From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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England
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Motto: Dieu et mon droit (French)
"God and my right" |
| Anthem: None officially specific to England; the anthem of the United Kingdom is "God Save the Queen". See also National anthem of England. |
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Capital
(and largest city) |
London
 51°30′N 0°7′W / 51.5, -0.117 |
| Official languages |
English1 |
Ethnic groups (2006
[1][2]) |
89% White
6% South Asian
3% Black
2% Mixed race
1% Chinese
1% Other |
| Demonym |
English |
| Government |
Constitutional monarchy |
| - |
Monarch |
Queen Elizabeth II |
| - |
Prime Minister |
Gordon Brown MP |
| Legislature |
Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Unified |
| - |
by Athelstan |
AD 927 |
| Area |
| - |
Total |
130,395 km²
50,346 sq mi |
| Population |
| - |
2006 estimate |
50,762,9002 |
| - |
2001 census |
49,138,831 |
| - |
Density |
388.7/km²
976/sq mi |
| GDP (PPP) |
2006 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$1.9 trillion[citation needed] |
| - |
Per capita |
US$35,000[citation needed][3] |
| GDP (nominal) |
2006 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$2.2 trillion[citation needed] |
| - |
Per capita |
$34,200[citation needed] |
| HDI (2006) |
▲ 0.940 (high) |
| Currency |
Pound sterling (GBP) |
| Time zone |
GMT (UTC0) |
| - |
Summer (DST) |
BST (UTC+1) |
| Internet TLD |
.uk3 |
| Calling code |
+44 |
| Patron saint |
St. George |
| 1 |
English is established by de facto usage. Cornish is officially recognised as a Regional or Minority language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. |
| 2 |
National population projections (PDF) from the Office for National Statistics. |
| 3 |
Also .eu, as part of the European Union. ISO 3166-1 is GB, but .gb is unused. |
England [ˈɪŋglənd] (help·info) is a country, which is part of the United Kingdom.[4][5] Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population,[6] whilst its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west and elsewhere is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel. The capital is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.[7]
England became a unified state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. It has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world[8] being the place of origin of the English language, the Church of England and English law, which forms the basis of the common law legal systems of many countries around the world. In addition, England was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution[9] being the first country in the world to become industrialised.[10] It is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England is the world's oldest parliamentary democracy[11] and consequently many constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.
The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued as a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union, putting into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulted in political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain.[12]
Etymology and usage
- See also: British Isles (terminology)
England is named after the Angles, the largest of the Germanic tribes who settled in England in the 5th and 6th centuries, and who are believed to have originated in the peninsula of Angeln, in what is now Denmark and northern Germany.[13] (The further etymology of this tribe's name remains uncertain, although a popular theory holds that it need be sought no further than the word angle itself, and refers to a fish-hook-shaped region of Holstein.)[14]
The Angles' name has had various spellings. The earliest known reference to these people is under the Latinised version Anglii used by Tacitus in chapter 40 of his Germania,[15] written around 98 AD. He gives no precise indication of their geographical position within Germania, but states that, with six other tribes, they worshipped a goddess named Nerthus, whose sanctuary was situated on "an island in the Ocean".
The early 8th century historian Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), refers to the English people as Angelfolc (in English) or Angli (in Latin).[16]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known usage of "England" referring to the southern part of the island of Great Britain was in 897, with the modern spelling first used in 1538.[17]
The word "England" is often used colloquially – and incorrectly – to refer to Great Britain or the United Kingdom as a whole. There are many instances of this usage in history, where references to England are actually intended to include Scotland and Wales as well.[18] The term is widely used; the usage is problematic and can cause offence.[citation needed]
England is officially defined as "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."[19]
History
-
Bones and flint tools found in Norfolk and Suffolk show that Homo erectus lived in what is now England about 700,000 years ago.[20] At this time, England was joined to mainland Europe by a large land bridge. The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the Thames and the Seine. This area was greatly depopulated during the period of the last major ice age, as were other regions of the British Isles. In the subsequent recolonisation, after the thawing of the ice, genetic research shows that present-day England was the last area of the British Isles to be repopulated,[21] about 13,000 years ago. The migrants arriving during this period contrast with the other of the inhabitants of the British Isles, coming across lands from the south east of Europe, whereas earlier arriving inhabitants came north along a coastal route from Iberia. These migrants would later adopt the Celtic culture that came to dominate much of western Europe.
