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Flag of the United Kingdom	Coat of Arms for the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, a total area of 94,354 square miles (244,376 km²). Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The country had an estimated population of 67.6 million people in 2022. The capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom is London, whose wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. The cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively.

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

The UK became the first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the "Pax Britannica" between 1815 and 1914. At its height in the 1920s, the British Empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and the Second World War damaged Britain's economic power and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. (Full article...)

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The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of London from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall. It threatened, but did not quite reach, the aristocratic district of Westminster and Charles II's Palace of Whitehall and left the suburban slums surrounding the City largely untouched. It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral, and nearly all the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated that it made homeless 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants. The death toll from the fire is unknown and has traditionally been thought to have been small, as only a few verified deaths are recorded. (Full article...)

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William Speirs Bruce (1867–1921) was a London-born Scottish naturalist, polar scientist and oceanographer who organized and led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea. Among other achievements the expedition established the first permanent weather station below the Antarctic Circle. Bruce later founded the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, but his plans for a transcontinental Antarctic march via the South Pole were stillborn through lack of public and financial support. In 1892 Bruce abandoned his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh and joined the Dundee Whaling Expedition to Antarctica as a scientific assistant. This was followed by Arctic voyages to Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land. In 1899 Bruce, by then Britain's most experienced polar scientist, applied for a post on Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition, but delays over this appointment and clashes with Royal Geographical Society president Sir Clements Markham led him instead to organize his own expedition, and earned him the permanent enmity of the British geographical establishment. Between 1907 and 1920 Bruce made many journeys to the Arctic regions, both for scientific and for commercial purposes. (Full article...)

