GB" the code the domain never took; UK reserved for the country's own use) |
| Vehicle registration code | UK (since 28 September 2021; GB before it) |
| Driving side | Left (the one large European country of the left with Ireland, Malta and Cyprus; the Highway Code of 1931) |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug type G (the three-pin of BS 1363, 1947, the fused plug of the ring main) |
| Independence | None — the state of the unions: the Acts of Union of 1707 (England and Scotland, 1 May) and 1800 (Great Britain and Ireland, 1 January 1801), Wales's annexation by the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, the Irish Free State's secession (6 December 1922; the six counties of Northern Ireland staying), the name of 1927; the monarchy of 927 (Æthelstan the first King of the English) and 1066; the Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Act of Settlement of 1701 the constitution's cornerstones; the Commonwealth's independences from 1947; the European Union left 31 January 2020 (the referendum of 23 June 2016, 51.9%); Scotland's referendum of 18 September 2014 (55.3% no) and the SNP's second the standing question |
| National days | None for the state — St. George's Day (23 April) in England, St. Andrew's Day (30 November; a bank holiday in Scotland since 2007), St. David's Day (1 March) in Wales, St. Patrick's Day (17 March; a bank holiday in Northern Ireland); the King's Official Birthday of June's Trooping the Colour; Remembrance Sunday of November's poppies (11 November the Armistice); the bank holidays of the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 and after — New Year's Day, Good Friday and Easter Monday, the early May and the spring bank holidays, the summer bank holiday of August's last Monday (the first in Scotland), Christmas and Boxing Day, the Twelfth of July in Northern Ireland, the 2 January of Scotland; the Coronation holiday of 8 May 2023 the last extra; the Bonfire Night of 5 November, Burns Night of 25 January |
| Constitution | Uncodified — the statutes (Magna Carta of 1215's three clauses still in force, the Bill of Rights of 1689, the Act of Settlement of 1701, the Acts of Union, the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the Human Rights Act of 1998, the devolution acts of 1998, the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 that made the Supreme Court (2009), the Fixed-term Parliaments Act of 2011 repealed 2022, the European Union (Withdrawal) Acts of 2018–20, the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act of 2026 that ended the 92 hereditary seats), the common law and the courts' judgments (Miller of 2017 and 2019), the conventions (the Cabinet, collective responsibility, the Salisbury convention) and the works of authority (Bagehot, Dicey, Erskine May); the sovereignty of Parliament the rule, the referendum the exception (1975, 2011, 2014, 2016); the Crown's prerogatives in the Prime Minister's hands; the case for a written constitution (the Lib Dems, the reformers) and against (the flexibility of 800 years) — both stated (LAW 2); the National Commission on Electoral Reform of Burnham's promise of 29 September 2026 the next chapter |
| Population | 69,487,000 at 30 June 2025 by the ONS's provisional estimate (+206,000, 0.3%: net migration 204,000, the births 653,000 and the deaths 651,000 all but equal), 69,281,000 at mid-2024 (+1.0%; the net migration of 431,000 of the year to June 2024 after the 906,000 peak of 2023), 66,971,000 at the census of 21 March 2021 — England about 58 million, Scotland about 5.5, Wales about 3.2, Northern Ireland about 1.9 by the mid-2024 counts; the 22nd of the world; the median age about 41, the over-65s about 19%, the under-16s about 18%; a sixth born abroad (10.7 million by the census of 2021); the ONS's projection of 72.5 million by 2032 on the migration; the detailed mid-2025 counts by age and area in the ONS's summer release; the fertility rate 1.41 (2024), the lowest recorded |
| Area | 243,610 km² (94,058 sq mi) by the Factbook's count — 242,495 km² by the ONS's standard area measurement (both stated) — the 78th of the world; England 130,279 km², Scotland 77,933, Wales 20,779, Northern Ireland 14,130; land 241,930 km², the inland water 1,680 (0.7%); the island of Great Britain 209,331 km², the ninth largest of the world; about 6,000 islands (the Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland, Anglesey, the Isle of Wight, the Isles of Scilly, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands the Crown's dependencies outside the UK); 1,000 km from the Lizard to Dunnet Head, 500 from Wales to the Wash; the one land border 499 km with Ireland; the coast 12,429 km by the Factbook's count (17,820 by the Ordnance Survey's finer one); the 14 overseas territories of 1.7 million km² with the British Antarctic Territory |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | The Union Flag (the Union Jack at sea and by custom everywhere) — the crosses of the three patron saints on a field of blue: the red cross of St. George of England on white, the white saltire of St. Andrew of Scotland on blue and the red saltire of St. Patrick for Ireland, the first two joined by James VI and I's proclamation of 12 April 1606 after the union of the crowns, the third added on 1 January 1801 with the union with Ireland (Wales, a principality within England by then, has no place on it — the argument of every decade), the red saltire counterchanged so that neither cross takes precedence, the flag of 1:2 flown from the government's buildings every day since 2007 and the civil flag of the whole kingdom by custom rather than by any act; the Red Ensign of the merchant ships, the White of the Navy, the Blue of the government's, the Royal Standard of the King; the Union Flag in the canton of the Australian, New Zealand, Fijian, Tuvaluan and Hawaiian flags; "the Jack" from the jack-staff of the bows or from Jacobus, the King, by the two readings. Flag of the United Kingdom |
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| Coat of arms | The Royal Arms — quarterly, the three lions passant guardant of England (1st and 4th), the lion rampant of Scotland in its double tressure (2nd) and the harp of Ireland (3rd), the shield ringed by the Garter's "Honi soit qui mal y pense," the lion crowned and the unicorn chained as supporters, the crest of the crowned lion on the crown, the motto "Dieu et mon droit"; the Scottish version with the lion of Scotland first, the unicorn on the dexter, the Thistle's "Nemo me impune lacessit" and "In defens"; the arms of the King used by the government, the courts (behind every judge), the passports and the Royal Warrant holders; the lion and the unicorn of the nursery rhyme; the Welsh Dragon on Wales's flag of 1959, the Saltire and the Red Hand of Ulster |
| National anthem | "God Save the King" — the words and tune of 1745 (first sung at Drury Lane for George II after Prestonpans; the tune the anthem of Liechtenstein still and once of Prussia, Russia and the United States' "America"), the national anthem by custom with no act of Parliament, "the King" since 8 September 2022 after 70 years of "the Queen"; "Flower of Scotland" (1967) and "Scotland the Brave" for Scotland, "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" ("Land of My Fathers," 1856) for Wales, "Londonderry Air"/"Danny Boy" and the anthem for Northern Ireland, "Jerusalem" (Parry's of 1916 to Blake's words) England's unofficial, "Rule, Britannia!" and "Land of Hope and Glory" of the Proms' Last Night |
| National motto | "Dieu et mon droit" of the royal arms (Henry V's; the claim to France) — no motto of the state by law; "Honi soit qui mal y pense" of the Garter (1348); "Nemo me impune lacessit" of Scotland; "Ich dien" ("I serve") of the Prince of Wales's feathers; "Cymru am byth" ("Wales forever"); "Keep calm and carry on" |
| National colors | Red, white and blue of the Union Flag — the red of St. George and St. Patrick, the white of St. Andrew's saltire and St. George's field, the blue of Scotland; England's white and red (the football and rugby shirts of white), Scotland's navy blue (the saltire's; the football's dark blue), Wales's red and green (the dragon's flag; the red shirts), Northern Ireland's green; the red of the Post Office's pillar boxes and the buses of London, the black of the cabs, the racing green of the motors, the Royal Navy's blue and the Guards' scarlet |
| National animal | The lion by custom (the three lions of England's arms since Richard I, the football's badge), the unicorn of Scotland (the royal beast since the 15th century; the supporters of the arms), the Welsh dragon (Y Ddraig Goch of the flag of 1959; Cadwaladr's by the legend), the bulldog of the cartoons and Churchill; the robin the national bird of England by the vote of 2015, the golden eagle Scotland's by custom, the red kite Wales's; the red deer of the Highlands, the red squirrel (the gray squirrel of America its foe), the hedgehog, the badger of the culls, the puffins of the cliffs, the Loch Ness monster of the postcards; the King's swans of the Thames and the Tower's ravens by the law of the legend |
| National flower and tree | The Tudor rose of England (the red of Lancaster and the white of York joined by Henry VII, 1485; the rose of the rugby shirt), the thistle of Scotland (the Order of the Thistle; the legend of the Norse invader's bare foot), the daffodil and the leek of Wales (St. David's Day; the leek of Cadwaladr's battle and Henry V's Fluellen), the shamrock of Ireland and the flax of Northern Ireland's arms; the oak the tree of England by custom (the Royal Oak of Charles II's hiding, the navy's timber, the Major Oak of Sherwood), the Scots pine of Scotland, the sessile oak of Wales, the yew of the churchyards (the Fortingall yew of 2,000 years and more); the poppy of Remembrance; the rose, thistle, leek and shamrock together on the £1 coin of 2017 |
| National dish | Fish and chips by custom (the cod and haddock of the 1860s' first shops; the Friday of 10,000 chip shops), the roast beef of Sunday with Yorkshire pudding (the "rosbif" of the French), the full English breakfast, chicken tikka masala ("a true British national dish," said the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in 2001; the curry houses of Birmingham's Balti Triangle and Brick Lane), shepherd's pie, bangers and mash, the pies of pork and steak-and-kidney, the ploughman's lunch, the cream tea of Devon and Cornwall (the jam-or-cream quarrel), the Cornish pasty (protected), the Scottish haggis of Burns Night, the Welsh cawl and rarebit, the Ulster fry, the Christmas dinner, the trifle and the sticky toffee pudding; the tea (100 million cups a day by the counts), the pint of bitter and the pub (about 45,000, closing), the Scotch whisky (the largest food and drink export), the gin, the cheddar of Somerset and the Stilton; Marmite, the Cadbury's, the crumpet |
| National sport | Football by custom — the game codified at the Freemasons' Tavern in 1863 (the Football Association, the oldest), the Premier League of the world's richest clubs, the FA Cup of 1871–72 (the oldest competition; the non-league Macclesfield's win at Crystal Palace of 10 January 2026 the biggest upset in its history), the four national teams — England's World Cup of 1966, the finals of Euro 2020 and 2024 lost, THE WORLD CUP OF 2026 IN FULL: the group of Croatia, Ghana and Panama won, DR Congo in the round of 32 (1 July), Mexico 3–2 in the round of 16 (5 July), Norway 2–1 in the quarterfinal (11 July), the semifinal lost to Argentina 1–2 at Atlanta (15 July; Gordon's goal, Fernández's and Martínez's in stoppage time), France beaten 6–4 for third place at Miami (18 July) — the best since 1966, Harry Kane England's World Cup top scorer past Lineker's ten by the counts, Thomas Tuchel the manager; Scotland's first World Cup since 1998 (Brazil 0–1, Morocco 0–1, Haiti 1–0; out in the group), Wales and Northern Ireland absent; the Lionesses' Euros of 2022 and 2025 (Basel, 27 July 2025, Spain on penalties); cricket (the game's home; the Ashes, the Hundred, the T20 world titles of 2010 and 2022), rugby union (Twickenham, Murrayfield and the Principality; the Six Nations; England's World Cup of 2003 and the Red Roses' of 2025), rugby league of the north, tennis (Wimbledon since 1877), golf (St. Andrews), Formula 1 (Silverstone; George Russell's Australian win of March 2026), horse racing (Ascot, Aintree, Cheltenham), rowing, cycling, athletics; THE GLASGOW COMMONWEALTH GAMES OF 23 JULY – 2 AUGUST 2026 (England second with 29 golds and 110 medals, Scotland fifth with 13 golds, Wales ninth with 9 — Emma Finucane's four sprint golds — Northern Ireland's few); THE WINTER OLYMPICS OF 2026 — Britain's best ever (3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze, 15th: Matt Weston's skeleton, the mixed skeleton with Tabitha Stoecker, Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale's snowboard cross; Bruce Mouat's curling silver, Zoe Atkin's halfpipe bronze); the darts of Luke Littler (the world title of 3 January 2026, his second) |
| Heritage listings | UNESCO World Heritage ×35 with the overseas territories' four (the list's count of 2026) — Stonehenge and Avebury (1986), Durham Castle and Cathedral, Ironbridge Gorge, the Giant's Causeway, Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey, the Castles of Edward I in Gwynedd (all 1986), Blenheim, Bath, Hadrian's Wall (the Frontiers of the Roman Empire; 1987), Westminster Palace and Abbey (1987), Canterbury, the Tower of London (1988), Old and New Towns of Edinburgh (1995), Maritime Greenwich (1997), Orkney's Neolithic heart (1999), Blaenavon (2000), Saltaire, the Derwent Valley mills, New Lanark (2001), Kew (2003), the Lake District (2017), the Jodrell Bank observatory (2019), the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales (2021), the Flow Country of Sutherland and the Moravian settlement of Gracehill (2024), Liverpool struck off (2021); the biosphere reserves ×7, the Ramsar sites ×175 (the most of any country); the listed buildings of 400,000 (Historic England's grades), the 15 national parks, the 46 National Landscapes (the AONBs renamed 2023); the National Trust's 5.4 million members |
| Symbol status | The Union Flag by custom and the proclamations of 1606 and 1801 (no act names it the national flag; the government's rule of 2007 for its buildings); the Royal Arms by the Crown; the anthem by custom since 1745 (no law); the patron saints' days by the churches and the devolved governments; the bank holidays by the acts of 1871 and 1971; no motto, animal, flower, dish or sport by law — all by custom and the votes; the Welsh flag by the Queen's decision of 1959; the King's official birthday by proclamation |
Geography
| Location | Northwestern Europe, the islands off the continent's coast between 49°52′ and 60°51′ N (the Lizard to Unst in Shetland) and 8°10′ W and 1°46′ E — Great Britain across the Channel from France (33 km at the Strait of Dover; the Channel Tunnel since 1994) and the North Sea from the Low Countries, Norway and Denmark, Northern Ireland the six counties of Ulster on the island of Ireland with the 499-km border with the Republic, the Irish Sea between; the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream that warm it; the Shetlands nearer to Bergen than to London; the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands the Crown's but not the Kingdom's; the 14 overseas territories from Gibraltar, Bermuda and the Falklands to the British Antarctic Territory; the time meridian of Greenwich |
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| Land borders | 499 km with the Republic of Ireland — the border of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 and the partition of 1921–22 through the fields, the 200 crossings unmarked since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the Brexit border in the Irish Sea instead (the Northern Ireland Protocol of 2019 and the Windsor Framework of 27 February 2023; the goods checks at Larne and Belfast, the Stormont Assembly's votes on the EU rules); the Common Travel Area with Ireland since 1923; the Channel Tunnel's border at Coquelles and the Eurostar's checks at St. Pancras, the French police at Dover; Gibraltar's fence with Spain (the EU deal of 2025 for the open land border, the Spanish guards at the airport allowed February 2026); the Falklands, Gibraltar and the Chagos of the arguments — the Chagos treaty of 22 May 2025 with Mauritius (the sovereignty passed, Diego Garcia leased 99 years, the Chagossians' cases of 2026), the Iranian missiles at Diego Garcia of 21 March 2026 |
