Location: Western Europe, islands including the northern one-sixth of the  island of Ireland between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea,  northwest of France

 Geographic coordinates: 54 00 N, 2 00 W

 Map references: Europe

 Area:
 total: 244,820 sq km
 land: 241,590 sq km
 water: 3,230 sq km
 note: includes Rockall and Shetland Islands

 Land boundaries:
 total: 360 km
 border countries: Ireland 360 km

 Coastline: 12,429 km

 Maritime claims:  continental shelf: as defined in continental shelf orders or in accordance  with agreed-upon boundaries
 exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm
 territorial sea: 12 nm

 Climate: temperate; moderated by prevailing southwest winds over the  North Atlantic Current; more than one-half of the days are overcast

 Terrain: mostly rugged hills and low mountains; level to rolling plains in east and southeast

 Elevation extremes:
 lowest point: Fenland -4 m
 highest point: Ben Nevis 1,343 m

 Natural resources: coal, petroleum, natural gas, tin, limestone, iron ore,  salt, clay, chalk, gypsum, lead, silica

 Land use:
 arable land: 25%
 permanent crops: 0%
 permanent pastures: 46%
 forests and woodland: 10%
 other: 19% (1993 est.)

 Irrigated land: 1,080 sq km (1993 est.)

 Natural hazards: NA

 Environment—current issues: sulfur dioxide emissions from power  plants contribute to air pollution; some rivers polluted by agricultural  wastes and coastal waters polluted because of large-scale disposal of  sewage at sea

 Environment—international agreements:
 party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air  Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds,  Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate  Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification,
 Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life  Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution,  Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling  
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

 Geography—note: lies near vital North Atlantic sea lanes; only 35 km  from France and now linked by tunnel under the English Channel; because  of heavily indented coastline, no location is more than 125 km from tidal  waters

 Population: 58,970,119 (July 1998 est.)

 Age structure:
 0-14 years: 19% (male 5,832,086; female 5,530,679)
 15-64 years: 65% (male 19,304,762; female 19,032,024)
 65 years and over: 16% (male 3,807,710; female 5,462,858) (July 1998
 est.)

 Population growth rate: 0.25% (1998 est.)

 Birth rate: 12.01 births/1,000 population (1998 est.)

 Death rate: 10.72 deaths/1,000 population (1998 est.)

 Net migration rate: 1.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1998 est.)

 Sex ratio:
 at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
 under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
 15-64 years: 1.01 male(s)/female
 65 years and over: 0.7 male(s)/female (1998 est.)

 Infant mortality rate: 5.87 deaths/1,000 live births (1998 est.)

 Life expectancy at birth:
 total population: 77.19 years
 male: 74.57 years
 female: 79.96 years (1998 est.)

 Total fertility rate: 1.7 children born/woman (1998 est.)

 Nationality:
 noun: Briton(s), British (collective plural)
 adjective: British

 Ethnic groups: English 81.5%, Scottish 9.6%, Irish 2.4%, Welsh 1.9%,  Ulster 1.8%, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, and other 2.8%

 Religions: Anglican 27 million, Roman Catholic 9 million, Muslim 1 million, Presbyterian 800,000, Methodist 760,000, Sikh 400,000, Hindu  350,000, Jewish 300,000 (1991 est.)
 note: the UK does not include a question on religion in its census

 Languages: English, Welsh (about 26% of the population of Wales),  Scottish form of Gaelic (about 60,000 in Scotland)

 Literacy:
 definition: age 15 and over has completed five or more years of schooling

 total population: 99% (1978 est.)
 male: NA%
 female: NA%

 Country name:  conventional long form: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
 conventional short form: United Kingdom
 abbreviation: UK

 Data code: UK

 Government type: constitutional monarchy

 National capital: London

 Administrative divisions: 47 counties, 7 metropolitan counties, 26  districts, 9 regions, and 3 islands areas;
England—39 counties, 7  metropolitan counties*; Avon, Bedford, Berkshire, Buckingham,
 Cambridge, Cheshire, Cleveland, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derby, Devon,  Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucester, Greater London*,  Greater Manchester*, Hampshire, Hereford and Worcester, Hertford,  Humberside, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicester, Lincoln,  Merseyside*, Norfolk, Northampton, Northumberland, North Yorkshire,  Nottingham, Oxford, Shropshire, Somerset, South Yorkshire*, Stafford,  Suffolk, Surrey, Tyne and Wear*, Warwick, West Midlands*, West  Sussex, West Yorkshire*, Wiltshire;
Northern Ireland - 26 districts;  Antrim, Ards, Armagh, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Banbridge, Belfast,  Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Craigavon, Down,  Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Londonderry, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane;
Scotland—9 regions, 3 islands areas*; Borders,  Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Orkney*, Shetland*, Strathclyde, Tayside, Western Isles*;
Wales—8  counties; Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys,
 South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan
 
