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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the parliamentary constitutional monarchy occupying the island of Great Britain, the small nearby islands (but not the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands), and the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland. Usually, it is shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK, or Britain. [5]
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, [m] is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England , Scotland , Wales , and Northern Ireland .
The Treaty of Union specified the name of the new all-island state as "Great Britain", while describing it as "One Kingdom" and "the United Kingdom". To most historians, therefore, the all-island state that existed between 1707 and 1800 is either "Great Britain" or the "Kingdom of Great Britain".
The Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a "part" of a united kingdom of Great Britain. [23] 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. [24]
The United Kingdom is a founding member of the United Nations and one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council. [1] [2]As the fifth largest provider of financial contributions to the United Nations, the UK provided 5 percent of the UN budget in 2015, [3] and 6.7 percent of the peacekeeping budget. [4]
A campaign by the lawyer Daniel O'Connell, and the death of George III, led to the concession of Catholic emancipation in 1829, allowing Roman Catholics to sit in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Catholic emancipation was not O'Connell's real goal, which was the repeal of the act of union with Great Britain.
The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the (landed) gentry.The nobility of its four constituent home nations has played a major role in shaping the history of the country, although the hereditary peerage now retain only the rights to stand for election to the House of Lords, dining rights there, position in the formal order of precedence, the right to certain titles, and the right ...
Today, the islands of Great Britain and Ireland contain two sovereign states: Ireland (alternatively described as the Republic of Ireland) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom comprises four countries of the United Kingdom. [40] All but Northern Ireland have been independent states at one point.