| Coastline | 12,429 km by the Factbook's count (17,820 by the Ordnance Survey's finer one; both stated) — the white cliffs of Dover and the Seven Sisters, the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and Devon (World Heritage 2001), Cornwall's Land's End and the Lizard, the Pembrokeshire coast, the Giant's Causeway of Antrim, the Highlands' sea lochs and the Hebrides, the Norfolk broads and the Wash, the estuaries of the Thames, the Severn (the second-highest tides of the world, 15 m), the Mersey, the Humber, the Clyde and the Forth; the ports of Felixstowe (the largest container port), Southampton, London Gateway, Liverpool, Dover (the ferries), Grimsby and Immingham (the largest by tonnage), Milford Haven (the oil and gas), Aberdeen (the North Sea's), the naval bases of Portsmouth, Devonport and Faslane; the beaches of Blackpool and Bournemouth, the seaside of the piers; the King Charles III England Coast Path of 4,328 km opened 19 March 2026, the world's longest managed coastal walk; the cliffs falling and the sea rising; nowhere more than about 115 km from the sea |
| Highest point | Ben Nevis, 1,345 m (4,413 ft), in the Grampians above Fort William, Scotland — the highest of the British Isles (the summit observatory of 1883–1904; the north face's cliffs, the pony track's 150,000 a year, the whisky of the town); Ben Macdui 1,309 m and the Cairngorm plateau, the 282 Munros above 914 m (3,000 ft) of Sir Hugh Munro's table of 1891, the Cuillin of Skye's Inaccessible Pinnacle; Scafell Pike 978 m the top of England (the Lake District; Helvellyn, Skiddaw), Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) 1,085 m the top of Wales (the railway of 1896, the 600,000 a year), Slieve Donard 850 m the top of Northern Ireland (the Mournes), Cross Fell 893 m the top of the Pennines, Kinder Scout the Peak of the trespass of 1932; the Three Peaks challenge of 24 hours |
| Lowest point | Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire, about 2.75 m below sea level by the survey — the peat of the drained Whittlesey Mere sunk 4 m since the post of 1851 was driven; the Fens at −4 m by the Factbook's count (both stated) — the drained land of the Dutch engineers of the 1630s (Vermuyden) and the pumps; the Somerset Levels, the Norfolk Broads (the medieval peat pits flooded), Romney Marsh, the Humberhead Levels and the Thames marshes the other lows; the Thames Barrier of 1982 that shuts against the surges (the 1953 flood's 307 dead); the sea level rising at the rate of the century |
| Mean elevation | 162 m by the Factbook's count — the low island: the lowlands of England's south and east (the chalk, the clay and the Fens), the Midlands' plain, the Pennines' spine (Cross Fell 893 m), the Lake District's fells, the Welsh mountains (Snowdonia, the Brecon Beacons, the Cambrian range) and the Scottish Highlands (the Grampians and the Northwest Highlands, the Great Glen's fault) with the Southern Uplands and the Central Belt of the cities between; Northern Ireland's Mournes, Sperrins and the Antrim plateau; the glaciers' leavings of the last ice age, the U-shaped glens and the drumlins; the highest village Flash in Staffordshire at 463 m |
| Rivers | The Severn (354 km; from Plynlimon in Wales to the Bristol Channel; the bore of the spring tides), the Thames (346 km; from the Cotswolds through Oxford, Windsor and London to the estuary; the tidal river of 160 km, the Barrier, the bridges; the Isis of Oxford), the Trent (298 km; the Humber's), the Great Ouse (230 km; the Fens'), the Wye (215 km; the border of Wales), the Tay (188 km; Scotland's longest and the largest of Britain by flow, the Perth of the salmon), the Clyde (176 km; Glasgow's shipyards), the Spey (the whisky), the Tweed (the border), the Tyne, the Mersey, the Avon of Shakespeare, the Dee of Chester and the Dee of Balmoral, the Bann (Northern Ireland's longest, from Lough Neagh), the Lagan of Belfast, the Foyle; the canals of the 18th century (3,200 km of the Canal and River Trust's, the narrowboats), the Manchester Ship Canal (1894), the Caledonian Canal; the water companies of the privatization of 1989 and their sewage of the 2020s (Thames Water's debts; the takeover powers of Burnham's speech of September 2026) |
| Lakes | Lough Neagh (392 km²; the largest of the British Isles, the eels and the algae), Loch Lomond (71 km²; the largest of Great Britain by area, the Trossachs park), Loch Ness (56 km², 230 m deep; the largest by volume, 7.4 km³, more water than all the lakes of England and Wales; the monster of 1933's photograph), Loch Morar (310 m; the deepest), Loch Awe (the longest), Windermere (15 km²; England's largest, the Lake District's steamers), Ullswater, Derwentwater, Coniston (Campbell's death of 1967), Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid; Wales's largest natural), Lough Erne, the Norfolk Broads' 63; the reservoirs of Rutland Water (12.6 km²), Kielder (the largest man-made by volume), Lake Vyrnwy, Elan; the lochs of the Highlands by the hundreds; the Lake District's 16 lakes and one lake (Bassenthwaite the only "lake" by name) |
| Terrain | The highland and the lowland — the line from the Tees to the Exe: to its northwest the old hard rocks of the Highlands, the Southern Uplands, the Lake District, the Pennines, Wales and Cornwall (the moors of Dartmoor and Exmoor, the fells, the glens, the sea lochs and the islands), to its southeast the young soft rocks of the plains, the chalk downs and escarpments (the Chilterns, the North and South Downs, the Salisbury Plain of Stonehenge, the White Horse), the clay vales, the Fens and the Broads, the Weald; the Midlands' coalfields of the Industrial Revolution (the Black Country, South Wales, the Central Belt, the Northeast); Northern Ireland's basalt plateau and drumlin belt; a quarter of the land arable, half pasture, 13% woodland (the least wooded of Europe after Ireland; the Forest of Dean, the New Forest, the Caledonian pines, the Kielder plantations), the moors of heather and the peat of the Flow Country (World Heritage 2024); the green belts around the cities; the National Parks ×15 and the National Landscapes ×46 |
| Climate | Temperate maritime by the Gulf Stream and the westerlies — mild, wet and changeable: London about 5°C in January and 19°C in July with about 600 mm of rain, the west wetter (the Lake District's Seathwaite 3,300 mm, Fort William 2,000, Cardiff 1,150) and the east drier (Essex 550 mm), Scotland's Highlands cold and snowy (Braemar's −27.2°C of 1895 and 1982 the record), the summers of 2022's 40.3°C at Coningsby (19 July; the first past 40°C) and 2025's heat (the driest spring in a century), the winters of the storms named since 2015 (Éowyn of 24 January 2025 the strongest of the decade; Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra of January 2026 in three weeks, the wettest January in the southwest's record, the floods of February 2026); the frosts and fogs, the drizzle, the four seasons in a day, the talk of the weather; the Met Office of 1854 (the shipping forecast); the warming of about 1°C since the 1960s by the Met Office's count, the wetter winters and the hotter summers of the 2020s |
| Natural hazards | The floods — the storm surge of 31 January 1953 (307 dead on the east coast), the floods of 2007, 2013–14 (the Somerset Levels), 2015 (Desmond), 2019–20, the storms of Éowyn (24 January 2025) and Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra (January 2026; the Dawlish sea wall's collapse of 24 January 2026, the 97 flood warnings of February), the snow of January 2026 (−12.5°C at Marham, 1,000 schools shut); the droughts of 1976, 2022 and 2025; the heat of July 2022; the coast's cliffs falling (Happisburgh, Fairlight); the earthquakes small (Dudley 2002, Market Rasen 2008, the Folkestone quake); the volcanoes none since the Tertiary; the disasters of the decade — Grenfell Tower (14 June 2017; 72 dead), the Manchester Arena bombing (22 May 2017; 22), the Channel drownings of 24 November 2021 (27; the inquiry's "systemic failure" of February 2026), the Southport killings (29 July 2024; three girls), the Kent meningitis outbreak of March 2026 (two dead, 34 cases, 9,300 vaccinated), the Bolton crash of 11 January 2026 (four dead); the Iran war's missiles on the base of Diego Garcia (21 March 2026); the pandemic's 230,000 dead of 2020–23 (the Covid Inquiry's reports of 2024–26) |
| Natural resources | The coal that made the Industrial Revolution (the last deep mine shut 2015; the last coal power station, Ratcliffe, 30 September 2024 — the first G7 country without coal power), the North Sea's oil and gas (the peak of 1999, about 600,000 barrels a day of oil in 2026 by the counts and a third of the gas the country burns; the windfall tax, the licenses' end under Labour, the Rosebank and Jackdaw fights), the wind of the North Sea (the world's second offshore fleet: Hornsea, Dogger Bank, Moray; the Hamburg Declaration of 26 January 2026 for 100 GW), the tides of the Severn, the geothermal of Cornwall (the first plant of 26 February 2026 and the first lithium), the tin of Cornwall (South Crofty's reopening), the china clay, the limestone and the aggregates, the salt of Cheshire, the potash of Boulby and Woodsmith, the iron ore gone, the fish of the seas the Brexit quarrel, the farmland, the water; the City of London the resource that counts — the finance, the law and the language |
| Land use | Agricultural about 70% (arable about 25% — the wheat, barley and rapeseed of the east; the pasture of the west and the hills about 45% — the sheep of Wales and the Lakes, the dairy of Cheshire and Somerset, the beef of Scotland), forest and woodland about 13% (3.2 million hectares; the least wooded of Europe's large countries, the target of 16.5% by 2050), the built-up about 8% (the cities of the south and the Midlands; the green belts of 1.6 million hectares; the housing target of 1.5 million homes of the 2024 government and the planning act of 2025); the moors, the mountains and the water the rest; the 209,000 farms of 80 hectares on average, the farmers' inheritance-tax protests of 2024–25, the Sustainable Farming Incentive; the right to roam of Scotland (2003) and the paths of England; the National Trust's and the Crown Estate's acres, the Duke of Buccleuch's and the Church's |
| National parks | Fifteen — the Peak District (1951; the first, of the Kinder trespass), the Lake District (1951; World Heritage 2017), Snowdonia/Eryri (1951), Dartmoor (1951), the Pembrokeshire Coast (1952), the North York Moors (1952), the Yorkshire Dales (1954), Exmoor (1954), Northumberland (1956), the Brecon Beacons/Bannau Brycheiniog (1957), the Broads (1989), Loch Lomond and the Trossachs (2002), the Cairngorms (2003; the largest, 4,528 km²), the New Forest (2005) and the South Downs (2010); Galloway's bid dropped 2025; the 46 National Landscapes (the Cotswolds, the Chilterns, the Gower, the Antrim Coast), the National Nature Reserves ×220, the SSSIs ×7,000, the RSPB's 2 million; the golden eagles back in the south of Scotland, the beavers licensed in England (2025), the lynx of the debate, the white-tailed eagles of Mull and Wight |
| UNESCO World Heritage | Thirty-five on the list with the overseas territories (Bermuda's St. George, Gibraltar's Gorham's Cave, Henderson Island, Gough and Inaccessible) — England's 18 (Stonehenge and Avebury, Durham, Ironbridge, Studley Royal, Blenheim, Bath, Westminster, Canterbury, the Tower, Greenwich, Saltaire, the Derwent Valley, Kew, the Jurassic Coast, the Cornish mining landscape, the Lake District, Jodrell Bank, the spa town of Bath again in the Great Spas of 2021), Scotland's 7 (Edinburgh, St. Kilda, Orkney, New Lanark, the Forth Bridge of 2015, the Antonine Wall in the Roman frontiers, the Flow Country of 2024), Wales's 4 (Edward I's castles, Blaenavon, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct of 2009, the Slate Landscape of 2021), Northern Ireland's 2 (the Giant's Causeway, Gracehill of 2024), Hadrian's Wall shared; Liverpool struck off 30 July 2021 (the docks' towers); the Intangible Heritage convention ratified 2024 and the first inventory of 2025–26; the tentative list of five |
| Administrative divisions | Four nations — England (no parliament of its own; the 317 councils of the shires, the districts, the unitaries, the metropolitan boroughs and London's 32, the 9 regions of the statisticians, the 12 combined authorities under mayors, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act of 29 April 2026 (the strategic authorities, the supplementary vote back for the mayors) and the reorganization of the two-tier counties to 2028), Scotland (the Scottish Parliament and Government at Holyrood since 1999; 32 councils), Wales (the Senedd and the Welsh Government since 1999; 22 councils) and Northern Ireland (the Assembly and Executive at Stormont of the 1998 agreement, restored 3 February 2024 after two years; 11 councils); the Crown Dependencies (Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man) and the 14 overseas territories outside; the councils elected 7 May 2026 in England (Reform's 14 councils, Labour's 38 lost, 23 in no overall control) and the Holyrood and Senedd elections of the same day; the lord-lieutenants and the high sheriffs of the ceremony; the parishes of 10,000 |
People
| Population | 69,487,000 at mid-2025 (the ONS's provisional count of 27 November 2025; +0.3%), 69,281,000 at mid-2024 (+1.0%), 66,971,000 at the census of 2021 (63.2 million in 2011) — the growth of the migration (net 431,000 in the year to June 2024, 906,000 at the peak of 2023, 204,000 to June 2025 by the ONS's counts) with the natural change near zero (653,000 births, 651,000 deaths); England about 58 million (85%), Scotland about 5.5, Wales about 3.2, Northern Ireland about 1.9; London 8.9 million; the census of 2021 — 81.7% white (74.4% white British), 9.3% Asian, 4.0% black, 2.9% mixed, 2.1% other in England and Wales, 16% born abroad (India, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, Ireland the largest); the median age about 41 (Scotland the oldest, London the youngest); the over-65s about 19%, the over-85s 1.7 million; the 22nd of the world |
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| Population density | About 285 to the km² — England 434 (among the densest of the large countries of Europe, denser than the Netherlands' provinces of the south by the counts), Wales 153, Northern Ireland 141, Scotland 70 (the Highlands 9); London 5,700 to the km² (Islington and Tower Hamlets above 15,000), the Southeast and the West Midlands the crowded, the Scottish Highlands, the Welsh hills and the Pennines the empty; the green belts holding the cities' edges; four in five in the towns |
| Population growth | About 0.3% in the year to mid-2025 (the ONS's provisional; 1.0% the year before) — the migration the whole of it (net 204,000 to June 2025, from 431,000 and the 906,000 of 2023: the students, the care workers and the dependants of the visa rules of 2024–25 cut; the Channel's 41,472 of 2025 and 18,565 by 24 September 2026, down 42%), the natural change 2,000 (the births 653,000 the fewest since 1977, the deaths 651,000); the fertility rate 1.41 (2024; 1.44 in 2023, 1.9 in 2010), the lowest recorded; the ONS's projection of 72.5 million by 2032 and 78 million by 2047 on the migration alone; the immigration white paper of May 2025, the asylum hotels' end promised, the Nigeria and France return deals of 2025–26 |
| Median age | About 41 years (40.7 by the census of 2021; England 40, Scotland 42, Wales 42, Northern Ireland 39) — the over-65s about 19% (12.7 million), the over-85s 1.7 million, the under-16s about 18%; the state pension age 66, rising to 67 from 2026–28 (the triple lock's £241.30 a week from April 2026, the review of Burnham's care plan from 2030); the workforce of the over-50s, the young out of work (the 16–24s' 16.1% unemployment of December 2025, the 957,000 NEETs); the graduates' debts, the housing ladder's rungs; the care homes of the aging north and the coasts |