By AD 43, the time of the main Roman invasion, Britain had already been the target of frequent invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. It was first invaded by the Roman dictator Julius Caesar in 55 BC, but it was conquered more fully by the Emperor Claudius in 43 AD. Like other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans, and their economic and cultural influence was a significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the south. With the fall of the Roman Empire 400 years later, the Romans left the Province of Brittania, much of which later came to be known as England.
Mediaeval England
The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early mediæval England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066.[22] Fragmentary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th and 6th centuries comes from the British writer Gildas (6th century) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a history of the English people begun in the 9th century), saints' lives, poetry, archaeological findings, and place-name studies. The dominant themes of the seventh to tenth centuries were the spread of Christianity and the political unification of England. Christianity is thought to have come from three directions—from Rome to the south, and Scotland and Ireland to the north and west. From about 500 AD, it is believed[citation needed] England was divided into seven petty kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms tended to coalesce by means of warfare. As early as the time of Ethelbert of Kent, one king could be recognised as Bretwalda ("Lord of Britain"). Generally speaking, the title fell in the 7th century to the kings of Northumbria; in the 8th, to those of Mercia; and in the 9th, to Egbert of Wessex, who, in 825, defeated the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendun. In the next century, his family came to rule all England.
The signing of the
Magna Carta in 1215. It was one of the first steps towards the idea of modern
democracy.
Originally, England (or "Englaland"[citation needed]) was a geographical term to describe the part of Britain occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, rather than a name of an individual nation-state. It became politically united through the expansion of the kingdom of Wessex, whose king Athelstan brought the whole of England under one ruler for the first time in 927, although unification did not become permanent until 954, when Edred defeated Eric Bloodaxe and became King of England.
In 1016, England was conquered by the Danish king Canute the Great and became the centre of government for his short-lived empire. With the accession of Edward the Confessor, heir of the native English dynasty, in 1042, England once again became a separate kingdom. Its ties and nature, however, were forever changed following the Norman Conquest in 1066.
The next few hundred years saw England as a major part of expanding and dwindling empires based in France, with the "Kings of England" using England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France for many years (Hundred Years' War) ; in fact the English crown did not relinquish its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost, in 1558, during the reign of Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not part of the UK).
Fifteenth-century miniature depicting the English victory over France at the
Battle of Agincourt.
In the 13th century Wales (the remaining Romano-Celts) was brought under the control of English monarchs through conquest. This was formalised in the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and Wales was legally annexed to the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Wales shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity originally called England and later England and Wales.
An epidemic of catastrophic proportions, the Black Death first reached England in the summer of 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between a third and two-thirds of Europe's population. England alone lost as much as 70% of its population, which passed from seven million to two million in 1400. The plague repeatedly returned to haunt England throughout the 14th to 17th centuries.[23] The Great Plague of London in 1665–1666 was the last plague outbreak.[24]
Early Modern period
During the English Reformation in the 16th century, the external authority of the Roman Catholic Church in England was abolished and replaced with Acts of Royal Supremacy and the establishment of the Church of England ("Anglican Church") under the Supreme Governance of the English monarch. This occurred during the reign of Henry VIII. The English Reformation differed from its European counterparts in that its roots were more political than theological.[25]
The English Reformation paved the way for the spread of Anglicanism in the church and other institutions.
The period known as the English Civil War (1642-1651) saw political machinations and armed conflicts between supporters of the Long Parliament (Roundheads) and of King Charles I (Royalists) in 1642 to 1645 and 1648 to 1649, followed by conflict between supporters of the Rump Parliament and of King Charles II in 1649 to 1651. The War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. It had led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son Charles II, the replacement of the English monarchy with the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and personal rule by Oliver Cromwell during The Protectorate (1653–1659).
After Cromwell's death in 1659, a brief return to Commonwealth rule was attempted before Parliament invited Charles II to return to England in 1660 and restore the monarchy. During the interregnum, the Church of England's monopoly on Christian worship in England came to an end and the Protestant Ascendancy consolidated in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British monarchs could not govern without parliamentary consent, although this would not be cemented until the Glorious Revolution later in the century.