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

Image 1William Shakespeare has had a significant impact on British theatre and drama. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 2Mo Farah is the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history, winning the 5000 m and 10,000 m events at two Olympic Games. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 3Concorde (and the Red Arrows with their trail of red, white and blue smoke) mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee. With its slender delta wings Concorde won the public vote for best British design. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 4Old Bushmills Distillery, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1608, it is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 5Josiah Wedgwood was a leading entrepreneur in the Industrial Revolution. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 6New College, University of Edinburgh (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 7Sunday league football (a form of amateur football). Amateur matches throughout the UK often take place in public parks. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 8Westminster Abbey is an example of English Gothic architecture. Since 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned, the coronations of British monarchs have been held here. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 9Statue of a tripod from The War of the Worlds in Woking, England, the hometown of author H. G. Wells. The book is a seminal depiction of a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 10An award-winning Victoria sponge from an English village fête. Competitive baking is part of the traditional village fête, inspiring The Great British Bake Off television series. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 11The British Heart Foundation is the biggest funder of cardiovascular research in the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 12Two of the current Ravens of the Tower of London. The ravens' presence is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the tower; a superstition holds that "if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it". (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 13Hadrian's Wall was built in the 2nd century AD. It is a lasting monument from Roman Britain. It is the largest Roman artefact in existence. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 14Terraced houses are typical in inner cities and places of high population density. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 15The first colour photograph in 1861. Produced by the three-colour method suggested by James Clerk Maxwell in 1855, it is the foundation of all colour photographic processes. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 16Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 17The Royal Stewart tartan. It is also the personal tartan of Queen Elizabeth II Tartan is used in clothing, such as skirts and scarves, and has also appeared on tins of Scottish shortbread. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 18One of the UK's many stately homes, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, surrounded by an English garden. The house is one of the settings of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 19The Grenadier Guards band playing "The British Grenadiers" at Trooping the Colour. Formed in 1685 the band performs at British ceremonial events. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 20Centre Court at Wimbledon. The world's oldest tennis tournament, it has the longest sponsorship in sport with Slazenger supplying tennis balls to the event since 1902. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 21The Proms are held annually at the Royal Albert Hall during the summer. Regular performers at the Albert Hall include Eric Clapton who has played at the venue over 200 times. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 22The red telephone box and Royal Mail red post box appear throughout the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 23King Alfred the Great statue in Winchester, Hampshire. The 9th-century English king encouraged education in his kingdom, and proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 24Charles Darwin established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 25Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse, 9 miles out to sea. John Smeaton pioneered hydraulic lime in concrete which led to the development of Portland cement in England and thus modern concrete. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 26Typical 20th-century, three-bedroom semi-detached houses in England (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 27Banksy's Grin Reaper (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 28Titanic Belfast museum on the former shipyard in Belfast where the RMS Titanic was built (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 29Featherweight champion "Prince" Naseem Hamed was a major name in boxing and 1990s British pop culture. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 30The Beatles are the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed band in popular music, with estimated sales of over one billion.
Image 3110 Downing Street, official residence of the Prime Minister (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 32Physicist Stephen Hawking set forth a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. His 1988 book A Brief History of Time appeared on The Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 33Emmeline Pankhurst. Named one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century by Time, Pankhurst was a leading figure in the suffragette movement. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 34Cadbury chocolate bars (Dairy Milk back of tray), circa 1910 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 35Jack In the Green, a traditional English folk custom being celebrated in Hastings Old Town, known for its many historic buildings. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 36The Christmas Pantomime 1890. Pantomime plays a prominent role in British culture during the Christmas and New Year season. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 37The Notting Hill Carnival is Britain's biggest street festival. Led by members of the British African-Caribbean community, the annual carnival takes place in August and lasts three days. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 38Broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 39Ice dancers Torvill and Dean in 2011. Their historic gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics was watched by a British television audience of more than 24 million people. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 40Cricketer W. G. Grace, with his long beard and MCC cap, was the most famous British sportsman in the Victorian era. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 41The Old English heroic poem Beowulf is located in the British Library. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 42Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785) (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 43One of Britain's oldest indigenous breeds, the Bulldog is known as the national dog of Great Britain. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 44John Speed's Genealogies Recorded in the Sacred Scriptures (1611), bound into first King James Bible in quarto size (1612) (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 45English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Sir Alfred Hitchcock at 153 Cromwell Road, London (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 46Queen Victoria's Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, published in the Illustrated London News, 1848 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 47The wizard Merlin features as a character in many works of fiction, including the BBC series Merlin. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 48Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales prior to a Wales vs England Six Nations Championship game. The annual rugby union tournament (which includes Scotland and Ireland) takes place over six weeks from late January/early February to mid March. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 49R. White's soft drinks sold in London. Selling carbonated lemonade in 1845, by 1887 they sold strawberry soda, raspberry soda and cherryade. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 50The founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale tending to a patient in 1855. An icon of Victorian Britain, she is known as The Lady with the Lamp. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 51Animator Nick Park with his Wallace and Gromit characters (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 52Robert Burns is regarded as the national poet of Scotland.
Image 53Music hall evolved into variety shows. First performed in 1912, the Royal Variety Performance was first held at the London Palladium (pictured) in 1941. Performed in front of members of the Royal Family, it is held annually in December and broadcast on television. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 54Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano, in Dundee, Scotland. Launched in 1938, The Beano is known for its anarchic humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 55McVitie's chocolate digestive is routinely ranked the UK's favourite snack, and No. 1 biscuit to dunk in tea. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 56Highland dancing in traditional Gaelic dress with its tartan pattern (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 57The Oxford Union debate chamber. Called the "world's most prestigious debating society", the Oxford Union has hosted leaders and celebrities. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 58The British Museum is one of the most visited museums in the world. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 59The Examination and Trial of Father Christmas (1686), published after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 60Yard, foot and inch measurements at the Royal Observatory, London. The British public commonly measure distance in miles and yards, height in feet and inches, weight in stone and pounds, speed in miles per hour. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 61The Forth Railway Bridge is a cantilever bridge over the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland. It was opened in 1890, and is designated as a Category A listed building. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 62Wembley Stadium, London, home of the England football team and FA Cup finals. Wembley also hosts concerts: Adele's 28 June 2017 concert was attended by 98,000 fans, a stadium record for a music event in the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 63Engraving of the English pirate Blackbeard from the 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates. The book is the prime source for many famous pirates of the Golden Age. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 64A 21st-century detached Mock Tudor house in Scotland. Its timber framing is typical of English Tudor architecture. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 65Tea, biscuits, jam and cakes. Tea is the most popular beverage in the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 66A Watt steam engine, the steam engine that propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 67Chicken tikka masala, served atop rice. An Anglo-Indian meal, it is among the UK's most popular dishes. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 68Stonehenge, Wiltshire at sunset (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 69Scouts, Brownies, and Cubs with the local community in Tiverton, Devon on Remembrance Sunday (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 70Bodiam Castle is a 14th-century moated castle in East Sussex. Today there are thousands of castles throughout the UK. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 71William III and Mary II Presenting the Cap of Liberty to Europe, 1716, Sir James Thornhill. Enthroned in heaven with the Virtues behind them are the royals William and Mary who had taken the throne after the Glorious Revolution and signed the English Bill of Rights of 1689. William tramples on arbitrary power and hands the red cap of liberty to Europe where, unlike Britain, absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution. Below William is the French king Louis XIV. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 72Caricature of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in Vanity Fair, 30 January 1869 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 73The Battle of Trafalgar is an oil painting executed in 1822 by J. M. W. Turner (c.1775–1851). The experience of military, political and economic power from the rise of the British Empire led to a very specific drive in artistic technique, taste and sensibility in the United Kingdom. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 74Union Flag being flown on The Mall, London looking towards Buckingham Palace (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 75Naomi Campbell appeared on the era-defining January 1990 cover of British Vogue. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 76The full breakfast is among the best known British dishes, consisting of fried egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, baked beans, toast, fried tomatoes, and sometimes white or black pudding. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 77Queen Victoria in her white wedding dress with Prince Albert on their return from the marriage service at St James's Palace, London, 10 February 1840 (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 78Welsh native Roald Dahl is frequently ranked the best children's author in British polls.
Image 79King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey. A 13th-century wooden throne on which the British monarch sits when he or she is crowned at the coronation, swearing to uphold the law and the church. The monarchy is apolitical and impartial, with a largely symbolic role as head of state. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)

