Countries of the United Kingdom

Countries of the United Kingdom
Category Administrative division
Location United Kingdom
Found in Legal jurisdictions
Number 4
Possible status NUTS 1 region (3)
European constituency (3)
Legal jurisdiction (2)
Additional status Home Nations
Government Devolved legislature (3)
None (1)

The United Kingdom (UK) comprises four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.[1][2]

Within the United Kingdom, a unitary sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have gained a degree of autonomy through the process of devolution. The UK Parliament and British Government deal with all reserved matters for Northern Ireland and Scotland and all non-transferred matters for Wales, but not in general matters that have been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales. Additionally, devolution in Northern Ireland is conditional on co-operation between the Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of Ireland (see North/South Ministerial Council) and the British Government consults with the Government of Ireland to reach agreement on some non-devolved matters for Northern Ireland (see British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference). England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom,[3][4] remains fully the responsibility of the UK Parliament centralised in London.

England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards and the UK's Office for National Statistics, uses "country" to describe England, Scotland and Wales.[5] Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a "province" in the same lists.[5] Each have separate national governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions, including the Commonwealth Games. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, including rugby union.[6]

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK.

Historically, from 1801, following the Acts of Union, until 1921 the whole island of Ireland was a country within the UK. Ireland was split into two separate jurisdictions in 1921: Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland. Southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922.

Key facts

Name Flag Capital Legislature Legal systems Jurisdiction
England London None English law England and Wales
Northern Ireland None Belfast Northern Ireland Assembly Northern Ireland law, Irish land law Northern Ireland
Scotland Edinburgh Scottish Parliament Scots law Scotland
Wales Cardiff National Assembly for Wales English law, Welsh law England and Wales
United Kingdom London UK Parliament UK administrative law United Kingdom

Statistics

Name Population (2015)[7] Population (%) Area (km²)[4] Area (%) Pop. density (per km²; 2011) GVA* (£; 2014)[8] GVA* (%; 2014) GVA per capita* (£; 2014)[8]
England 54,786,300 84% 130,279 54% 406.55 1,378 billion 87% 25,367
Northern Ireland 1,851,600 3% 13,562 6% 130.81 34 billion 2% 18,682
Scotland 5,373,000 8% 77,933 32% 67.22 124 billion 8% 23,102
Wales 3,099,100 5% 20,735 9% 147.43 54 billion 3% 17,573
United Kingdom 65,110,000 100% 242,509 100% 259.16 1,590 billion 100% 24,616

* Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UK's territorial waters, in the country's continental shelf region.

Terminology

Various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Acts of Parliament

Documents relevant to personal
and legislative unions of the
countries of the United Kingdom
Treaty of Windsor 1175
Treaty of York 1237
Treaty of Perth 1266
Treaty of Montgomery 1267
Treaty of Aberconwy 1277
Statute of Rhuddlan 1284
Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton 1328
Treaty of Berwick 1357
Poynings' Law 1495
Laws in Wales Acts 1535–42
Crown of Ireland Act 1542
Treaty of Edinburgh 1560
Union of the Crowns 1603
Union of England and Scotland Act 1603
Act of Settlement 1701
Act of Security 1704
Alien Act 1705
Treaty of Union 1706
Acts of Union 1707
Personal Union of 1714 1714
Wales and Berwick Act 1746
Irish Constitution 1782
Acts of Union 1800
Government of Ireland Act 1920
Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921
Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927
N. Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972
Northern Ireland Assembly 1973
N. Ireland Constitution Act 1973
Northern Ireland Act 1998
Government of Wales Act 1998
Scotland Act 1998
Government of Wales Act 2006
Scotland Act 2012
Edinburgh Agreement 2012
Scotland Act 2016

Current legal terminology

The Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms "England", "Wales" and the "United Kingdom", but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines "Scotland" or "Northern Ireland". Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act. The definitions in the 1978 Act are listed below:

In the Scotland Act 1998 there is no delineation of Scotland, with the definition in section 126 simply providing that Scotland includes "so much of the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland".

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 refers to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as "parts" of the United Kingdom in the following clause: "Each constituency shall be wholly in one of the four parts of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland)."

Other official usage

The Royal Fine Art Commission's 1847 report on decorating the Palace of Westminster referred to "the nationality of the component parts of the United Kingdom" being represented by their four respective patron saints.[15]

Current

"Regions": For purposes of NUTS 1 collection of statistical data in a format that is compatible with similar data that is collected elsewhere in the European Union, the United Kingdom has been divided into twelve regions of approximately equal size.[16] Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions.

The official term rest of the UK (RUK or rUK) is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics[17] and in legislating for student funding.[18] This term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland.