| Life expectancy | About 80.9 years by the ONS's count of 2021–23 (women 82.8, men 78.8; 81.0 before the pandemic, the stall of the 2010s; Scotland's 77–81 the lowest of the four, the Glasgow effect) — the National Health Service of 5 July 1948 (free at the point of use; 1.5 million staff in England, the largest employer of Europe; the waiting list of 7.4 million cases of England in 2025 falling, the resident doctors' strikes of 2023–26, the Ten Year Health Plan of July 2025, the NHS England body abolished into the department, the 3.3% pay rise of 2026; the Health Secretary Yvette Cooper since 20 July 2026), infant mortality about 4 per 1,000, the obesity of a quarter of adults, the smoking ban of 2007 and the generational ban of the Tobacco and Vapes Act (29 April 2026; no sales to those born from 2009), the junk-food advertising ban of 5 January 2026, the assisted-dying bill passed by the Commons (20 June 2025), lost in the Lords at the session's end (April 2026) and rejected on its return by 286–270 (11 September 2026); the measles' return (the WHO's elimination status lost 26 January 2026), the Kent meningitis outbreak of March 2026; the Covid dead of about 230,000 |
| Fertility rate | 1.41 children per woman in 2024 (England and Wales; the lowest on record — 1.44 in 2023, 1.94 in 2012, 2.9 in 1964), Scotland's 1.25 the lowest of the four; the births 653,000 in the year to mid-2025, the fewest since the 1970s, a third of them to mothers born abroad; the mothers' age at first birth about 31; the childcare of 30 free hours from September 2025, the two-child benefit limit lifted for 2026 by the Budget of November 2025; the marriages at a record low, the cohabiting couples, the same-sex marriages since 2014 (Northern Ireland 2020) |
| Urban population | About 84% by the UN's count — London (8.9 million), the West Midlands county (2.9 million), Greater Manchester (2.9), West Yorkshire (2.4), Glasgow (1.8), Liverpool (1.4), South Hampshire, Tyneside, Nottingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, Belfast, Cardiff; the suburbs of the semis and the terraces, the new towns of 1946–70 (Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Cumbernauld) and the new towns of the 2020s' program (the 12 sites of the New Towns Taskforce's report of September 2025 by the reports), the market towns, the villages of the shires and the glens; the housing target of 1.5 million (2024–29) behind, the average house past £300,000 (Halifax, January 2026), the renters of a fifth of households (the Renters' Rights Act of 2025 ending no-fault evictions), the homeless in temporary housing 130,000 households |
| Adult literacy | About 99% — the schooling to 18 in England (16 in the rest; the GCSEs, the A-levels, the Highers of Scotland), the 32,000 schools (the academies of England, the grammar schools of the 160, the private schools of 7% with VAT on their fees since January 2025, the Court of Appeal's dismissal of the challenge of 27 February 2026), the universities of 160 (Oxford of the 1090s and Cambridge of 1209, the ancient four of Scotland, the Russell Group; the fees of £9,790 in England (2026–27; £9,535 the year before, the rises with inflation), the 700,000 graduates out of work or on benefits by the CSJ's count of January 2026, the universities' deficits and the international students' fall), the Open University; the PISA of the middle of the OECD; the English of the world's schools; the BBC of 1922 and its license fee, the Director-General Matt Brittin from 2026; the special needs reform of February 2026 (the EHCPs restricted from 2035); the Education Secretary Lucy Powell since July 2026 |
| Ethnic groups | The census of 2021 in England and Wales — white 81.7% (white British 74.4%, the Irish, the Poles, the Romanians, the Gypsy and Traveller of 0.1%), Asian 9.3% (Indian 3.1%, Pakistani 2.7%, Bangladeshi 1.1%, Chinese 0.7%), black 4.0% (African 2.5%, Caribbean 1.0%), mixed 2.9%, other 2.1% (Arab 0.6%); Scotland 92.9% white, Northern Ireland 96.6%; London 36.8% white British, Birmingham, Leicester and Luton majority-minority; the 10.7 million born abroad — India, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, Ireland, Nigeria, Germany, Bangladesh, South Africa, Italy the largest by birth; the Windrush generation and the scandal of 2018; the Hong Kong BN(O)s of 2021–26 (about 200,000), the Ukrainians of 2022 (about 200,000), the Afghans; the national identity question — "British" and "English" the split of the census; the riots of August 2024 after Southport; the Race Relations Act of 1965 and the Equality Act of 2010 |
| Languages | English (the world's language; 60 million native speakers, the Received Pronunciation of the old BBC and the Estuary of the new, the Geordie, the Scouse, the Brummie, the Glaswegian, the Cockney of the rhyming slang), Welsh (Cymraeg; 538,000 speakers by the census of 2021, 17.8% of Wales; the bilingual road signs and schools, S4C, the target of a million), Scottish Gaelic (about 60,000; Gàidhlig of the Hebrides, BBC Alba), Scots and Ulster Scots (1.5 million by the census's count of the skill), Irish (Northern Ireland's 230,000 with some ability; official 2022), Cornish (about 500 fluent; revived), Manx (the last native speaker died 1974, revived), Angloromani, Shelta; British Sign Language (150,000; the act of 2022); the immigrants' Polish (600,000), Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic, Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil, Somali; the 300 languages of London's schools; the French of the law's old words and the Latin of the mottoes |
| Religion | The census of 2021 in England and Wales — Christian 46.2% (the Church of England established, the monarch its Supreme Governor, the Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally since 25 March 2026, the first woman; the Catholics of 5 million under the Archbishop of Westminster Richard Moth since 14 February 2026; the Methodists, the Baptists, the Pentecostals of the African churches; the Church of Scotland presbyterian and national, not established), no religion 37.2% (the plurality in Wales and Scotland by their censuses), Muslim 6.5% (3.9 million; the Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Somalis, Arabs; the mosques of 1,800), Hindu 1.7%, Sikh 0.9%, Jewish 0.5% (270,000; the antisemitism of the Gaza years, the Manchester synagogue attack of Yom Kippur 2025), Buddhist 0.5%; Scotland 38.8% Christian and 51.1% none, Northern Ireland 42.3% Catholic and 37.4% Protestant by the census of 2021 (the Catholics a plurality for the first time); the 26 Lords Spiritual, the coronation's oath, the cathedrals of 42, the Sunday trading, the blasphemy law gone (2008); the General Synod's abandonment of the same-sex blessings (12 February 2026) |
| Human Development Index | 0.946 (2023) — very high, about 13th of 193 (UNDP, 2025), behind the Nordics, Switzerland, Ireland and Germany; the Gini about 33 by the ONS (36 by the wider counts; the most unequal of the large West European states after Italy by the counts), the richest 10% with 43% of the wealth; the poverty of 14 million by the JRF's relative measure (a fifth; 4.5 million children), the food banks of the Trussell Trust's 2.9 million parcels, the two-child limit, the universal credit of 7 million or so; the median household income about £35,000 after taxes, the median full-time wage about £39,000 (2025); the north–south divide of the GDP a head (London's twice the Northeast's); the Sutton Trust's social mobility of the 7% of the private schools in the 40% of the top jobs |
| Housing and living | The semi-detached, the terrace and the council estate — home ownership about 65% (the peak of 71% in 2003), the renters of a fifth (the Renters' Rights Act of 2025 ending Section 21 evictions), the social housing of 4 million, the average house £300,000 by Halifax's count of January 2026 (London's £550,000; 8 times the wage), the mortgages of 5% for two years fixed in the Iran war's spring (11 March 2026), the leasehold's end for flats and the £250 ground-rent cap of 27 January 2026, the 1.5 million homes promised; the energy price cap (£1,720 a year from April 2026 after the 7% cut; the rises of the war's summer), the Warm Homes Plan of £15 billion (20 January 2026) and the Warm Home Discount of £150 for 6 million; the water bills up 26% in 2025 (the Ofwat settlement) and the water companies' takeover in Burnham's plan; the council tax, the TV license of £180 from April 2026; the trains dearest in Europe, the pubs closing (45,000 left), the high streets of the charity shops and the Turkish barbers, the 7-in-10 with a car; the tea, the queue, the weather; the social media ban for the under-16s in trial (March 2026), the Online Safety Act's age checks (July 2025); the NHS dentist's desert; the knife crime and the phone thefts of London, the homicides at a 50-year low (29 January 2026) |
| Learning and letters | Shakespeare (1564–1616; the Globe rebuilt 1997, the RSC of Stratford), Chaucer, Milton, Austen (the 250th of 2025), Dickens, the Brontës, Wordsworth's Lakes, Burns, Scott, Dylan Thomas, Orwell, Tolkien, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming's Bond, Rowling's Potter, Zadie Smith, the Booker Prize (1969); the Nobels of 130 or so (the second of the world after the United States) — Newton, Darwin, Faraday, Maxwell, Fleming's penicillin, Turing's machine, Crick and Watson's helix (Cambridge, 1953), Hawking, Berners-Lee's web (at CERN, 1989), Geim's graphene (Manchester, 2004), Hassabis of DeepMind (the chemistry Nobel of 2024); Oxford (c. 1096; the Bodleian) and Cambridge (1209), the Royal Society (1660), the British Museum (1753; the free entry, the Elgin Marbles' argument, the Bayeux Tapestry's loan of 2026), the British Library, the National Gallery, the Tate, the V&A; the BBC (1922; the World Service), the Times (1785), the Guardian, the Economist, the Telegraph (sold to Axel Springer for £575 million, 6 March 2026); the music — the Beatles of Liverpool, the Stones, Bowie, Queen, the Sex Pistols, Oasis's reunion tour of 2025, Adele, Ed Sheeran, the Brit Awards of Manchester (28 February 2026), the Proms, Glastonbury; the theater of the West End and the National, Pinter, Stoppard; the film of Hitchcock, Lean, Loach, Nolan, Bond and Potter, the Pinewood and Leavesden studios; the Turner and Constable of the walls; the Christmas pantomime; the crossword, the quiz and the pub |
| Sport | Football — the Premier League (the world's most-watched league; Liverpool's title of 2025, the 2025–26 champions of May 2026, the Champions League), the FA Cup, the EFL of 92 clubs, Wembley; ENGLAND'S WORLD CUP OF 2026 — third place, the best since 1966 (the group won; DR Congo, Mexico 3–2 and Norway 2–1 in the knockouts; Argentina 1–2 in the semifinal of 15 July at Atlanta; France 6–4 for the bronze on 18 July at Miami; Tuchel's team, Kane's record), Scotland's return to the finals after 28 years (the group of Brazil, Morocco and Haiti); the Lionesses' Euro 2025 (the final of Basel won on penalties over Spain); cricket — the Ashes lost in Australia in 2025–26 by the reports, the T20 World Cup of February–March 2026 in India and Sri Lanka, the Hundred's sale, Lord's; rugby union — the Six Nations of 2026 (the champions of March 2026 by the record), England's Red Roses world champions (27 September 2025 at Twickenham), the Lions' tour of Australia (2025); tennis — Wimbledon (Sinner and Świątek the champions of 2025; the 2026 fortnight of July), Emma Raducanu, Jack Draper; golf — the Open of 2026 at Royal Birkdale (July), the Ryder Cup of 2025 won at Bethpage; Formula 1 — Silverstone, Lando Norris the champion of 2025 for McLaren, George Russell's Melbourne win of 8 March 2026, Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari; athletics (the London Marathon of April, Keely Hodgkinson's 800 m gold of 2024); the Boat Race, the Grand National, Royal Ascot, Cheltenham; snooker's Crucible, darts's Ally Pally (Littler's second world title, 3 January 2026); the Olympics of Paris 2024 (14 gold, 65 medals, 7th); THE WINTER OLYMPICS OF 2026 — 3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze, Britain's best ever (Weston's skeleton double, Bankes and Nightingale's snowboard cross); THE GLASGOW COMMONWEALTH GAMES OF 23 JULY – 2 AUGUST 2026 (England 29-45-36, second; Scotland 13-9-17, fifth; Wales 9-10-12, ninth); the Euro 2028 to come at Wembley, Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast and the rest |
| Diaspora | The British abroad about 5.5 million by the counts — Australia (about 1.2 million born in Britain), the United States (about 700,000), Canada (about 500,000), Spain (about 300,000 of the costas; the Brexit rules), Ireland, France, New Zealand, South Africa, the Gulf (Dubai's 240,000), Switzerland, Germany, Cyprus, Portugal, Thailand; the descendants — the Anglo-Celtic majorities of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the 70 million Americans of English, Scottish, Scots-Irish and Welsh descent, the Argentines of the railways and Welsh Patagonia, the Anglo-Indians, the Falklanders and Gibraltarians of the territories; the Commonwealth of 56 states and 2.7 billion people with the King its head (the 15 realms; Barbados a republic 2021, the Jamaican and Australian debates); the English language's 1.5 billion speakers the widest diaspora of all; the pensioners of the sun and the bankers of Hong Kong and Singapore; the votes for life for the expatriates since 2024 |
Government
| Form of government | A unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy under an uncodified constitution — the King head of state (the royal prerogative exercised on the ministers' advice, the assent to every act, the weekly audience), the Prime Minister the head of the government as the leader of the party that commands the House of Commons, the Cabinet of about 22 collectively responsible, the Parliament of two Houses sovereign (the Commons of 650 elected by first past the post for five years at most, the Lords of about 800 life peers, 26 bishops and, until the act of 2026, 92 hereditary peers), the Supreme Court (2009) the last court, the devolved legislatures of Scotland (1999), Wales (1999) and Northern Ireland (1998) with their own governments and the reserved powers of Westminster, the local councils, the metro mayors; the two-party system of Conservatives and Labour since the 1920s fraying into five and six (the election of 2024's 33.7% landslide, the polls of 2026's five parties within 15 points); the elections by the Representation of the People Acts, the votes at 16 promised for the next election by the bill of 2025–26; the civil service of the Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo (since 19 February 2026, the first woman); the Union's four nations and the independence questions of Scotland and Northern Ireland |
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| Head of state | King Charles III (born 14 November 1948; Charles Philip Arthur George; the Prince of Wales of 1958–2022) — King of the United Kingdom and of 14 other realms since 8 September 2022 on the death of Queen Elizabeth II (the 70 years of 1952–2022), crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 May 2023 with Queen Camilla; the cancer diagnosed February 2024 and its treatment eased in 2026, the duties kept (the state visits to the Vatican and to Canada of 2025 — the Speech from the Throne of 27 May 2025 — and to the United States of April 2026 with the address to Congress; Trump's state visit to Windsor of 17–18 September 2025; the Bayeux Tapestry viewed with Macron at the British Museum in September 2026); the Andrew affair — the brother stripped of his titles (3 November 2025; Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor), out of Royal Lodge (2 February 2026), arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on 19 February 2026 and under investigation, "the law must take its course"; the Prince of Wales William the heir (born 1982; the Princess Catherine's recovery of 2024–25), Prince George second in line; the Sovereign Grant of £132 million (2025–26); the Privy Council, the honors, the Royal Assent; the Ruth Ellis pardon of 8 July 2026 on Lammy's advice |
