Countries of the United Kingdom

Countries of the United Kingdom
England Scotland Wales Northern Ireland
Category	Administrative division
Location	United Kingdom
Found in	Jurisdictions
Number	4
Possible status	NUTS 1 region (3) European constituency (3) 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.

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, 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. Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a "province" in the same lists. 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.

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
Scotland		Edinburgh	Scottish Parliament	Scots law	Scotland
Wales		Cardiff	National Assembly for Wales	English law, Welsh law	England and Wales
Northern Ireland	None	Belfast	Northern Ireland Assembly	Northern Ireland law, Irish land law	Northern Ireland
United Kingdom		London	UK Parliament	UK administrative law	United Kingdom

Statistics

Name	Population (2011)	Population (%)	Area (km²)	Area (%)	Pop. density (per km²; 2011)	GVA* (£; 2014)	GVA* (%; 2014)	GVA per capita* (£; 2014)
England	53,012,456	84%	130,279	54%	406.55	1,378 billion	87%	25,367
Scotland	5,313,600	8%	77,933	32%	67.22	124 billion	8%	23,102
Wales	3,063,456	5%	20,735	9%	147.43	54 billion	3%	17,573
Northern Ireland	1,810,863	3%	13,562	6%	130.81	34 billion	2%	18,682
United Kingdom	63,200,375	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

Further information: Terminology of the British Isles

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

• The Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 annexed the legal system of Wales to England to create the single entity commonly known for centuries simply as England, but later officially renamed England and Wales. Wales was described (in varying combinations) as the "country", "principality", and "dominion" of Wales. Outside of Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed.
• The Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a "part" of the United Kingdom
• The Acts of Union 1800 use "part" in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. However, they use the word "country" to describe Great Britain and Ireland respectively, when describing trade between them
• The Government of Ireland Act 1920 described Great Britain, Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland as "countries" in provisions relating to taxation.
• The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, does not use any term to describe Northern Ireland.

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:

• "England" means, "subject to any alteration of boundaries under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1972, the area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of that Act, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly." This definition applies from 1 April 1974.

• "United Kingdom" means "Great Britain and Northern Ireland." This definition applies from 12 April 1927.

• "Wales" means the combined area of 13 historic counties, including Monmouthshire, re-formulated into 8 new counties under section 20 of the Local Government Act 1972, as originally enacted, but subject to any alteration made under section 73 of that Act (consequential alteration of boundary following alteration of watercourse). In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities.

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.

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. 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 and in legislating for student funding. 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

Further information: Demography of the United Kingdom

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.

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. 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. 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."

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". 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". 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". 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", or else a response to a historical misappropriation of equating the word "English" with "British", 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". The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and fall over time.

The state-funded Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, 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.

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'.

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.

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.

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. 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. 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. Also 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 also participates with the Republic of Ireland in a joint All-Island team. England and Wales also field a joint cricket team.

The United Kingdom also participates in the Eurovision Song Contest.

See also

• Heptarchy
• History of the formation of the United Kingdom
• Constituent country
• Scottish independence
• Welsh independence
• English independence