The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts and may include all of the island of Ireland.

Identity and nationality

According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, there are broadly two interpretations of British identity, with ethnic and civic dimensions:

The first group, which we term the ethnic dimension, contained the items about birthplace, ancestry, living in Britain, and sharing British customs and traditions. The second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship.[19]

Of the two perspectives of British identity, the civic definition has become the dominant idea and in this capacity, Britishness is sometimes considered an institutional or overarching state identity.[20][21] This has been used to explain why first-, second- and third-generation immigrants are more likely to describe themselves as British, rather than English, Northern Irish, Scottish or Welsh, because it is an "institutional, inclusive" identity, that can be acquired through naturalisation and British nationality law; the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom who are from an ethnic minority feel British.[22] However, this attitude is more common in England than in Scotland or Wales; "white English people perceived themselves as English first and as British second, and most people from ethnic minority backgrounds perceived themselves as British, but none identified as English, a label they associated exclusively with white people". Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales "there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain."[23]

Studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The Commission for Racial Equality found that with respect to notions of nationality in Britain, "the most basic, objective and uncontroversial conception of the British people is one that includes the English, the Scots and the Welsh".[24] However, "English participants tended to think of themselves as indistinguishably English or British, while both Scottish and Welsh participants identified themselves much more readily as Scottish or Welsh than as British".[24] Some people opted "to combine both identities" as "they felt Scottish or Welsh, but held a British passport and were therefore British", whereas others saw themselves as exclusively Scottish or exclusively Welsh and "felt quite divorced from the British, whom they saw as the English".[24] Commentators have described this latter phenomenon as "nationalism", a rejection of British identity because some Scots and Welsh interpret it as "cultural imperialism imposed" upon the United Kingdom by "English ruling elites",[25] or else a response to a historical misappropriation of equating the word "English" with "British",[26] which has "brought about a desire among Scots, Welsh and Irish to learn more about their heritage and distinguish themselves from the broader British identity".[27] The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and fall over time.[28]

The state-funded Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey,[29] part of a joint project between the University of Ulster and Queen's University Belfast, has addressed the issue of identity in since it started polling in 1998. It reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish. 3% opted to identify themselves as Ulster, whereas 7% stated 'other'. Of the two main religious groups, 68% of Protestants identified as British as did 6% of Catholics; 60% of Catholics identified as Irish as did 3% of Protestants. 21% of Protestants and 26% of Catholics identified as Northern Irish.[30]

For Northern Ireland, however, the results of the Life & Times Survey are not the whole story. The poll asks for a single preference, whereas many people easily identify as any combination of British and Irish, or British, Northern Irish and Irish, or Irish and Northern Irish. The 2014 Life & Times Survey addressed this to an extent by choosing two of the options from the identity question: British and Irish. It found that, while 28% of respondents stated they felt "British not Irish" and 26% felt "Irish not British", 39% of respondents felt some combination of both identities. Six percent chose 'other description'.[31]

The identity question is confounded further by identity with politics and religion, and particularly by a stance on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Again in 2014 the Life & Times Survey asked what respondents felt should be the "long term future for Northern Ireland". 66% of respondents felt the future should be as a part of the UK, with or without devolved government. 17% felt that Northern Ireland should unify with the Republic of Ireland. 50% of specifically Roman Catholics considered that the long term future should be as part of the UK, with 32% opting for separation. 87% of respondents identifying as any Protestant denomination opted for remaining part of the UK, with only 4% opting for separation. Of those respondents who declared no religion, 62% opted for remaining part of the UK, with 9% opting for separation.[31]

Following devolution and the significant broadening of autonomous governance throughout the UK in the late 1990s, debate has taken place across the United Kingdom on the relative value of full independence,[32] an option that was rejected[33] by the Scottish people in the Scottish independence referendum, 2014.

Competitions

See also: Home Nations

England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have separate national governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions.[34][35][36][37] Each country of the United Kingdom has a national football team, and competes as a separate national team at the various disciplines in the Commonwealth Games.[38] At the Olympic Games, the United Kingdom is represented by the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team, although athletes from Northern Ireland can choose to join the Republic of Ireland's Olympic team.[38][39] In addition to Northern Ireland having its own national governing bodies for some sports such as Association football and Netball, for others, such as rugby union and cricket, Northern Ireland participates with the Republic of Ireland in a joint All-Ireland team. England and Wales field a joint cricket team.