| Prime Minister | Andy Burnham (born 7 January 1970 at Aintree, Lancashire; the Cambridge English graduate and Leigh's MP of 2001–17, the Health Secretary of 2009–10 under Brown, the leadership candidate of 2010 and 2015, the Mayor of Greater Manchester of May 2017 – June 2026, "the King of the North" of the pandemic's row of 2020) — Prime Minister since 20 July 2026, the 59th, Labour's eighth: back in the Commons at the Makerfield by-election of 18 June 2026 (54.8%; the seat Josh Simons gave up on 14 May, the turnout of 58.8% the highest of a by-election since 2019), Leader of the Labour Party by acclamation on 17 July 2026 (379 nominations, 94% of the MPs; Catherine West's one) after Keir Starmer announced his resignation on 22 June (the elections of 7 May, the 72 MPs' letter, Wes Streeting's resignation of 14 May), the third Prime Minister since 2024 and the seventh since 2010; the Deputy Prime Minister Louise Haigh, the chief of staff James Purnell; the first speech's National Care Service, the takeovers of water, empty homes and the grid, the EU summit and the electoral-reform commission of the conference of 29 September 2026; the Prime Ministers before — Starmer (5 July 2024 – 20 July 2026), Sunak (2022–24), Truss (49 days of 2022), Johnson (2019–22), May (2016–19), Cameron (2010–16), Brown, Blair |
| Cabinet | The Burnham Cabinet of 20–21 July 2026 — Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Louise Haigh; Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey (the Defense Secretary of 2024–26; the Budget of 28 October 2026); Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband (the Energy Secretary of 2024–26, Labour's leader of 2010–15); Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood (kept from September 2025); Defense Secretary Wes Streeting (the Health Secretary whose resignation of 14 May 2026 broke Starmer); Justice and Lord Chancellor Alex Norris; Health and Social Care Yvette Cooper (the Foreign Secretary of 2025–26); Education Lucy Powell; Work and Pensions Pat McFadden; Housing, Communities and Local Government Angela Rayner (back from the resignation of September 2025); Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Jonathan Reynolds; Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh; Transport Heidi Alexander; Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Dame Angela Eagle; Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy; Scotland Douglas Alexander; Wales Stephen Kinnock; Northern Ireland Sir Chris Bryant; Leader of the House Sir Alan Campbell; Chief Whip Anneliese Midgley; Chief Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds; the Attorney General and the Lords' leader beside; 15 of Starmer's ministers out at a stroke (David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Bridget Phillipson, Liz Kendall and Steve Reed among the departed by the reports), the largest clear-out within one party since 2019; the Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo |
| The last election | The general election of 4 July 2024 — Labour 411 of 650 seats on 33.7% (the landslide of the lowest winning share), the Conservatives 121 on 23.7% (the worst in their history), the Liberal Democrats 72 on 12.2% (their most ever), the SNP 9, Sinn Féin 7, Reform UK 5 on 14.3% (the third by votes), the DUP 5, the Greens 4 on 6.7%, Plaid Cymru 4, the independents 6 (the Gaza five and Corbyn); turnout 59.7%, the second-lowest since 1918; Starmer Prime Minister on 5 July 2024; THE BY-ELECTIONS SINCE — Runcorn and Helsby (1 May 2025; Reform's Sarah Pochin by six votes), Gorton and Denton (26 February 2026; the Greens' Hannah Spencer, the party's first by-election win, Reform second, Labour third in Manchester), Makerfield (18 June 2026; Burnham's 54.8%); THE ELECTIONS OF 7 MAY 2026 IN FULL — Scotland (SNP 58, Labour 17, Reform 17, Greens 15, Conservatives 12, Lib Dems 10; turnout 53.4%), Wales (Plaid 43, Reform 34, Labour 9, Conservatives 7, Greens 2, Lib Dems 1; turnout 51.6%, the highest of a Senedd election; the First Minister Eluned Morgan lost her seat), the English councils (Reform 1,454 councillors and 14 councils, Labour 1,068 with 1,498 lost and 38 councils lost, the Lib Dems 844, the Conservatives 801 with 563 lost, the Greens 587 with 441 gained; the Greens' mayors of Hackney and Lewisham; the projected shares Reform 26–27%, the Greens 14–18%, Labour 15–17%, the Conservatives 17–20%, the Lib Dems 14–16%) — the results that ended Starmer; the government's case (a mid-term protest in a fragmented country) and the opposition's (a verdict) — both stated (LAW 2) |
| Parliament | Bicameral — the House of Commons of 650 (the constituencies of the 2023 review; the Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle since 2019; the 59th Parliament of 9 July 2024; Prime Minister's Questions of Wednesday noon; the Leader of the House Alan Campbell) and the House of Lords (about 800 — the life peers of the Life Peerages Act of 1958, the 26 Lords Spiritual, the 92 hereditary peers removed by the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act of 2026 after the vote of 10 March 2026, the Lord Speaker; the retirement age of 80 debated; Lord Mandelson resigned 3 February 2026 before his arrest); the Palace of Westminster of 1840–70 (Barry and Pugin; World Heritage 1987) and its restoration of £20 billion or more deferred again; the standing of the parties in the Commons on 30 September 2026 by the counts — Labour about 400, the Conservatives about 120 (Jenrick to Reform 15 January 2026, Braverman 26 January), the Lib Dems 72, Reform 8 or so (Farage, Tice, Anderson, Pochin, Kruger, Jenrick, Braverman, Lowe's Restore Britain a party of one), the SNP 9, the independents, Sinn Féin's 7 absent, the DUP 5, the Greens 5, Plaid 4; the Sessions of the King's Speech; the Scottish Parliament of 129 (the Presiding Officer elected May 2026), the Senedd of 96 (the Llywydd Huw Irranca-Davies since 12 May 2026), the Northern Ireland Assembly of 90 |
| The politics of the year | The year that changed the government — THE FALL OF STARMER: the Mandelson affair of the Epstein files (the resignation from Labour of 1 February 2026 and from the Lords of 3 February, the arrest of 23 February, the chief of staff Morgan McSweeney's resignation of 8 February, Starmer's apology to the victims of 5 February), the Greens' by-election win of 26 February, the elections of 7 May (Labour to 9 seats in Wales and 17 in Scotland, 38 councils lost), the 72 MPs, Streeting's resignation of 14 May, Simons's seat given up the same day, Burnham's Makerfield of 18 June, the resignation announced 22 June, the acclamation of 17 July and the handover of 20 July; THE BURNHAM GOVERNMENT: the Cabinet of 15 dismissals, the Budget set for 28 October (Healey's first; the fiscal rules, the taxes of the manifesto's line), the conference of 29 September 2026 (the National Care Service with the triple lock's adjustment from 2030, the water companies' and the grid's public control, the councils' powers over empty homes, the UK–EU summit before the year's end, the National Commission on Electoral Reform), one poll's six-point lead after the spring of Reform's 27–30%; THE OPPOSITION: Reform UK's year — Zahawi, Jenrick and Braverman's defections (January), the councils of May, the 34 of the Senedd and 17 of Holyrood, Farage's 17 breaches of the MPs' rules (21 January) — the Conservatives' worst Holyrood result and Badenoch's sacking of Jenrick, the Greens' first by-election and their 15 at Holyrood under Zack Polanski and Hannah Spencer's win, the Lib Dems' 844 councillors; THE WORLD: the Iran war since 28 February (Starmer's refusal of the bases for the strikes of 19 February and his grant of them for the "defensive" use of 1 March, the B-52s at Fairford of 9 March, the four jets to Qatar, HMS Dragon and the carrier, the drones shot down over Iraq of 12 March, the missile at Diego Garcia of 21 March, Trump's "not Winston Churchill," the oil past US$100 and the mortgages past 5%), the American duties (the 10% of 1 February over Greenland — the UK's bases refused for any Greenland action on 9 January — the IEEPA ruling of 20 February, the flat 10% of Section 301 from 24 July), the China visit of 28–30 January (the first since 2018; the visa-free 30 days, the mega-embassy approved 20 January), the Ukraine peacekeeping pledge with France (6 January), the EU reset's summit postponed from July; THE CROWN: Andrew's arrest of 19 February and the succession-law talk, the King's Congress; THE HOME FRONT: the Channel's 18,565 by 24 September (−42%), the police forces cut from 43 to about 14 by Mahmood's plan of 26 January, the SEND overhaul, the water reforms, the leasehold's end, the junk-food advertising ban, the social-media age trials, the measles status lost, the Kent meningitis of March, the storms of January and the floods of February, the assisted-dying bill's fall in the Lords and its rejection of 11 September, the Post Office and Covid inquiries' reports; the government's case (a fresh start with a mandate of 2024 and a program of the conference) and the opposition's (a prime minister nobody elected, a party that lost three elections in a day, an election now) — both stated (LAW 2) |
| Next elections | The general election due by August 2029 (the five years of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act of 2022 from 9 July 2024; Burnham's "no early election" and the opposition's demand), with votes at 16 by the Elections Bill of 2025–26 if passed; the English local elections of 7 May 2027 (the county councils delayed from 2025 and the new unitaries), the Northern Ireland Assembly election due by May 2027, the London and metro mayors of May 2028, the Scottish and Welsh parliaments of May 2031; the National Commission on Electoral Reform to report before the general election; the Scottish independence referendum the SNP's ask and Westminster's no |
| Parties | Labour (1900; the Prime Minister Andy Burnham its leader since 17 July 2026; about 400 MPs; the deputy leader Lucy Powell since October 2025), the Conservative and Unionist Party (1834; Kemi Badenoch since 2 November 2024; about 120 MPs; the Tories of the 14 years of 2010–24), Reform UK (2018 as the Brexit Party; Nigel Farage; the 14.3% of 2024, the polls' leader through the spring of 2026, the 1,454 councillors, the 34 in the Senedd and 17 at Holyrood; the defectors Kruger, Jenrick, Braverman and Zahawi), the Liberal Democrats (1988; Ed Davey; 72 MPs, the third party of the Commons), the Green Party of England and Wales (1990; Zack Polanski since September 2025; 5 MPs after Gorton and Denton, the 587 councillors and the two mayors of May 2026) and the Scottish Greens (15 MSPs), the Scottish National Party (1934; John Swinney; 9 MPs, 58 MSPs), Plaid Cymru (1925; Rhun ap Iorwerth, the First Minister of Wales since 12 May 2026), the Democratic Unionist Party (Gavin Robinson), Sinn Féin (Mary Lou McDonald; the 7 who do not sit, the largest at Stormont), the Alliance, the SDLP, the UUP, the TUV; Restore Britain (Rupert Lowe, 13 February 2026), Your Party of Corbyn and Sultana (2025), the Workers Party; the independents of 2024; the funding of the Electoral Commission's registers, the Elections Act of 2022's voter ID |
| Legal system | Three jurisdictions — England and Wales (the common law of the judges since Henry II, the Crown Court and the magistrates, the King's Bench, the Court of Appeal), Scotland (the mixed civil and common law of the Roman and the Scots tradition; the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary, the 15-person jury, the "not proven" verdict abolished 1 January 2026 with the two-thirds majority) and Northern Ireland — under the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (1 October 2009; the Law Lords before) and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for the territories and the realms; no death penalty (abolished 1965, the last hangings of 1964; the Ruth Ellis pardon of 8 July 2026), the Human Rights Act of 1998 and the European Convention (the Strasbourg court; the withdrawal debate), the Equality Act of 2010 (the Supreme Court's ruling of 16 April 2025 on the meaning of "woman"), the Online Safety Act of 2023, the Data (Use and Access) Act of 2025 (the deepfakes; the Grok inquiry of January 2026), the Sentencing Act of 2026 (the suspended sentences of 23 March 2026, the prisons at 98% full, the early releases of 2024–25), the Public Order and the Palestine Action proscription (July 2025; the High Court's ruling of 13 February 2026 against it under appeal), the assisted-dying bill lost in the Lords (April 2026) and rejected by the Commons on its return (11 September 2026; 286–270); the trials of 2026 — the Letby case closed (20 January), the Manchester plot's life sentences (13 February), Wright's 40 years (6 February), the nursery cases; the Post Office Horizon scandal's compensation, the infected-blood scheme of £11.8 billion, the grooming-gangs inquiry ordered June 2025, the Covid Inquiry's reports, the Southport inquiry; the Law Commission; the legal aid deserts; the 43 police forces to about 14 by the plan of January 2026 |
| Defense | The British Armed Forces — about 136,000 regulars (the Army about 71,000, the Royal Navy and Marines about 32,000, the Royal Air Force about 30,000) and 30,000 reserves by the counts of 2026, the smallest army since Napoleon; the nuclear deterrent of the four Vanguard submarines and the Trident missiles at Faslane (the Dreadnought class building; the F-35As and the American tactical bombs joined in 2025), the carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales (the latter to readiness on 7 March 2026), the Type 26 and 31 frigates building, the Typhoons and F-35Bs, the Challenger 3s, the Ajax at last; the Strategic Defence Review of 2 June 2025 ("warfighting readiness," 12 attack submarines, the munitions factories, 3,000 long-range weapons) and the spending of 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and 3% in the next Parliament, the NATO pledge of 3.5% plus 1.5% by 2035 (the Hague, June 2025), the shortfall the Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Richard Knighton warned of on 12 January 2026; the Iran war's part (the bases of Akrotiri, Fairford and Diego Garcia, the jets to Qatar, the drones shot down over Iraq, the Cyprus base's defense of Jordan's airspace, HMS Dragon to the Mediterranean), the Ukraine coalition of the willing and the peacekeeping pledge of 6 January 2026, the shadow-fleet boardings, the Arctic deployment of February 2026, the Syria strike of 3 January 2026 with France, the AUKUS submarines with Australia and the United States (2021), NATO's founder of 1949 and its second army of Europe by the spending (£60 billion or so); the Defense Secretary Wes Streeting since 20 July 2026 (John Healey before), the Defence Nuclear Enterprise, the Trident test's failure of 2024; the Red Arrows' first woman leader (13 January 2026) |
| Foreign policy | A permanent member of the Security Council with the veto, a nuclear power, NATO's founder and the second spender, the Commonwealth's head, the Five Eyes and AUKUS with the Americans — the "special relationship" strained in 2026 (Trump's tariffs of 1 February over Greenland and the UK's refusal to lend its bases for it, his "not Winston Churchill" of 3 March over the Iran bases, the state visit to Windsor of September 2025 and the King's to Congress of April 2026, the trade deal of 8 May 2025 with its 10% and the flat 10% of July 2026), the Iran war since 28 February (the bases lent for defense only, the jets to Qatar, the drones over Iraq, the missile at Diego Garcia, the shelter warnings of the Gulf), Ukraine (the £3 billion a year, the coalition of the willing with France, the peacekeeping pledge of 6 January 2026, the sanctions and the shadow fleet), the European Union (the reset of the summit of 19 May 2025 — the SPS deal, the fish to 2038, the defense pact, the youth scheme's talks — and the summit postponed from July 2026 to the year's end by Burnham's word; the single market and the customs union ruled out, "a question for another day" on rejoining), China (the visit of 28–30 January 2026, the mega-embassy of 20 January, the spies' arrests of March), India (the free-trade agreement of 24 July 2025), the Gulf's investment, Chagos (the treaty of 22 May 2025 with Mauritius; the Chagossians' injunction of 20 February 2026), the Falklands and Gibraltar (the EU deal of 2025), Israel and Gaza (the recognition of the State of Palestine of 21 September 2025, the arms licenses), the aid cut to 0.3% of GNI by 2027 for the defense; the Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband since 20 July 2026 (Yvette Cooper of 2025–26, David Lammy of 2024–25); the FCDO, the 280 posts, the BBC World Service, the British Council's debts |