 Dependent areas: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Indian Ocean Territory,  British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar,  Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena,  South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands

 Independence: England has existed as a unified entity since the 10th  century; the union between England and Wales was enacted under the  Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284; in the Act of Union of 1707, England and  Scotland agreed to permanent union as Great Britain; the legislative union
 of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented in 1801 adopting the name  the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; the Anglo-Irish treaty of  1921 formalized a partition of Ireland; six northern Irish counties remained  part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland and the current name of  the country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,  was adopted in 1927

 National holiday: Celebration of the Birthday of the Queen (second  Saturday in June)

 Constitution: unwritten; partly statutes, partly common law and practice

 Legal system: common law tradition with early Roman and modern  continental influences; no judicial review of Acts of Parliament; accepts  compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations

 Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal

 Executive branch:
 chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952); Heir  Apparent Prince CHARLES (son of the queen, born 14 November 1948)

 head of government: Prime Minister Tony BLAIR (since 2 May 1997)
 cabinet: Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister
 elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; prime minister is the  leader of the majority party in the House of Commons and must have the  consent of the monarch

 Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament consists of :
House of Lords
 (Until reform in 1999 : 1,200 seats; four-fifths of the members were hereditary peers, (now only 90) two  archbishops, 24 other senior bishops, serving and retired Lords of Appeal  in Ordinary, other life peers, Scottish peers)
House of Commons
(659  seats; members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms)
elections: House of Lords—no elections; House of Commons—last held  1 May 1997 (next to be held by May 2002)  election results: House of Commons—percent of vote by party—Labor  44.5%, Conservative 31%, Liberal Democratic 17%, other 7.5%; seats  by party—Labor 418, Conservative 165, Liberal Democratic 46, other 30

 Judicial branch: House of Lords, several Lords of Appeal in Ordinary are appointed by the monarch for life

 Political parties and leaders: Conservative and Unionist Party [William  HAGUE]; Labor Party [Anthony (Tony) Blair]; Liberal Democrats or LD  [Jeremy (Paddy) ASHDOWN]; Scottish National Party [Alex  SALMOND]; Welsh National Party (Plaid Cymru) [Dafydd Iwan  WIGLEY]; Ulster Unionist Party (Northern Ireland) [David TRIMBLE];  Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland) [Rev. Ian PAISLEY];  Social Democratic and Labor Party or SDLP (Northern Ireland) [John  HUME]; Sinn Fein (Northern Ireland) [Gerry ADAMS]; Alliance Party
 (Northern Ireland) [Lord ALDERDICE]

 Political pressure groups and leaders: Trades Union Congress;  Confederation of British Industry; National Farmers' Union; Campaign for  Nuclear Disarmament

 International organization participation: AfDB, AG (observer), AsDB,  Australia Group, BIS, C, CCC, CDB (non-regional), CE, CERN, CP,  EAPC, EBRD, ECA (associate), ECE, ECLAC, EIB, ESA, ESCAP, EU,  FAO, G- 5, G- 7, G-10, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU,  ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat,  Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), ISO, ITU, MTCR, NATO,  NEA, NSG, OECD, OSCE, PCA, UN, UN  Security Council,  UNCTAD, UNFICYP, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIKOM, UNMIBH,  UNOMIG, UNRWA, UNU, UPU, WCL, WEU, WHO, WIPO, WMO,  WTrO, ZC

 Di Flag description: blue with the red cross of Saint George (patron saint of  England) edged in white superimposed on the diagonal red cross of Saint  Patrick (patron saint of Ireland) which is superimposed on the diagonal  white cross of Saint Andrew (patron saint of Scotland); known as the  Union Flag or Union Jack; the design and colors (especially the Blue  Ensign) have been the basis for a number of other flags including  dependencies, Commonwealth countries, and others

 Economy—overview: The UK is one of the world's great trading powers  and financial centers, and its essentially capitalistic economy ranks among  the four largest in Western Europe. Over the past two decades the  government has greatly reduced public ownership and contained the  growth of social welfare programs. Agriculture is intensive, highly  mechanized, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of  food needs with only about 1% of the labor force. The UK has large coal,  natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 12%  of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial nation. Services,  particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account by far for  the largest proportion of GDP while industry continues to decline in  importance, now employing only 18% of the work force. Exports and  manufacturing output have been the primary engines of growth.  Unemployment is gradually falling. Inflation is a moderate 3.1%. A major economic policy question for the UK in the late 1990s is the terms on
 which it participates in the financial and economic integration of Europe.

 GDP: purchasing power parity—$1.242 trillion (1997 est.)

 GDP—real growth rate: 3.5% (1997 est.)

 GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$21,200 (1997 est.)