The United Kingdom participates in the Eurovision Song Contest.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ "The Countries of the UK". statistics.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  2. ↑ UK Cabinet Office: Devolution Glossary (Accessed 7 September 2010): "United Kingdom: Term used most frequently for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the modern sovereign state comprising England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."
  3. ↑ 2011 Census – Population. According to the 2011 census, the population of England was 53,012,456, and the population of the United Kingdom was 63,181,775, therefore England comprises 84% of the UK population.
  4. 1 2 Region and Country Profiles, Key Statistics and Profiles, October 2013, ONS. Retrieved 9 August 2015. According to the ONS, England has an area of 130,279 km², and the UK has an area of 242,509 km², therefore England comprises 54% of the area of the UK.
  5. 1 2 ISO Newsletter ii-3-2011-12-13
  6. ↑ "Sport Northern Ireland | Performance | Governing Bodies of Sport". Sportni.net. 2009-12-01. Retrieved 2014-02-23.
  7. ↑ "Population estimates - Office for National Statistics". www.ons.gov.uk. Retrieved 2016-06-30.
  8. 1 2 House of Commons. "Regional economic output statistics, December 2015" (PDF). Retrieved 9 January 2016.
  9. 1 2 Laws in Wales Act 1535, Clause I
  10. ↑ Laws in Wales Act 1542
  11. ↑ Laws in Wales Act 1535 (repealed 21.12.1993) Archived January 2, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ Laws in Wales Act 1542 (repealed)
  13. ↑ e. g. "... to be raised in that Part of the united Kingdom now called England", "...that Part of the united Kingdom now called Scotland, shall be charged by the same Act..." Article IX
  14. ↑ e. g. "That, from the first Day of January one thousand eight hundred and one, all Prohibitions and Bounties on the Export of Articles, the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of either Country, to the other, shall cease and determine; and that the said Articles shall thenceforth be exported from one Country to the other, without Duty or Bounty on such Export"; Union with Ireland Act 1800, Article Sixth.
  15. ↑ "About Parliament > Art in Parliament > Online Exhibitions > The Palace of Westminster > National Patron Saints > St David and Wales". Official website. UK Parliament. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  16. ↑ "Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union of 26 May 2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS)". The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Retrieved 2010-12-22.
  17. ↑ "RUK exports". Scottish Government. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
  18. ↑ "Response to Scottish Government proposals for RUK fees" (PDF). Edinburgh University Students' Association. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
  19. ↑ Park 2005, p. 153.
  20. ↑ Langlands, Rebecca (1999). "Britishness or Englishness? The Historical Problem of National Identity in Britain". Nations and Nationalism. 5: 53–69. doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.1999.00053.x.
  21. ↑ Bradley, Ian C. (2007). Believing in Britain: The Spiritual Identity of 'Britishness'. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-326-1.
  22. ↑ Frith, Maxine (2004-01-08). "Ethnic minorities feel strong sense of identity with Britain, report reveals". The Independent. London: independent.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
  23. ↑ Commission for Racial Equality 2005, p. 35
  24. 1 2 3 Commission for Racial Equality 2005, p. 22
  25. ↑ Ward 2004, pp. 2–3.
  26. ↑ Kumar, Krishan (2003). "The Making of English National Identity" (PDF). assets. cambridge.org. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  27. ↑ "The English: Europe's lost tribe". BBC News. news.bbc.co.uk. 1999-01-14. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  28. ↑ "Devolution, Public Attitudes and National Identity" (PDF). www. devolution.ac.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-12-01. "The rise of the Little Englanders". London: The Guardian, John Carvel, social affairs editor. 28 November 2000. Retrieved 30 April 2010.
  29. ↑ "Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey home page". University of Ulster and Queen's University Belfast. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
  30. ↑ "Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2014, national identity module". University of Ulster and Queen's University Belfast. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
  31. 1 2 "Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2014, Political Attitudes module". University of Ulster and Queen's University Belfast. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
  32. ↑ "Devolution and Britishness". Devolution and Constitutional Change. UK's Economic and Social Research Council.
  33. ↑ http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/scotland-independence-vote/scotland-rejects-independence-record-breaking-referendum-n206876
  34. ↑ "Sport England". Sport England website. Sport England. 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  35. ↑ "Sport Northern Ireland". Sport Northern Ireland website. Sport Northern Ireland. 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  36. ↑ "Sportscotland". Sportscotland website. Sportscotland. 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  37. ↑ "Sport Wales". Sport Wales website. Sport Wales. 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  38. 1 2 World and Its Peoples, Terrytown (NY): Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2010, p. 111, In most sports, except soccer, Northern Ireland participates with the Republic of Ireland in a combined All-Ireland team.
  39. ↑ "Irish and GB in Olympic Row". BBC Sport. 27 January 2004. Retrieved 29 March 2010.

Sources

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