| United Nations | A founding member (24 October 1945) and one of the five permanent members of the Security Council with the veto (the Charter signed at San Francisco 26 June 1945; the first General Assembly at Westminster's Central Hall, 10 January 1946) — the fifth contributor to the UN's budgets after the United States, China, Japan and Germany by the counts, the peacekeepers few (Cyprus's UNFICYP since 1964), the resolutions of Suez, the Falklands, Iraq's 1441 (2002), Libya's 1973 (2011); the recognition of Palestine (21 September 2025), the Chagos advisory opinion of the ICJ (2019) and the General Assembly's vote of 116–6 that led to the treaty of 2025; UNESCO's 35 sites, the WHO of Geneva, the IMO of London (the one UN agency in Britain), the climate COPs (Glasgow's COP26 of 2021), the Human Rights Council's seats, the Secretaries-General none British (Gladwyn Jebb the acting first of 1945–46); the UN's 80th of 2025 and the reform of the Council the British line (the seats for India, Brazil, Japan, Germany and Africa) |
| Other memberships | NATO (a founder, 4 April 1949; the second spender, the Hague pledge of 5%), the Commonwealth of Nations (56 members; the King its head; the Heads of Government of Samoa 2024 and Antigua 2026), the G7 (the Kananaskis summit of 2025, Evian of 2026) and the G20, the OECD (1961), the WTO (1995), the IMF and the World Bank (1945; the sterling seat), the Council of Europe (a founder, 1949) and its Convention on Human Rights, the OSCE, the Five Eyes (1946), AUKUS (2021), the Joint Expeditionary Force of the north (2014), the CPTPP (15 December 2024, the first European member), the European Political Community (a founder, 2022; the summit of Blenheim 2024), the European Union of 1973–2020 no more (the Trade and Cooperation Agreement of 2020 and its review of 2026), the Bank for International Settlements, the International Criminal Court (the Rome Statute of 2001), the Arctic Council's observer, the Antarctic Treaty (the Halley and Rothera stations), the Interpol and Europol's cooperation of the TCA; the FIFA and the IOC of Coubertin's Britain (the Olympics of 1908, 1948 and 2012) |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$4.0 trillion (2025) and US$4.26 trillion projected for 2026 by the IMF's World Economic Outlook of April 2026 — the sixth economy of the world (after the United States, China, Germany, Japan and India by the IMF's count; the fifth by Worldometer's) and the second of Europe; about £2.9 trillion at home by the ONS's count of 2025; London and the Southeast about 40% of it, the City of London's financial services about 9% (the exports of £100 billion of finance), the pharmaceuticals, the aerospace, the cars, the creative industries of £125 billion, the universities' exports; US$3.4 trillion in 2023, US$2.5 trillion in 2010; the growth of the 2020s the slowest of the postwar decades |
|---|---|
| GDP per capita | About US$57,600 (2025) and US$61,056 projected for 2026 by the IMF — the 25th of the world by Worldometer's count, below the United States', Germany's, the Netherlands' and Ireland's inflated one, above France's and Japan's; about £41,000 a head at home; the median full-time wage about £39,000 (April 2025; the 5% rises of 2025–26 above the inflation), the median household's disposable income about £35,000; London's GDP a head twice the Northeast's, the north–south gap the widest of Western Europe's large states by the counts |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$65,500 (2025) and US$67,585 (2026) by the IMF's count — the PPP economy about US$4.55 trillion in 2025 and US$4.72 trillion in 2026 (the tenth of the world by purchasing power); level with France's and Japan's a head, below Germany's and the Netherlands', a fifth below the United States'; the prices of the south the dearest of Europe outside Switzerland and the Nordics, the north's cheaper |
| GDP growth | 1.3% in 2025 by the IMF's count (1.4% by the ONS's first estimate; the 0.1% of the fourth quarter) and 0.8% projected for 2026 by the IMF's April Outlook (the Bank of England's 0.4% in the second quarter, 0.4% in July alone and 0.4% for the third quarter; the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecast to come with the Budget of 28 October) — the 1.1% of 2024, the 0.4% of 2023, the 4.8% rebound of 2022 and the −10.3% of 2020, the pandemic's; the productivity flat since 2008 the British disease, the investment the lowest of the G7, the Iran war's oil (Brent US$106 in September), the tariffs and the borrowing costs the 2026 drags, the AI and the defense spending the hopes; the growth mission of Labour's manifesto |
| Economy by sector | Services about 80% of GDP — the finance and insurance of the City and Canary Wharf (the banks HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and Standard Chartered, the insurers Aviva, Prudential, Legal & General, Lloyd's of London, the asset managers of £11 trillion, the London Stock Exchange, the fintech of Revolut, Monzo and Wise; about 9% of GDP), the professional services of the law (the Magic Circle), the accountancy (the Big Four's London) and the consultants, the creative industries (£125 billion; the BBC, the games, the film studios, the music, the advertising), the universities and the health care, the retail of Tesco, Sainsbury's and the high street, the tourism, the property; industry about 18% — the pharmaceuticals of AstraZeneca and GSK, the aerospace of Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Airbus's wings at Broughton, the cars of Nissan Sunderland, JLR, Mini, Toyota and Bentley (about 800,000 a year, the tariffs' toll), the chemicals, the food and drink (Unilever, the Scotch of £5.4 billion of exports (Diageo's Johnnie Walker), the Cadbury's of Mondelez), the defense (the frigates of Govan and Rosyth, the submarines of Barrow), the steel of Port Talbot's electric arc and Scunthorpe's blast furnaces under the state's control (12 April 2025), the construction of 7%; agriculture about 0.6% (the wheat, the sheep, the dairy; the farmers' 60% of the food); the North Sea's oil and gas fading, the wind rising; the state's NHS, the schools and the railways nationalized again (Great British Railways) |
| Currency and prices | The pound at about US$1.33 (30 September 2026) — the fall of the month (about 2%) and the year on the war's oil and the Budget's wait, the 1.34 of 2025's summer, the 1.03 of 26 September 2022 (the Truss mini-budget of 23 September and the gilts' crash); inflation 3.1% in August 2026 by the CPI (3.0% in January and February, 3.4% in December 2025, the 11.1% peak of October 2022 and the 2% of 2024's summer; the Bank's path to about 3¾% in the fourth quarter and a little above 4% in early 2027 on the energy — the Brent above US$100 since March, the gas prices of 19 March, the price cap's rise after April's 7% cut — and the food, the water and the council tax), the RPI of the rail fares and the student loans; the Bank Rate 3.75% since 18 December 2025 (from 5.25% in six cuts of 2024–25), held on 5 February, 19 March and at every meeting to 17 September 2026 (6–3, the three for 4%; the next on 5 November), the mortgage rates back above 5% for two years fixed in March; the Bank's balance sheet's gilts unwound (the quantitative tightening of £100 billion a year), the reserves; the shops' prices of the Iran war's spring, the petrol at £1.60 a liter by the counts, the pint at £5; the new banknotes' themes of 2025's consultation |
| Tourism | About 41 million visits in 2025 by VisitBritain's count (the 41 million of 2019 regained; the Americans the first spenders, the French, the Germans, the Irish, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Chinese returning, the Indians and the Gulf's), about £33 billion spent; London's 20 million (the British Museum, the Tate, the Tower, the West End, the Palace's Changing of the Guard), Edinburgh's festivals of August, the Lake District, the Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge, York, Oxford and Cambridge, the Highlands and Skye, the Giant's Causeway, Stratford, Windsor, the Harry Potter studios; the ETA permit of £16 for the visitors since 2025, the tourist tax debated (the Scottish levy of 2026 in Edinburgh), the hotels of £150 a night, the trains; the Britons abroad 90 million trips a year (Spain first); the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy's department and VisitBritain |
| Finance, industry and energy | The City — the world's second financial center after New York by the indices (the foreign exchange's 38% of the world's trading, the insurance of Lloyd's, the gold of the LBMA, the eurobonds, the clearing of LCH; the banks' 400,000 jobs, the Brexit losses of 7,000 and the listings lost to New York; the Mansion House reforms of 2025, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank's Prudential Regulation Authority); the industry — the pharma (AstraZeneca's and Merck's investments paused in the pricing quarrel of 2025 and the American 100% tariff threat), the aerospace (Rolls-Royce's engines and its small modular reactors chosen June 2025, BAE's Typhoons and frigates), the cars (Nissan's Sunderland, JLR's Solihull and its cyberattack of September 2025, the 10% U.S. quota deal), the steel (British Steel's Scunthorpe nationalized in all but name 12 April 2025, Tata's electric furnace at Port Talbot), the defense (the Strategic Defence Review's factories), the AI (the Growth Zones, the £2.5 billion for quantum and AI of 17 March 2026, the data centers, Microsoft's US$30 billion and Google's £5 billion of September 2025), the North Sea (the oil's 600,000 barrels a day by the counts, the gas, the windfall levy to 2030, the licenses' end), the wind (30 GW offshore installed and building; Hornsea, Dogger Bank; the 100-GW Hamburg Declaration of 26 January 2026), the nuclear (Sizewell C's final decision of July 2025, Hinkley Point C's 2030, the SMRs of Wylfa), the geothermal of Cornwall (26 February 2026), Great British Energy of Aberdeen (2025) and the Great British Grid of Burnham's promise; the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds |
| Agriculture and fisheries | About 0.6% of GDP and 1% of the workers — the 209,000 farms of the 17 million hectares (the wheat of 13 million metric tons in the good years, the barley of the whisky, the rapeseed, the sugar beet of Norfolk, the potatoes, the apples of Kent and Herefordshire, the strawberries of the tunnels; the sheep of 30 million of Wales and the hills, the cattle of 9 million — the dairy of 14 billion liters and the beef, the pigs and the 1 billion chickens; the 60% self-sufficiency in food), the subsidies of the Common Agricultural Policy replaced by the environmental land management of 2021–28 (the Sustainable Farming Incentive's pause of 2025), the inheritance-tax change of 2024's Budget and the tractors on Whitehall, the supermarkets' prices, the bird flu of 2022–26; the fisheries of Peterhead, Grimsby, Brixham and Newlyn (about 600,000 metric tons landed; the mackerel, the herring, the cod of the quarrel, the shellfish of the exports; the Brexit deal's quotas and the fish of the EU reset to 2038), the salmon farms of Scotland (£1 billion of exports, the largest food export after whisky); the National Farmers' Union; the Environment Secretary Angela Eagle since July 2026 |
| Services and finance | The banks of the high street shrinking (Lloyds' 95 closures of 11 February 2026; the branches of 4,000 from 20,000), the challengers of Monzo, Starling and Revolut, the building societies of Nationwide, the Post Office's counters; the London Stock Exchange (1801; the FTSE 100 past 10,000 on 2 January 2026, the FTSE 250, the AIM; the listings' drift to New York, the ISA reforms), the gilts of £2.8 trillion of public debt and the 10-year yield of the 4–5% of 2025–26 (the bond vigilantes of the Truss days and the Reeves budget of 2024), the pension funds of £3 trillion (the Mansion House compact, the auto-enrollment of 11 million), the insurers, the fintech of the world's second cluster, the crypto rules of 2026; the telecoms of BT/Openreach's fiber to 30 million homes, Vodafone-Three (merged 2025), Virgin Media O2, the 5G; the retail of Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Aldi and Lidl, the Amazon of the deliveries, the high street's losses (the closures of 2026 — TGI Fridays, Revel, NCP), the pubs of 45,000; the professional services' £120 billion of exports; the Royal Mail sold to Křetínský's EP Group (2025); the water companies' takeover and the rail's return (Great British Railways; West Midlands Trains public from 1 February 2026); the Post Office Horizon compensation |
| Trade | Exports about £860 billion of goods and services (2025; the services £500 billion — the finance, the professional and the business services, the education, the creative — the goods £360 billion: the cars, the pharmaceuticals, the aircraft engines and parts, the machinery, the whisky, the gold of the vaults, the oil), imports about £900 billion (the cars, the food, the fuels, the machinery, the clothes, the electronics); the United States the largest single partner (about £315 billion of two-way trade; the surplus in services), the European Union half the goods trade (Germany, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Belgium), China, Switzerland, Japan, India; the deficit of the goods £220 billion and the surplus of the services £180 billion; the U.S. duties of 2025–26 — the 10% baseline of April 2025 and the deal of 8 May 2025 (the cars' 100,000 at 10%, the steel's quarrel), the 10% of 1 February 2026 over Greenland, the IEEPA duties struck down 20 February 2026, the flat 10% of Section 301 from 24 July 2026 (the UK in the lowest tier with Canada, Mexico and India; the aircraft parts, the pharmaceuticals and the rest exempt); the EU's Trade and Cooperation Agreement of 2020 and the reset of 2025–26 (the SPS deal, the fish, the emissions link), the CPTPP since December 2024, the India agreement of 24 July 2025, the Gulf and Switzerland talks; the ports of Felixstowe, London Gateway and Southampton, the Dover ferries and the Tunnel's trucks; the Department for Business and Trade |
| Energy | The grid of the wind — renewables about 50% of the electricity in 2025 (a record; the wind about 30%, the largest source of all in 2025's count, the solar and the biomass of Drax), the gas about 30% (the North Sea's third and the imports of Norway and the LNG of Qatar and the United States; the Iran war's price of 19 March 2026), the nuclear about 14% (the nine reactors of five stations, Hinkley Point C by 2030, Sizewell C, the SMRs), coal none since 30 September 2024 (Ratcliffe's last; the first G7 country); the oil of the North Sea about 600,000 barrels a day and falling (the licenses ended, the windfall tax, Rosebank's court fight), the refineries of Grangemouth shut (2025) and Lindsey, the petrol at £1.60 by the counts; the gas of the boilers of 23 million homes (the heat pumps' grants of £7,500, the Warm Homes Plan of £15 billion); the bills — the price cap of £1,720 from April 2026 (the 7% cut), the war's rises, the standing charges; Great British Energy (2025) and the Great British Grid of September 2026, the National Grid's £35 billion of lines, the Hamburg Declaration's 100 GW, the Clean Power 2030 target of 95%; the Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh since July 2026 (Ed Miliband of 2024–26) |
| Labor and wages | A workforce of about 34 million — unemployment 4.9% by the Bank's count of the three months to July 2026 (5.2% in December 2025, the highest of five years; the 16–24s' 16.1%), the employment rate about 75%, the economically inactive 9 million (the long-term sick of 2.8 million, the students, the early retired), the 957,000 NEETs of 2025; the National Living Wage £12.21 an hour from April 2025 (£12.71 from April 2026 by the Low Pay Commission's line, the 21-and-overs), the median full-time wage about £39,000 a year, the pay rises of 5% and the NHS's 3.3% of 2026; the Employment Rights Act of 2025 (the day-one rights, the zero-hours contracts, the fire-and-rehire ban) in force by stages to 2027; the unions of 6.4 million (the TUC; the resident doctors' strikes of 2023–26, the train drivers settled 2024, the bin strike of Birmingham of 2025), the strikes' days the fewest since 2022; the migrants of the care homes, the farms and the hospitals (the visa rules of 2024–25 cut the numbers), the gig economy of Uber and Deliveroo; the four-day week trials; the Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden and the welfare bill's rebellion of July 2025 |