 GDP—composition by sector:
 agriculture: 1.8%
 industry: 31.4%
 services: 66.8% (1996 est.)

 Inflation rate—consumer price index: 3.1% (1997)

 Labor force:
 total: 28.2 million (1997)
 by occupation: services 68.9%, manufacturing and construction 17.5%,  government 11.3%, energy 1.2%, agriculture 1.1% (1996)

 Unemployment rate: 5.5% (1997 est.)

 Budget:
 revenues: $416.1 billion
 expenditures: $470 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA (1996
 est.)

 Industries: production machinery including machine tools, electric power  equipment, automation equipment, railroad equipment, shipbuilding,  aircraft, motor vehicles and parts, electronics and communications  equipment, metals, chemicals, coal, petroleum, paper and paper products, food processing, textiles, clothing, and other consumer goods

 Industrial production growth rate: 2% (1997 est.)

 Electricity—capacity: 66.149 million kW (1995)

 Electricity—production: 306.62 billion kWh (1995)

 Electricity—consumption per capita: 5,546 kWh (1995)

 Agriculture—products: cereals, oilseed, potatoes, vegetables; cattle, sheep, poultry; fish

 Exports:
 total value: $268 billion (f.o.b., 1997)
 commodities: manufactured goods, machinery, fuels, chemicals, semifinished goods, transport equipment
partners: EU countries 53.2% (Germany 12.4%, France 9.9%,
 Netherlands 7.8%), US 11.4% (1996)

 Imports:
 total value: $283.5 billion (f.o.b., 1997)
 commodities: manufactured goods, machinery, semifinished goods,  foodstuffs, consumer goods
 partners: EU countries 50.2% (Germany 14.2%, France 9.0%,  Netherlands 6.5%), US 13.9% (1996)

 Debt—external: $16.2 billion (June 1992)

 Economic aid:
 donor: ODA, $2.908 billion (1993)

 Currency: 1 British pound (£) = 100 pence

 Exchange rates: British pounds (£) per US$1—0.6115 (January 1998),
 0.6106 (1997), 0.6403 (1996), 0.6335 (1995), 0.6529 (1994), 0.6658
 (1993)

 Fiscal year: 1 April—31 March

 Telephones: 29.5 million (1987 est.)

 Telephone system: technologically advanced domestic and international  system domestic: equal mix of buried cables, microwave radio relay, and  fiber-optic systems  international: 40 coaxial submarine cables; satellite earth stations—10  Intelsat (7 Atlantic Ocean and 3 Indian Ocean), 1 Inmarsat (Atlantic  Ocean region), and 1 Eutelsat; at least 8 large international switching centers

 Radio broadcast stations: AM 225, FM 525 (mostly repeaters),
 shortwave 0

 Radios: 70 million

 Television broadcast stations: 207 (repeaters 3,210)

 Televisions: 20 million

 Railways:
 total: 16,878 km
 broad gauge: 342 km 1.600-m gauge (190 km double track); note—all  1.600-m gauge track, of which 342 km is in common carrier use, is in  Northern Ireland
 standard gauge: 16,536 km 1.435-m gauge (4,928 km electrified;  12,591 km double or multiple track) (1996)

 Highways:
 total: 372,000 km
 paved: 372,000 km (including 3,270 km of expressways)
 unpaved: 0 km (1996 est.)

 Waterways: 3,200 km under British Waterways Board

 Pipelines: crude oil (almost all insignificant) 933 km; petroleum products
 2,993 km; natural gas 12,800 km

 Ports and harbors: Aberdeen, Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Dover, Falmouth,  Felixstowe, Grangemouth, Hull, Leith, Liverpool, London, Manchester,  Peterhead, Plymouth, Scapa Flow, Sullom Voe, Tees, Tyne

 Merchant marine:
 total: 142 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 2,192,956 GRT/2,224,715 DWT
 ships by type: bulk 5, cargo 26, chemical tanker 5, combination ore/oil 1,  container 21, liquefied gas tanker 2, oil tanker 47, passenger 8,  passenger-cargo 1, roll-on/roll-off cargo 13, short-sea passenger 12,  specialized tanker 1
 note: UK owns 337 additional ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling  13,511,240 DWT that operate under the registries of Bermuda, The  Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Liberia,  Malta, Panama, Singapore, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1997  est.)

 Airports: 497 (1997 est.)

 Airports—with paved runways:
 total: 356
 over 3,047 m: 10
 2,438 to 3,047 m: 32
 1,524 to 2,437 m: 170
 914 to 1,523 m: 90
 under 914 m: 54 (1997 est.)

 Airports—with unpaved runways:
 total: 141
 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1
 914 to 1,523 m: 24
 under 914 m: 116 (1997 est.)

 Heliports: 12 (1997 est.)