Although embattled for centuries, the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland had been drawing increasingly together since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century[26] and in 1603, with the Scottish king James VI accession to the English crown, the two countries became linked by a personal union, being ruled by the same Stuart dynasty.[26][27] Following a number of attempts to unite the Kingdoms, a Treaty of Union was agreed on 22 July 1706 by representatives of the English and Scottish parliaments,[28]and put into effect by the Acts of Union which resulted in political union between the states with the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May 1707.[26] (Ireland joining in 1801 with all of Ireland except Northern Ireland leaving in 1922 has resulted in the current name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).
Within the Union
After the Union, England (including Wales) retained its separate legal identity since the continuance of the separate Scottish legal system was enshrined in the Articles of the Treaty of Union. Wales was already part of the Kingdom of England but the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 made explicit that laws passed for England were automatically applicable to Wales. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 also referred to the formerly Scottish burgh of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The border town changed hands several times and was last conquered by England in 1482, but was not officially incorporated into England. Contention about whether Berwick was in England or Scotland was ended by the union of the two in 1707. Berwick remains within the English legal system and so is regarded today as part of England (though there has been some suggestion in Scotland that Berwick should be invited to 'return to the fold').[29] The county of Monmouthshire has long been an ambiguous area with its legal identity passing between England and Wales at various periods. In the Local Government Act 1972 it was made part of Wales. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are Crown dependencies and are not part of England.
Government and politics
-
There has not been a Government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707, putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed the previous year, joined the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the united Kingdom of Great Britain.[30] Prior to this, England was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of England. However, following the establishment of devolved government for Scotland and Wales in 1999, England was left as the only country within the United Kingdom still governed in all matters by the UK government and the UK parliament in London.[31]
Since Westminster is the UK parliament but also legislates on matters that affect England alone, devolution of national matters to parliament/assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has refocused attention on the anomaly called the West Lothian question. The "question" is why Scottish and Welsh MPs should continue to be able to vote on legislation relating only to England while English MPs have no equivalent right to legislate on devolved matters.[32] This constitutional arrangement resulted in the Labour government only winning a 2004 vote to impose higher tuition fees on students in England due to the support of Scottish Labours MPs.[33] This "question" is also exacerbated by the large number of Scottish MPs in the government, a group sometimes disparagingly called the Scottish mafia, and by having a Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who represents a Scottish constituency that is unaffected by many of the policy decisions he takes.
There are calls for a devolved English parliament, such as by former minister Frank Field MP,[34] and there is opinion poll evidence of public support for the idea.[35] Some minor English parties go further, calling for the dissolution of the Union.[36][37] However, the approach favoured by the current Labour government was (on the basis that England is too large to be governed as a single sub-state entity) to propose the devolution of power to the Regions of England. Lord Falconer claimed a devolved English parliament would dwarf the rest of the United Kingdom.[38] The Conservative Party, on the other hand, are considering proposals to ban Scottish MPs from voting on English only legislation in Westminster.[39]
Today, therefore, England's affairs are managed by a combination of the UK government, the UK parliament and England-specific quangos such as English Heritage.
Politics of England
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A total of 529 of the current 646 MPs in the House of Commons represent English constituencies, which will rise to 533 out of 650 at the next general election.
At the 2005 General Election, the Conservative Party won more votes than any other single party, with 35.7% of the vote. However, Labour won a majority of England's MPs, having 284 MPs elected, on the basis of just 35.4% of the popular vote with the Conservative Party winning just 194 MPs. The Liberal Democrats were the third party winning 47 MPs with 22.5% of the vote, and the only other MPs elected were one for Respect and a Kidderminster Hospital campaigner. [40]
Subdivisions and local government
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The upper-tier subdivisions of England are the nine Regions of England or European Union government office regions.[41] A London referendum in 1998 on the question of having a directly elected assembly and directly elected mayor produced a large majority in favour and it was intended that other regions would also be given their own elected regional assemblies. However, a rejection by a referendum in 2004 of a proposed assembly in the North East region stopped this idea in its tracks.[42]During the campaign, a common criticism of the proposals was that England did not need "another tier of bureaucracy".[43] On the other hand, many said[citation needed] that the proposals were not decentralising enough, and amounted not to devolution but to little more than local government reorganisation with no real power or additional resources being transferred from central government to the regions as they would not even gain the limited powers of the Welsh Assembly let alone the tax-varying and legislative powers of the Scottish Parliament.
Below the regional level, London consists of 32 London boroughs and the rest of England has either county councils and district councils or unitary authorities. At the lowest level, much of England is divided into parishes though parishes are prohibited from existing in Greater London.
Law and criminal justice
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Main article: English law
The English common law legal system, developed over many centuries, is also the foundation of many legal systems throughout the English-speaking countries of the world.[44] It continued to apply in England and Wales after the Treaty of Union because the terms of the Treaty specifically guaranteed the continued existence of Scotland's separate legal system, which meant that England's system has also remained separate.
The essence of English common law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent (stare decisis) to the facts before them. The court system is headed by the Supreme Court of Judicature of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice (for civil cases) and the Crown Court (for criminal cases). The Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (usually just referred to as "The House of Lords") is presently the highest court for both criminal and civil cases in England and Wales though recent constitutional changes will see the powers of the House of Lords transfer to a new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.[45] A decision of the highest appeal court in England and Wales, the House of Lords, is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, and they will follow its directions.
Crime in England and Wales increased in the period between 1981 and 1995 though, since that peak, there has been an overall fall of 42% in crime from 1995 to 2006/7.[46]Despite the fall in crime rates, the prison population of England and Wales has almost doubled over the same period, to over 80,000, giving England and Wales the highest rate of incarceration in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000,[47]Her Majesty's Prison Service which reports to the Ministry of Justice, manages most of the prisons within England and Wales.
Geography
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England comprises the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus offshore islands of which the largest is the Isle of Wight. It is bordered to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. It is closer to continental Europe than any other part of mainland Britain, divided from France only by a 24-statute mile (52 km or 21 nautical mile)[48] sea gap. The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, directly links England to the European mainland. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.[49]
Much of England consists of rolling hills, but it is generally more mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the Pennines, dividing east and west. Other hilly areas in the north and Midlands are the Lake District, the North York Moors, and the Peak District. The approximate dividing line between terrain types is often indicated by the Tees-Exe line. To the south of that line, there are larger areas of flatter land, including East Anglia and the Fens, although hilly areas include the Cotswolds, the Chilterns, the North and South Downs, Dartmoor and Exmoor.
The largest natural harbour in England is at Poole, on the south-central coast. Some regard it as the second largest harbour in the world, after Sydney, Australia, although this fact is disputed (see harbours for a list of other large natural harbours).
Climate
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England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round, although the seasons are quite variable in temperature. However, temperatures rarely fall below −5 °C (23 °F) or rise above 30 °C (86 °F). The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. It is driest in the east and warmest in the south, which is closest to the European mainland. Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring, although it is not that common away from high ground.
The highest temperature recorded in England is 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) on 10 August 2003 at Brogdale, near Faversham, in Kent.[50] The lowest temperature recorded in England is −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F) on 10 January 1982 at Edgmond, near Newport, in Shropshire.[51]
Major rivers
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England has a number of important rivers including the Severn (the longest river and largest river basin in Great Britain), Tees, Thames, Trent, Humber, Tyne, Wear, Ribble, Ouse, Mersey, Dee, Aire, Avon and Medway.
Major conurbations
London is by far the largest urban area in England and one of the largest and busiest cities in the world. Other cities, mainly in central and northern England, are of substantial size and influence. The list of England's largest cities or urban areas is open to debate because, although the normal meaning of city is "a continuously built-up urban area", this can be hard to define, particularly because administrative areas in England often do not correspond with the limits of urban development, and many towns and cities have, over the centuries, grown to form complex urban agglomerations. Various definitions of cities can be used. For the official definition of a UK (and therefore English) city, see City status in the United Kingdom.
According to the ONS urban area populations for continuous built-up areas, these are the 15 largest conurbations (population figures from the 2001 census):
| Rank |
Urban Area[52] |
Population
(2001 Census)
|
Localities |
Major localities |