| Public finances | The Budget of 28 October 2026 (John Healey's first; the OBR's forecast, the fiscal rules of the November 2024 Budget — the current budget in balance by 2029–30 and the debt falling — the £22 billion "black hole" of 2024 and the tax rises of £40 billion of Reeves's first Budget, the Spring Statement of 3 March 2026 the last of hers), the public spending about £1.3 trillion (44% of GDP; the NHS £200 billion, the pensions and benefits £300 billion, the debt interest £100 billion, the defense £60 billion), the taxes about 37% of GDP (the highest since the 1940s; the income tax's frozen thresholds to 2028, the National Insurance of employers raised April 2025, the VAT of 20%, the private schools' VAT), the deficit about 4.5% of GDP (2025–26; the £30.4 billion surplus of January 2026's tax month a record) and the public debt about 95% of GDP (£2.8 trillion; the gilts of the 4–5% yields, the Bank's losses, the AA of the agencies), the borrowing of £120 billion a year; the Treasury's spending review of June 2025; the devolved block grants (the Barnett formula), the councils' bankruptcies (Birmingham, Nottingham, Croydon) and the council tax; the state pension's triple lock and Burnham's care-service adjustment from 2030; the Chief Secretary Emma Reynolds |
| Income classification | High income by the World Bank (about US$58,000 a head); very high human development (0.946, about 13th); an advanced economy of the IMF's list and a member of the G7; the AA ratings (the downgrades of 2016 and 2020); the sixth economy of the world and the second of Europe; the financial center of the world's second rank; the inequality of the G7's higher half |
Transport & infrastructure
| Airports | Heathrow (LHR; about 84 million passengers in 2025, Europe's busiest, the world's fourth or fifth by the counts; the two runways of the 480,000 flights, the third runway backed by the government in January 2025 and the planning to come, the substation fire's shutdown of 21 March 2025; British Airways' hub, Terminal 5), Gatwick (LGW; 43 million; the second runway approved 2025), Manchester (about 31 million; the Northern hub), Stansted (about 30 million; Ryanair), Luton, Edinburgh (about 16 million), Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Belfast International, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds Bradford, London City, Cardiff, Aberdeen, Inverness; the airlines British Airways (IAG), easyJet, Ryanair's British half, Jet2, Virgin Atlantic, TUI, Loganair, the Wizz; the sustainable-fuel mandate of 2025, the air passenger duty; the RAF's bases of Brize Norton, Marham, Coningsby, Lossiemouth, Akrotiri and Fairford (the B-52s of March 2026) |
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| Ports | Felixstowe (the largest container port; about 3.5 million TEUs; Hutchison's), London Gateway and Tilbury (DP World's and Forth Ports'), Southampton (the containers and the cruise ships), Grimsby and Immingham (the largest by tonnage; the wind's base), Liverpool (Peel's), Dover (the ferries to Calais and Dunkirk, 10 million passengers, the trucks of 2.5 million; the checks of Brexit), Milford Haven (the oil and the LNG), the Forth and Teesport, Belfast and Larne (the Irish Sea border's), Holyhead and Cairnryan (the Irish ferries), Aberdeen, Portsmouth (the Navy's and the Channel Islands'), Harwich; the freeports of 2021 (Teesside, Humber, Thames, Solent, Plymouth, Liverpool, East Midlands, Freeport East) and the Scottish green freeports; the merchant fleet of the Red Ensign and the flags of the territories, the P&O Ferries sackings of 2022, the Solong's collision of the Humber (10 March 2025) and its captain's six years (5 February 2026); the shadow fleet boarded in the Channel |
| Railways | About 16,000 km of Network Rail's lines (the first railways of the world — Stockton and Darlington 1825, Liverpool and Manchester 1830; the 200th anniversary of 2025), 2,500 stations, 1.7 billion journeys a year — the operators returning to the state under Great British Railways (the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act of 2024; South Western in May 2025, c2c, Greater Anglia, West Midlands Trains 1 February 2026, the rest by 2027; the Railways Act of 2026 by the reports), the fares the dearest of Europe; the West Coast, East Coast, Great Western and Midland main lines, the Elizabeth line of London (2022; 200 million a year), Thameslink, the Merseyrail; HS2 from Euston to Birmingham only (the northern legs cut October 2023; the opening slipped to 2033–35, the cost past £80 billion, the slower trains studied 23 March 2026), the Northern Powerhouse Rail plans of 13 January 2026, the East West Rail; the Channel Tunnel of 6 May 1994 (Eurostar's 11 million to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam; the Eurotunnel shuttles), the Forth Bridge (1890), the Tay, the Ribblehead, the Settle–Carlisle, the Dawlish sea wall (collapsed 24 January 2026), the Flying Scotsman; the Underground of 1863, the Glasgow Subway, the Tyne and Wear Metro, the Docklands Light Railway, the trams of Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Croydon, Edinburgh and Birmingham |
| Roads | About 420,000 km — the motorways of 3,800 km (the M1 of 1959, the M6 and the M25 of 1986, the M4 and M5, the Preston bypass of 1958 the first; the smart motorways' halt of 2023), the A roads of the Romans' lines (the A1 Great North Road, Watling Street's A5, the Fosse Way), the Highway Code and the left, the 41 million vehicles (the electric 20% of the new sales in 2025, the 2030 petrol ban restored, the charging points of 80,000), the potholes of the map of 11 January 2026 and the £1.6 billion a year, the fuel duty frozen since 2011 (the 5p cut kept), the congestion charge of London (2003) and the ULEZ of 2023, the clean-air zones, the 20-mph limit of Wales (2023), the driving tests' backlog and the cheating (50% up in 2025), the six-month gap proposed (7 January 2026); the bridges of the Severn (tolls gone 2018), the Humber, the Queensferry Crossing (2017), the Dartford; the Lower Thames Crossing consented 2025; the National Highways and the Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander |
| City transport | The London Underground (10 January 1863; 11 lines, 272 stations, 400 km, 3.5 million a day; the Oyster and the contactless of the world's model, the Night Tube), the Elizabeth line, the Overground's six named lines (2024), the DLR, the buses of the red double-deckers (1.8 billion a year; the Routemaster's heirs, the Superloop), the black cabs and the Ubers, the Santander cycles and the Lime bikes, the Thames Clippers, the Transport for London of the Mayor; the Glasgow Subway (1896; the third-oldest), the Tyne and Wear Metro (1980), the Manchester Metrolink (1992; the largest tram network, the Bee Network's buses back in public hands under Burnham's mayoralty of 2023–25), the trams of Sheffield, Nottingham, Croydon, Edinburgh (2014; to the airport), the West Midlands Metro, the Merseyrail; the Bee Network the model of the English devolution; the bus fare cap of £3 in England (2025–26), the buses of Wales and Scotland franchised; the Beeching cuts' ghosts |
| Utilities | Electricity — the National Grid (the private company of the pylons; the £35 billion of lines to the wind, the Great British Grid of the promise), the generators of SSE, EDF, Drax, Ørsted and RWE, the suppliers of Octopus, British Gas (Centrica), E.ON, EDF and OVO under Ofgem's price cap (£1,720 from April 2026), the blackout of the substation fire at Heathrow (21 March 2025); water — the privatized companies of England and Wales (1989; Thames Water's £19 billion of debt and its special administration's shadow, the sewage of 3.6 million hours of spills, the bills' 26% rise of 2025, the Cunliffe review's end of Ofwat (July 2025), the reforms of 19 January 2026 — the inspections, the labels, the MOTs — and the Burnham takeover plan; Scottish Water and Northern Ireland Water public; the Kent and Sussex water crisis of 12 January 2026's bursts), the reservoirs unbuilt since 1992 (Abingdon and Fens planned), the hosepipe bans of 2025; gas — the boilers of 23 million and the heat pumps; the telecoms of BT/Openreach (the fiber to 30 million premises, the copper switch-off of 2027), Virgin Media O2, Vodafone-Three, the 5G, the Starlink of the Highlands, the Ofcom of the Online Safety Act; the Royal Mail of the universal service's cut to alternate days (2025); the waste of the recycling's 44% and the incinerators; the Post Office's 11,500 branches; the BBC's license fee |
| The country | Big Ben and the Abbey, the Tower and Tower Bridge, the British Museum's Reading Room, the Globe, the Proms at the Albert Hall; Windsor Castle and Eton's fields; Stonehenge on the plain and Avebury's stones; Bath's Roman baths and the Royal Crescent; Oxford's dreaming spires and Cambridge's Backs; Canterbury's cathedral; the white cliffs of Dover; the Cotswolds' stone; Stratford's Shakespeare; York's Minster and the Shambles; Durham's cathedral on the rock; Hadrian's Wall across the neck; the Lake District's Windermere and Scafell; Liverpool's waterfront and the Cavern; Manchester's mills and the Etihad; Edinburgh's Castle and the Royal Mile in August; Loch Ness and Glencoe; Skye's Cuillin; the Orkney tombs; Snowdon's summit and Caernarfon's castle; the Pembrokeshire cliffs; Cardiff Bay; the Giant's Causeway and the Titanic Quarter of Belfast; the Peak District's dales; the Jurassic Coast's Durdle Door; Cornwall's Tintagel and St. Ives; the Norfolk Broads; the Shetland of the Up Helly Aa; the Wimbledon strawberries; the pub by the river |
History in dates
| c. 8000 BC – 43 | The land bridge to the continent drowned (c. 6100 BC; Doggerland), the Neolithic farmers of 4000 BC — Stonehenge (c. 3000–2000 BC), Avebury, Skara Brae of Orkney (3100 BC), the long barrows; the Bronze Age of the Beaker people, the Iron Age of the Celtic Britons (the hillforts of Maiden Castle, the Picts of the north), Pytheas's Prettanike (c. 320 BC), Caesar's raids (55 and 54 BC); the Emperor Claudius's invasion of the year 43 |
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| 43 – 410 | Roman Britannia — Boudica's revolt (60–61; Londinium and Camulodunum burned), Agricola to the Scottish glens (Mons Graupius, 83), Hadrian's Wall (122–28; 118 km from the Tyne to the Solway), the Antonine Wall (142), the villas, the roads and the baths of Aquae Sulis, the Christianity of the 3rd century (St. Alban), the Picts and the Saxons' raids, the usurpers Carausius and Constantine's proclamation at York (306); the legions leave (410) and Honorius tells the Britons to look to their own defense |
| 410 – 793 | The Anglo-Saxons — the Angles, Saxons and Jutes of the 5th century (the legend of Hengist and Horsa, the Arthur of the Britons' resistance at Badon), the seven kingdoms of the heptarchy, Augustine at Canterbury (597) and the conversion, the Sutton Hoo ship (c. 625), Bede of Jarrow (the History of 731), Offa's Dyke (the 780s) against the Welsh |
| 793 – 1066 | The Vikings — Lindisfarne sacked (8 June 793) and the Great Heathen Army (865), the Scots of Dál Riata and the Picts united under Kenneth MacAlpin (843), Alfred the Great of Wessex (871–99; Edington 878, the Danelaw, the burhs and the Chronicle), Æthelstan, the first King of the English, at Eamont Bridge (927) and Brunanburh (937), Cnut's North Sea empire (1016–35), Edward the Confessor's Westminster Abbey (28 December 1065), Harold at Stamford Bridge (25 September 1066) |
| 1066 – 1215 | Hastings (14 October 1066) — William the Conqueror's Normans, the Domesday Book (1086), the castles and the cathedrals, the Anarchy of Stephen and Matilda (1135–53), Henry II's common law and Becket's murder at Canterbury (29 December 1170), the Angevin empire, Richard the Lionheart's crusade, John's loss of Normandy (1204) and the barons' revolt; Magna Carta at Runnymede (15 June 1215); Scotland's David I, Wales's princes of Gwynedd, Ireland's invasion by Strongbow (1169–71) |
| 1215 – 1485 | Simon de Montfort's parliament (1265) and Edward I's Model Parliament (1295); Edward's conquest of Wales (1282–83; Llywelyn killed, the castles of Gwynedd) and his wars on Scotland — Wallace at Stirling Bridge (1297) and Falkirk, Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn (24 June 1314), the Declaration of Arbroath (1320); the Hundred Years' War with France (1337–1453; Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt of 25 October 1415), the Black Death (1348–49; a third to a half dead), the Peasants' Revolt (1381), Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Wycliffe's Bible, Owain Glyndŵr's rising (1400–15); the Wars of the Roses (1455–85) — Towton, the princes in the Tower, Richard III at Bosworth (22 August 1485) and Henry Tudor's crown |
| 1485 – 1603 | The Tudors — Henry VII's peace, Henry VIII's six wives and the break with Rome (the Act of Supremacy of 1534, the dissolution of the monasteries, the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42), Edward VI's Prayer Book, Mary's fires, Elizabeth I (1558–1603) — the Settlement of 1559, Shakespeare's stage, Drake's circumnavigation (1577–80), Mary Queen of Scots beheaded (1587), the Spanish Armada scattered (1588), the plantation of Munster (the 1580s), Raleigh's Roanoke, the East India Company chartered (31 December 1600); the union of the crowns — James VI of Scotland the James I of England (24 March 1603) |
| 1603 – 1714 | The Stuarts — the Gunpowder Plot (5 November 1605), the King James Bible (1611), the Pilgrim Fathers' Mayflower (1620), Charles I's personal rule and the Civil Wars (1642–51; Marston Moor, Naseby), the King beheaded at Whitehall (30 January 1649), Cromwell's Commonwealth and Protectorate (the conquest of Ireland and Scotland), the Restoration of Charles II (1660), the Plague (1665) and the Great Fire of London (2–6 September 1666), the Royal Society (1660) and Newton's Principia (1687), the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (William of Orange lands at Brixham, James II flees), the Bill of Rights (1689), the Bank of England (1694), the Act of Settlement (1701), the Acts of Union of England and Scotland (1 May 1707) — the Kingdom of Great Britain, Marlborough's Blenheim (1704) |
| 1714 – 1815 | The Hanoverians — George I and Walpole the first prime minister (1721), the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 (Culloden, 16 April 1746, the last battle on British soil), the Seven Years' War and Wolfe's Quebec (1759), the Industrial Revolution of Arkwright's mills, Watt's engine (1769–76), the canals and the Iron Bridge (1779), the American colonies lost (1776–83), Cook's voyages, the Union with Ireland (1 January 1801) — the United Kingdom, the wars with revolutionary and Napoleonic France (1793–1815; Nelson's Trafalgar of 21 October 1805, Wellington's Waterloo of 18 June 1815), the abolition of the slave trade (1807), Adam Smith, Burns, the Romantics, the Regency |
| 1815 – 1851 | Peterloo (16 August 1819), the Great Reform Act (1832), slavery abolished in the empire (1833), the railways (Stockton–Darlington 1825, Liverpool–Manchester 1830, the mania of the 1840s), Victoria's accession (20 June 1837), the Chartists (the petitions of 1839, 1842 and 1848), the penny post (1840), the Corn Laws repealed (1846), the Irish famine (1845–52; a million dead, a million gone), the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace (1 May 1851) |
| 1851 – 1901 | The Victorian zenith — the Crimean War (1853–56; Nightingale), the Indian rebellion (1857) and the Raj, Darwin's Origin (1859), the Second and Third Reform Acts (1867, 1884), Gladstone and Disraeli, the Empress of India (1876), the Scramble for Africa and the empire of a quarter of the world, the Boer War (1899–1902); Victoria dies after 63 years (22 January 1901) |
| 1901 – 1918 | Edward VII, the Entente Cordiale (1904), the Liberal landslide of 1906 and the People's Budget, the Parliament Act (1911), the suffragettes, the Titanic (15 April 1912), the Home Rule crisis of Ulster; THE FIRST WORLD WAR (4 August 1914 – 11 November 1918) — the Somme (1 July 1916; 57,000 casualties on the first day), Passchendaele, Jutland, Gallipoli, the conscription of 1916, the Easter Rising in Dublin (24 April 1916), the women's vote (6 February 1918; over 30), the 880,000 British dead; the flu of 1918 |