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Featured pictures

Image 1
Canary Wharf
Photograph credit: Tony Jin
Canary Wharf is an area of London on the Isle of Dogs. It is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central London. Along with the City of London, Canary Wharf is one of the main financial centres of the United Kingdom and the world, containing many high-rise buildings including the fourth-tallest in the UK, One Canada Square, which opened on 26 August 1991.
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Image 2
Mary of Teck
Photo credit: Bain News Service
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of King George V as well as the Empress of India. Before her accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall and Princess of Wales. By birth, she was a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, with the style Her Serene Highness. To her family, she was informally known as May, after her birth month. Queen Mary was known for setting the tone of the British Royal Family, as a model of regal formality and propriety, especially during state occasions. She was the first Queen Consort to attend the coronation of her successors. Noted for superbly bejewelling herself for formal events, Queen Mary left a collection of jewels now considered priceless.
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Image 3
Gilbert and Sullivan
Image credit: Alfred Bryan
Gilbert and Sullivan created fourteen comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, many of which are still frequently performed today. However, events around their 1889 collaboration, The Gondoliers, led to an argument and a lawsuit dividing the two. In 1891, after many failed attempts at reconciliation by the pair and their producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan's music publisher, Tom Chappell, stepped in to mediate between two of his most profitable artists, and within two weeks he had succeeded. This cartoon in The Entr'acte expresses the magazine's pleasure at the reuniting of D'Oyly Carte (left), Gilbert (centre), and Sullivan (right).
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Image 4
Bibury
Photo: Saffron Blaze
Arlington Row, a row of Cotswold stone cottages in Bibury, Gloucestershire, England. Built in 1380 as a monastic wool store, the buildings were converted into weavers' cottages in the 17th century. William Morris declared the village to be the most beautiful in England.
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Image 5
The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel
Painting: Louis Daguerre
The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel is an oil painting on canvas completed by Louis Daguerre in c. 1824. It depicts Holyrood Abbey, once the official residence of the Monarch of the United Kingdom in Edinburgh, Scotland, lit by moonlight. The painting is now held by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.
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Image 6
Loch Torridon
Photo: Stefan Krause
Loch Torridon is a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland in the Northwest Highlands. The 15 mile- (25 km-) long body of water is home to several islets and a prominent prawn and shellfish fishery.
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Image 7
Battle of the Somme
Photo credit: Lt. J. W. Brooke
A Cheshire Regiment sentry in a trench near La Boisselle during the Battle of the Somme. The battle is best remembered for its first day, 1 July 1916, on which the British Army suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead. With more than one million casualties over five months, it was one of the bloodiest battles in human history. The Allied forces attempted to break through the German lines along a 25-mile (40 km) front north and south of the River Somme.
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Image 8
Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts
Painting: John Singer Sargent
Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (1832–1914), was a British soldier who was one of the most successful commanders of the 19th century. He served in the Indian Rebellion, the Expedition to Abyssinia, and the Second Anglo-Afghan War before leading British Forces to success in the Second Boer War. He also became the last Commander-in-Chief of the Forces before the post was abolished in 1904.
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Image 9
Elizabeth I of England
Artist: Steven van der Meulen
The "Hampden" portrait of Elizabeth I of England was painted by the Flemish artist Steven van der Meulen in the mid to late 1560s. Art historian Sir Roy Strong has suggested that this is "one of a group produced in response to a crisis over the production of the royal image" as a number of old-fashioned and unflattering portraits of the queen were then in circulation. This is the earliest full-length (2 m or 7 ft tall) portrait of the young queen, and depicts her in red satin trimmed with pearls and jewels. It represents a phase in the portraiture of Elizabeth I before the emergence of allegorical images representing the iconography of the "Virgin Queen". In November 2007 it was auctioned by Sotheby's for ₤2.6 million, more than twice the maximum predicted.
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Image 10
British First World War recruitment poster
Poster: Parliamentary Recruiting Committee; restoration: Adam Cuerden
A British recruitment poster from the First World War, featuring imagery of Saint George and the Dragon. Britain in the First World War fielded more than five million troops. Enrollment was initially voluntary, and in 1914 and 1915 the British military released numerous recruitment posters to attract troops. As the war progressed there were fewer volunteers to fill the ranks, and in 1916 the Military Service Act, which provided for the conscription of single men aged 18–41, was introduced. By the end of the war the law's scope had been extended to include older and married men.
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Image 11
Gibraltar
Map credit: Eric Gaba/Jeff Dahl
A map of Gibraltar, a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory shares a border with Spain to the north. Gibraltar has historically been an important base for the British Armed Forces and is the site of a Royal Navy base.
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Image 12
City of London
Photo credit: David Iliff
The City of London skyline as viewed toward the northwest from the top floor viewing platform of London City Hall on the southern side of the River Thames. Not to be confused with the London metropolitan area, the City covers 1.12 sq mi (2.90 km²) and, along with Westminster is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew.
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Image 13
Beer Street and Gin Lane
Image credit: William Hogarth
Beer Street and Gin Lane are a pair of 1751 engravings by William Hogarth in support of the then-proposed Gin Act 1751. This Act of Parliament made the distillation of gin illegal in England. Beer Street shows a happy city drinking the "good" beverage of English beer, whereas Gin Lane claims to show what would happen if people started drinking gin, a harder liquor. People are shown as healthy, happy and hardworking in Beer Street, while in Gin Lane they are scrawny, lazy and acting carelessly, including a drunk mother accidentally sending her baby tumbling to its doom.
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Image 14
New Scotland Yard
Photo credit: ChrisO
New Scotland Yard, located at Broadway in Westminster, is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service who are responsible for policing Greater London.

The name derives from its original location on a street off Whitehall called Great Scotland Yard. The exact origins of this name are unknown, though a popular explanation is that it was the former site of the residence of the Scottish kings or their ambassadors when staying in England.
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Image 15
Kew Gardens
Photograph credit: Daniel Case
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London. Founded in 1840, its living collections include some 27,000 taxa while the herbarium houses over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. This photograph shows the Davies Alpine House, which opened in 2006. The design of the greenhouse encourages natural airflow, the automatically operated blinds prevent overheating, and the glass is of a special type that allows maximum transmission of ultraviolet light. The structure houses a collection of alpine plants that grow above the tree line in their localities of origin.
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... that Youlgreave in Derbyshire is one of only a few villages in the United Kingdom to be supplied by its own private waterworks?
... that even though Australian citizens are no longer British subjects, they can still vote in elections and stand for parliament in the United Kingdom?
... that former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said that she would swim in Loch Ness naked if the SNP won more than 50 seats at the 2019 United Kingdom general election?
... that Ruth Northway is the United Kingdom's first professor of learning disability nursing?
... that New Zealand composer Maewa Kaihau sold her rights to the song "Now is the Hour" for £10, a decade before it became a hit in the United Kingdom and United States?
... that a £142 wine fridge was smuggled into Downing Street on 11 December 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom?