United Kingdom

State

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in northwestern Europe comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with a population of over 69 million in 2024; London is its capital and largest city. It was created in 1707 when the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Acts of Union 1800 incorporated Ireland, though most of Ireland seceded in 1922 as the Irish Free State. The UK became the first industrialized country and was the world's foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and at its height in the 1920s the British Empire encompassed around a quarter of the world's landmass and population, the largest empire in history. Both world wars damaged Britain's economic power, and a global wave of decolonization followed.