| 1919 – 1939 | The partition of Ireland (1921–22; the Free State, the six counties of Northern Ireland, the name of 1927), the first Labour government (MacDonald, January 1924), the General Strike (May 1926), the vote for all women (1928), the Depression and the National Government (1931), the abdication of Edward VIII (11 December 1936), the BBC (1922) and the television (1936), the Jarrow March (1936), Chamberlain's Munich (September 1938), the empire's peak and the Statute of Westminster (1931); the war declared on Germany (3 September 1939) |
| 1939 – 1945 | THE SECOND WORLD WAR — Churchill Prime Minister (10 May 1940), Dunkirk (26 May – 4 June 1940), the Battle of Britain (10 July – 31 October 1940; "the few"), the Blitz (7 September 1940 – May 1941; 43,000 dead), El Alamein (1942), the Atlantic, the bombers, Bletchley's Enigma, D-Day (6 June 1944), the V-weapons, the Bengal famine (1943), VE Day (8 May 1945), the atomic bombs and VJ Day (15 August 1945); 384,000 servicemen and 70,000 civilians dead; Attlee's landslide (5 July 1945; the results of 26 July) |
| 1945 – 1953 | The welfare state — Attlee's government (26 July 1945), the National Health Service (5 July 1948; Bevan), the nationalizations of coal, rail and steel, the National Insurance, India's independence and partition (15 August 1947), the Windrush at Tilbury (22 June 1948), Palestine left (1948), NATO (1949), the Festival of Britain (1951), Elizabeth II's accession (6 February 1952), the bomb (3 October 1952), the coronation (2 June 1953) |
| 1953 – 1964 | The end of rationing (4 July 1954), Suez (October–November 1956; Eden's fall), Macmillan's "never had it so good" (1957), the M1 (2 November 1959), the Wind of Change (1960) and the African independences, the Common Market refused by de Gaulle (January 1963), the Profumo affair and the Beeching cuts (1963), the Beatles and the Stones, Wilson's win (15 October 1964) |
| 1964 – 1979 | Wilson's white heat (1964), the death penalty abolished (1965), the World Cup won (30 July 1966), the pound devalued (1967), the Troubles begin in Northern Ireland (1968–69; the troops in, Bloody Sunday of 30 January 1972, Direct Rule, 3,500 dead by 1998), the Open University, decimalization (15 February 1971), Heath's three-day week and the miners (1972–74), the EEC joined (1 January 1973) and the referendum of 1975 (67% yes), the IMF loan (1976), the North Sea's first oil (1975), the Winter of Discontent (1978–79), the devolution referendums of 1979 failed; Thatcher elected (3 May 1979) |
| 1979 – 1997 | The Thatcher years (1979–90) — the privatizations and the Big Bang (1986), the Falklands War (2 April – 14 June 1982; 255 British dead), the miners' strike (1984–85), the Brighton bomb (12 October 1984), the poll tax and the fall (22 November 1990), the Channel Tunnel (1994); Major — Black Wednesday (16 September 1992), Maastricht, the Downing Street Declaration (1993), the Dunblane massacre (13 March 1996), the mad cow disease; Diana's marriage (1981) and divorce; Blair's landslide (1 May 1997) |
| 1997 – 2010 | New Labour — the Bank's independence (1997), the Good Friday Agreement (10 April 1998), the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly (1999), Diana's death (31 August 1997), the minimum wage (1999), the Lords' hereditary peers cut to 92 (1999), the Human Rights Act, the fuel protests (2000), the foot-and-mouth (2001), the Iraq war (20 March 2003; the million on the march), the 7/7 bombings (7 July 2005; 52 dead), the smoking ban (2007), Brown's premiership (27 June 2007), Northern Rock and the crash (2007–08; RBS and Lloyds rescued, the £500 billion), the expenses scandal (2009), the Lisbon Treaty; the hung parliament of 6 May 2010 |
| 2010 – 2016 | The coalition of Cameron and Clegg (11 May 2010) — the austerity, the tuition fees tripled, the AV referendum lost (2011), the riots of August 2011, the London Olympics (27 July – 12 August 2012; 29 golds), the same-sex marriage (2014), the Scottish independence referendum (18 September 2014; 55.3% no), the Conservative majority (7 May 2015); the EU referendum of 23 June 2016 — Leave 51.9%, Cameron resigns, Theresa May Prime Minister (13 July 2016), Jo Cox murdered (16 June 2016); the Brexit years begin |
| 2017 – 2019 | Article 50 triggered (29 March 2017), the snap election and the hung parliament (8 June 2017), the Manchester Arena bombing (22 May 2017; 22 dead) and the London Bridge attacks, Grenfell Tower (14 June 2017; 72 dead), the Salisbury poisonings (4 March 2018), the withdrawal agreement defeated three times (January–March 2019), May's resignation (24 May 2019) and Boris Johnson (24 July 2019), the prorogation struck down (24 September 2019), the election of 12 December 2019 (the majority of 80; the red wall falls); the Brexit done — 31 January 2020 |
| 2020 – 2022 | The pandemic — the lockdown of 23 March 2020, the furlough of 11 million, the Queen's "we will meet again," the vaccine first in the world (8 December 2020), the 230,000 dead, the partygate; the trade deal with the EU (24 December 2020), the Northern Ireland Protocol; Prince Philip's death (9 April 2021), the Platinum Jubilee (June 2022), Johnson's fall (7 July 2022), Liz Truss's 49 days (6 September – 25 October 2022; the mini-budget of 23 September and the gilts' crash); THE QUEEN DIES AT BALMORAL (8 September 2022) after 70 years — King Charles III; Rishi Sunak Prime Minister (25 October 2022); the Ukraine war's £3 billion a year, the energy crisis, the strikes |
| 2023 – 2024 | The coronation (6 May 2023), the Windsor Framework (27 February 2023), the inflation's fall from 11.1%, the Rwanda scheme's courts, Stormont restored (3 February 2024), the King's and the Princess's cancers (2024), the local elections' rout, the election called in the rain (22 May 2024) — LABOUR'S LANDSLIDE OF 4 JULY 2024 (411 seats on 33.7%; Starmer Prime Minister 5 July; Reform's 14.3%, the Conservatives' 121), the Southport killings (29 July) and the riots of August, the winter fuel payment cut, Reeves's Budget of 30 October 2024 (£40 billion of taxes), the assisted-dying bill's second reading (29 November), the Syria of Assad's fall |
| 2025 | The Trump tariffs (2 April; the deal of 8 May), Reform's Runcorn by-election and the May councils (1 May), the EU reset summit (19 May), the Spending Review (11 June), the assisted-dying bill passed by the Commons (20 June), the welfare rebellion (1 July), the India deal (24 July), the Lionesses' Euro (27 July), the Online Safety Act's checks (25 July), the reshuffle of 5 September after Rayner's resignation, Trump's state visit (17–18 September), Palestine recognized (21 September), the Red Roses' World Cup (27 September), the Manchester synagogue attack (2 October), Andrew's titles lost (30 October / 3 November), the Budget of 26 November (the two-child limit lifted), the Bank Rate to 3.75% (18 December), the Channel's 41,472; Lucy Powell deputy leader (25 October) |
| 1 January – 28 February 2026 | The "not proven" verdict abolished (1 January); the FTSE 100 past 10,000 (2 January); the storms Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra and the snow (January); the Greenland tariff of 10% announced (17 January; from 1 February) and the bases refused (9 January); Jenrick sacked and gone to Reform (15 January), Braverman and Zahawi after; Starmer in China (28–30 January); the Epstein files' Andrew and Mandelson (31 January); Mandelson out of Labour (1 February) and the Lords (3 February), McSweeney out (8 February); the Bank holds 3.75% (5 February); Weston's skeleton gold and Britain's best Winter Games (the Games of 6–22 February; 3-1-1); the Iran strikes begin and Starmer refuses the bases (19 February); Andrew arrested at Sandringham (19 February); Romeo Cabinet Secretary (19 February); Mandelson arrested (23 February); the Greens win Gorton and Denton (26 February); the Iran war's full start and COBRA (28 February) |
| 1 March – 30 April 2026 | The bases granted for defense (1 March); Reeves's last Spring Statement (3 March); Trump's "not Winston Churchill" (3 March); the jets to Qatar (5 March); the B-52s at Fairford (9 March); the Al Quds march banned (11 March); the Lords vote out the hereditary peers (10 March; the act after); the drones shot down over Iraq (12 March); the Kent meningitis outbreak (15–25 March); the Bank holds again and warns (19 March); the Coast Path opened (19 March); the missile at Diego Garcia (21 March); the suspended-sentence rules (23 March); Sarah Mullally enthroned at Canterbury (25 March); the King's state visit to the United States and his address to Congress (April); the energy price cap cut 7% (1 April); Andrew to Marsh Farm (April) |
| 1 May – 30 June 2026 | THE ELECTIONS OF 7 MAY — Holyrood (SNP 58, Labour 17, Reform 17, Greens 15), the Senedd (Plaid 43, Reform 34, Labour 9; Eluned Morgan's seat lost), the English councils (Reform's 1,454 seats, Labour's 1,498 lost), the Green mayors of Hackney and Lewisham; the leadership crisis — Catherine West's challenge (9 May), the 72 MPs (11 May), Rhun ap Iorwerth First Minister of Wales (12 May), Streeting's resignation and Simons's seat given up (14 May), Swinney re-elected (20 May); Scotland at the World Cup (14 June; the Brazil, Morocco and Haiti games; the bank holiday of 15 June); Burnham wins Makerfield (18 June; 54.8%); STARMER ANNOUNCES HIS RESIGNATION (22 June); England's group won |
| 1 July – 30 September 2026 | England's World Cup — DR Congo (1 July), Mexico 3–2 (5 July), Norway 2–1 (11 July), Argentina 1–2 in the semifinal at Atlanta (15 July), France 6–4 for third place at Miami (18 July); the Labour nominations (9–16 July) and BURNHAM ACCLAIMED LEADER (17 July); BURNHAM PRIME MINISTER (20 July) and the Cabinet of 15 dismissals (21 July); the Section 301 duty of 10% (24 July); the Glasgow Commonwealth Games (23 July – 2 August; England second); the Budget set for 28 October (31 July); the assisted-dying bill rejected by the Commons 286–270 (11 September); the Bank holds at 3.75% by 6–3 with three for a rise (17 September); the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum (September); the Channel's busiest day of 781 (23 September) and the year's 18,565; Burnham's conference speech — the National Care Service, the water and the grid, the EU summit, the electoral commission (29 September); the state as of 30 September 2026 — 28 days to the Budget, the Union of four governments of four parties |
| The kingdom | 319 years since the Union of 1707, 225 since the union with Ireland, 104 since the Free State left, six since the European Union left, two since the landslide and 72 days since the new Prime Minister — a monarchy of a thousand years and a parliament of 800, the sixth economy, the first industrial nation, the mother of the world's language, at the ballot boxes of four nations with five parties and a Budget due |
Records & firsts
| The first industrial nation | The Industrial Revolution of Arkwright's mills, Watt's engines, the Iron Bridge (1779) and the railways (Stockton and Darlington 1825, Liverpool and Manchester 1830 — the first of the world) — the workshop of the world of the 19th century; the first country without coal power of the G7 (30 September 2024) |
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| The mother of parliaments | The Parliament of Westminster of de Montfort's 1265 and Edward I's 1295, Magna Carta of 1215, the Bill of Rights of 1689 — the model of the parliaments of the world; the House of Lords the oldest second chamber, the 92 hereditary seats ended in 2026 |
| The oldest currency | The pound sterling — the pound of silver of the 8th century's Anglo-Saxon pennies, the oldest currency in continuous use; the Bank of England of 1694 the second-oldest central bank (Sweden's Riksbank of 1668 the first) |
| The world's language | English — about 1.5 billion speakers of the world, the language of the air, the sea, the internet and the sciences, from the island's 60 million; the King James Bible of 1611, Shakespeare's 1,700 words, the Oxford English Dictionary of 600,000 |
| The first underground | The Metropolitan Railway of 10 January 1863 from Paddington to Farringdon — the world's first underground railway, the Underground of 11 lines and 272 stations; the Channel Tunnel of 1994, the longest undersea tunnel (37.9 km under the sea) |
| The NHS | The National Health Service of 5 July 1948 — the first universal health service free at the point of use of any large country, the 1.5 million staff of England the largest employer of Europe, the Covid vaccine of 8 December 2020 the world's first outside the trials (Margaret Keenan, 90, at Coventry) |
| The longest reign | Elizabeth II — 70 years and 214 days (6 February 1952 – 8 September 2022), the longest of any British monarch and of any woman's in history, the second of any (Louis XIV's 72); the Platinum Jubilee of June 2022; Charles III the oldest to accede at 73 |
| The World Cup of 2026 | England's third place — the best since the title of 1966 (the fourth of 1990; the finals of the Euros of 2020 and 2024 lost): Mexico 3–2, Norway 2–1, the semifinal to Argentina 1–2 at Atlanta on 15 July 2026, France beaten 6–4 in the ten-goal match of 18 July; Harry Kane England's World Cup top scorer past Lineker's ten by the counts; Scotland's first finals since 1998 |
| The Winter Olympics of 2026 | Three gold, one silver, one bronze at Milan-Cortina — Britain's best Winter Games ever (the first three golds of any one Games; the five medals equaling 2014 and 2018): Matt Weston's skeleton, the mixed skeleton with Tabitha Stoecker, Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale's snowboard cross, Mouat's curling silver, Atkin's halfpipe bronze |
| The Prime Minister who was never elected to it | Andy Burnham — the Mayor of Greater Manchester who left office in June 2026, won a by-election on 18 June, was acclaimed Labour's leader without a vote of the members on 17 July and became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026: the fastest road from outside Parliament to Downing Street in the modern era; the third Prime Minister since 2024 and the seventh since 2010 |
| The by-election of 2026 | Gorton and Denton, 26 February 2026 — the Green Party's first Westminster by-election win in its history (Hannah Spencer, 34, a plumber), Reform second and the governing Labour third in the heart of Manchester; the Runcorn by-election of 1 May 2025 won by Reform by six votes the tightest since the 1940s |
| Ben Nevis and Loch Ness | 1,345 m, the highest point of the British Isles; Loch Ness's 7.4 km³ of water more than all the lakes of England and Wales together, 230 m deep; the Severn's tides the second-highest of the world at 15 m; the Coast Path of 4,328 km the world's longest managed coastal walk (2026) |
| The Union Jack | The flag of 1606 and 1801 in the cantons of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tuvalu and Hawaii and the flags of the territories — the one national flag that is three flags; "God Save the King" the oldest national anthem in use by the counts (1745) |
| The Nobels and the inventions | About 130 Nobel laureates, the second of any country — Newton's gravity, Darwin's evolution, Faraday's electricity, Jenner's vaccine, Fleming's penicillin, Baird's television, Turing's computer, the DNA of Crick and Watson, Berners-Lee's web, the jet engine, the steam engine, the telephone's Bell of Edinburgh, graphene, the ATM, the World Wide Web, the MRI scanner, Dolly the sheep (1996), DeepMind's AI |
| The football | The Football Association of 1863, the oldest; the FA Cup of 1871–72, the oldest competition; Sheffield FC of 1857, the oldest club; the Premier League the world's most-watched; Wembley's 90,000; the Macclesfield upset of 10 January 2026 the biggest in the FA Cup's history (177 league places) |
| The Commonwealth Games of Glasgow | The 23rd Games of 23 July – 2 August 2026 at Glasgow, the stand-in host of 10 sports after Victoria's withdrawal — England second with 29 golds and 110 medals, Scotland fifth as host with 13 golds, Wales ninth with Emma Finucane's four sprint golds, Chad le Clos's 21 medals the most of any athlete in the Games' history; the Games of 2014 in the same city |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of the United Kingdom?
