Parliamentary Union of England and Scotland 1707, painting by Walter Thomas Monnington.

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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a country and sovereign state that lies to the northwest of Continental Europe with the Republic of Ireland to the west. It occupies the majority of the British Isles and its territory and population are primarily situated on the island of Great Britain and in Northern Ireland, which shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland on the island of Ireland. The United Kingdom is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, and its ancillary bodies of water, including the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The mainland is linked to France by the Channel Tunnel.

The United Kingdom is a political union made up of four constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The United Kingdom also has fourteen overseas territories, including Bermuda, Gibraltar, the Pitcairn Island group, British Indian Ocean Territory, the Falkland Islands, and British Antarctic Territory among others. The dependencies of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, formally possessions of the Crown, form a federacy with the United Kingdom collectively known as the British Islands. The constitutional monarch, Queen Elizabeth II is also the Queen and Head of State of 15 other Commonwealth Realms such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica.

Despite the dissolution of the British Empire and the decline of the UK as a superpower, it continues as one of the world's great powers and is a significant player on the world stage. A member of the G8, the United Kingdom is a highly developed country with the fifth largest economy in the world and second largest in Europe, estimated at US$2.2 trillion. It is the third most populous state in the European Union with a population of 60.2 million and is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN), where it holds permanent membership on the Security Council. The UK is a major military power and is an acknowledged nuclear power.

History

The Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the latest of several unions formed over the last 300 years. The Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England had existed as separate states with their own monarchs and political structures since the 9th century. The once independent Principality of Wales fell under the control of English monarchs from the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, becoming itself part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the independent states of England (including Wales) and Scotland, having been in personal union since 1603, agreed to a political union as the Kingdom of Great Britain.