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — the name since the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act of 1927, after the Irish Free State's departure cut the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" of the Act of Union of 1801, itself the heir of the Kingdom of Great Britain that the Acts of Union of 1707 made from England (with Wales, annexed in 1536–43) and Scotland; the United Kingdom, the UK, Britain and Great Britain in speech (Great Britain the island, strictly, and the Olympic team's name), the "British Isles" the geographers' name Dublin declines, England the common mistake of the world. A sovereign state of four nations — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — under one Crown and one Parliament at Westminster, with devolved parliaments at Holyrood (1999), Cardiff Bay (1999) and Stormont (1998/2007), 14 overseas territories from Gibraltar to the Falklands and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man beside it, the sixth economy of the world, a nuclear power and a permanent member of the Security Council, the head of a Commonwealth of 56 states, out of the European Union since 31 January 2020 and, on 30 September 2026, a country in its third prime ministership in four years: King Charles III since 8 September 2022, Andy Burnham of Labour since 20 July 2026 after Keir Starmer's resignation, a Budget due on 28 October, a Bank Rate of 3.75% and an autumn of Reform UK, the Greens and the nationalists rising in the polls and the councils.
What is the capital of the United Kingdom?
London — the capital of England since the Norman kings and of the United Kingdom since 1801, the Roman Londinium of the year 47 or so on the Thames, the seat of the Crown (Buckingham Palace), of Parliament (the Palace of Westminster, the Commons and the Lords), of the government (Downing Street and Whitehall), of the courts (the Supreme Court in Parliament Square, the Royal Courts of Justice), of the Bank of England and the City (the square mile of the banks and the insurers), of the Church (Lambeth and St. Paul's) and of the world's oldest underground railway (1863): about 8.9 million people in Greater London's 32 boroughs and the City by the ONS's counts, about 14 million in the metropolitan area, a third of them born abroad, 300 languages in its schools — the largest city of Western Europe with Paris, the financial capital of Europe still after Brexit, the tourists' 20 million a year, the Mayor Sadiq Khan of Labour since 2016 (his third term from 2024) and the London Assembly. Edinburgh (about 530,000) is the capital of Scotland and the seat of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, Cardiff (about 380,000) of Wales and its Senedd, Belfast (about 350,000) of Northern Ireland and the Assembly at Stormont. Birmingham (about 1.15 million in the city; 2.6 million in the West Midlands conurbation) is the second city, then Glasgow (about 630,000; 1.8 million in its conurbation), Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester (the city of 550,000 at the heart of Greater Manchester's 2.9 million, the new Prime Minister's mayoralty of 2017–26), Liverpool, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, Nottingham, Newcastle and Cardiff; the metropolitan mayors of the 2010s–20s (Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Liverpool, West Yorkshire, the North East, South Yorkshire, the Tees Valley) the English devolution the government means to extend.
How big is the United Kingdom, and how many people live there?
243,610 km² (94,058 sq mi) by the Factbook's count and 242,495 km² by the ONS's standard area measurement (both stated) — the 78th country of the world, a little larger than Romania and a little smaller than the U.S. state of Oregon: England 130,279 km², Scotland 77,933, Wales 20,779 and Northern Ireland 14,130, the island of Great Britain the ninth largest of the world, with 12,429 km of coastline by the Factbook's count (nowhere in Britain is more than about 115 km from the sea), the one land border of 499 km with the Republic of Ireland and the Channel of 33 km at the Strait of Dover between Dover and Calais; the Highlands and the Pennines, the Lake District and Snowdonia, the flat Fens and the chalk downs, Ben Nevis at 1,345 m the top. The Office for National Statistics counted 69,487,000 people at 30 June 2025 in its provisional estimate (+206,000, 0.3%, in the year: net migration 204,000, the smallest since 2021 after the 431,000 of 2024, and a natural increase of 2,000, with 653,000 births against 651,000 deaths — the births all but equal to the deaths), 69.3 million at mid-2024, 67.0 million at the census of 2021 — England about 58 million, Scotland about 5.5, Wales about 3.2, Northern Ireland about 1.9 by the mid-2024 counts; 285 people to the square kilometer, England's 434 among the densest of Europe, the Scottish Highlands among the emptiest; the median age about 41, one in five past 65, the fertility rate 1.41 in 2024, the lowest on record; the 2021 census of England and Wales found 81.7% white, 9.3% Asian, 4.0% black, 2.9% of mixed heritage, 46.2% Christian and 37.2% of no religion, a sixth born abroad, and the ONS's 2022-based projection of 72.5 million by 2032 rests on migration alone.
What are the highest and lowest points of the United Kingdom?
Ben Nevis (Beinn Nibheis, "the venomous mountain" or "the mountain with its head in the clouds" by the readings), 1,345 m (4,413 ft), in the Grampian Highlands above Fort William in Scotland — the highest point of the United Kingdom and of the British Isles, a collapsed volcano's granite with the north face's 600-m cliffs for the climbers and the pony track for the 150,000 walkers a year, the summit observatory of 1883–1904; Ben Macdui (1,309 m) in the Cairngorms the second, the 282 Munros above 914 m (3,000 ft) that the baggers collect, Scafell Pike (978 m) the top of England in the Lake District, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa, 1,085 m) the top of Wales with its rack railway of 1896, Slieve Donard (850 m) the top of Northern Ireland in the Mournes, the Pennines the spine of England, the chalk of the Downs and the Chilterns the south's hills. The lowest point is Holme Fen in Cambridgeshire, about 2.75 m below sea level by the survey (the Fens' drained peat that has sunk since the 17th century; the Factbook's −4 m for the Fens both stated), the land the Dutch engineers drained and the pumps still hold; the mean elevation of the country is 162 m; the Thames at London and the Severn's estuary the tidal floors, the Norfolk Broads and the Somerset Levels the wetlands that flood. The Severn (354 km) is the longest river, the Thames (346 km) the most famous, the Trent, the Great Ouse, the Wye, the Tay (Scotland's longest and Britain's largest by flow), the Clyde and the Bann the others; Lough Neagh (392 km²) in Northern Ireland the largest lake by area, Loch Lomond (71 km²) the largest of Great Britain, Loch Ness (56 km²; 230 m deep) the largest by volume, Windermere (15 km²) England's largest.
What currency does the United Kingdom use?
The pound sterling (ISO code GBP; £; the quid), of 100 pence since Decimal Day, 15 February 1971 (240 old pence to the pound before it) — the world's oldest currency still in use, the pound of silver of the Anglo-Saxon kings, issued by the Bank of England (1694; the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, nationalized 1946, independent in monetary policy since 1997) in the polymer notes of £5, £10, £20 and £50 with the King's portrait since June 2024 (the Scottish and Northern Irish banks issue their own notes under the Bank's cover), the coins of 1p to £2 of the Royal Mint at Llantrisant, the £1 of 12 sides (2017). About US$1.33 to the pound on 30 September 2026 by the market's counts (the pound weaker by about 2% in the month and the year; 1.34 in 2025's summer, the low of 1.03 of the Truss crisis of September 2022) and about 1.1 euros. The Bank Rate stands at 3.75% — cut from the 5.25% of 2023–24 in six steps to December 2025 and held at every meeting of 2026, the last on 17 September 2026 by six votes to three with the three for a rise to 4%: inflation ran at 3.1% in August 2026 by the consumer prices index (3.0% in January and February, 3.4% in December 2025), the Bank expects about 3¾% in the fourth quarter and a little above 4% in early 2027 on the oil of the Iran war (Brent above US$100 a barrel since March; the energy price cap that fell 7% in April rose after) and the food, the Governor Andrew Bailey since 2020; the economy grew 0.4% in the second quarter of 2026 and the IMF counts 1.3% for 2025 and 0.8% for 2026, unemployment 4.9%, the FTSE 100 past 10,000 for the first time on 2 January 2026, the average house past £300,000 by Halifax's count in January; the Chancellor John Healey since 20 July 2026 delivers his first Budget on 28 October 2026 under the fiscal rules of 2024; the clocks keep Greenwich Mean Time with British Summer Time from the last Sunday of March to the last of October; the United Kingdom drives on the left.
Who governs the United Kingdom?
The Crown in Parliament — a constitutional monarchy without a written constitution: King Charles III, 77, the head of state since 8 September 2022 (crowned 6 May 2023; the cancer treatment since February 2024 lightened in 2026; the state visit to the United States of April 2026 with his address to Congress), who reigns and does not rule, with William, Prince of Wales, the heir; Parliament of the House of Commons (650 members elected 4 July 2024; the Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle) and the House of Lords (about 800, the last hereditary peers removed by the act of 2026), sovereign; and the Prime Minister and Cabinet who govern with the Commons' confidence. Since 20 July 2026 that is Andy Burnham — born 7 January 1970 at Aintree, the Mayor of Greater Manchester of 2017–26 and the Health Secretary of 2009–10, who came back to the Commons at the Makerfield by-election of 18 June 2026 (54.8%) after Keir Starmer, beaten in the elections of 7 May in Scotland, Wales and the English councils and deserted by his ministers (Wes Streeting's resignation of 14 May) and 72 of his MPs, announced his resignation on 22 June; Burnham was acclaimed leader of the Labour Party on 17 July 2026 with 379 of its MPs' nominations and no rival on the ballot and kissed hands three days later, Starmer's premiership of two years and 15 days over. His Cabinet: Louise Haigh Deputy Prime Minister, John Healey Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ed Miliband Foreign Secretary, Shabana Mahmood Home Secretary, Wes Streeting Defense Secretary, Yvette Cooper Health Secretary, Alex Norris Justice, Lucy Powell Education, Pat McFadden Work and Pensions, Angela Rayner Housing, Jonathan Reynolds Business and Trade, Lisa Nandy Culture, Heidi Alexander Transport, Miatta Fahnbulleh Energy, Douglas Alexander Scotland, Stephen Kinnock Wales, Chris Bryant Northern Ireland, James Purnell his chief of staff — 15 of Starmer's ministers dismissed at a stroke. Labour holds about 400 of the 650 seats from the landslide of 2024 (411 then; 33.7% of the vote) against the Conservatives' 120 under Kemi Badenoch, the Liberal Democrats' 72 under Ed Davey, Reform UK's handful under Nigel Farage (five elected in 2024, joined by the Runcorn by-election's Sarah Pochin and the defectors Danny Kruger, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman), the SNP's 9, the Greens' 5 (the by-election of Gorton and Denton of 26 February 2026 their first) and the rest; the polls of 2026 put Reform first through the spring and Labour back in front by one poll's six points after Burnham's conference of 29 September, where he promised a National Care Service, the water companies, the empty homes and the grid brought into public hands, a UK–EU summit before the year's end and a National Commission on Electoral Reform. Scotland is governed by John Swinney's SNP minority (re-elected 20 May 2026 after the Holyrood election of 7 May: SNP 58 of 129, Labour 17, Reform 17, Greens 15), Wales by Rhun ap Iorwerth's Plaid Cymru minority (12 May; Plaid 43 of 96, Reform 34, Labour 9 — Labour out of office in Wales for the first time since devolution), Northern Ireland by the Sinn Féin–DUP executive of Michelle O'Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly; the next general election is due by August 2029.
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