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England

Flag Royal Coat of Arms

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 De

Facto National anthem of England.

Capital

(and largest city)

London5130N 07W

Official languages English1

Recognised

regional languagesCornish2

Ethnic groups (2006[1][2])

90% White, 5.3% South Asian,

2.7% Black, 1.6% Mixed race,

0.7% Chinese, 0.6% Other

Demonym English

Government Constitutional monarchy

- Monarch Elizabeth II

- Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom

Gordon Brown MP

Legislature Parliament of the United

Kingdom

Unified

- by Athelstan AD 927

Area

- Total 130,395 km2

50,346 sq mi

Population

England

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

England /lnd/ is a country that is part of the United

Kingdom.[7][8][9] Its 51,092,000[6] inhabitants account for

more than 83% of the total UK population,[10] while itsmainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds

of the island of Great Britain. England is bordered by

Scotland to the north, Wales to the west and the North Sea,

Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel.

The capital is London, the largest metropolitan area in Great

Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by

many measures.[note 1]

England became a unified state in 927 AD and takes its

name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who

settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. It has had asignificant cultural and legal impact on the wider world 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 countries around the world. In

addition, England was the birth place of the Industrial

Revolution, thus being the first country in the world to

industrialise.[11] It is home to the Royal Society, which laid

the foundations of modern experimental science.[12] England

has the world's oldest parliamentary system,[13] and

consequently, other constitutional, governmental and legal

innovations that stemmed from England have been widelyadopted by other nations.

England is a predominantly lowland country, although there

are upland regions in the north (including the Lake District,

Pennines and Yorkshire Moors) and in the south and south

west (including Dartmoor, the Cotswolds, and the North and

South Downs). The population of England is concentrated in

London and the South East, as well as conurbations in the

Midlands, the North West, the North East and Yorkshire, all

of which developed as major industrial regions during the

19th century.

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.[14] In 1800, Great Britain was united with Ireland

through another Act of Union 1800 to become the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free

State was established as a separate dominion, but the Royal

and Parliamentary Titles Act in 1927 reincorporated into the

kingdom six Irish counties to officially create the currentUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Location of England (inset orange)in the United Kingdom (camel)

in the European continent (white)

land - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England

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- 2007 estimate 51,092,0003

- 2001 census 49,138,831

- Density 392/km2

1,015/sq mi

GDP (PPP) 2006 estimate

- Total $1.9 trillion[3]

- Per capita US$38,000[4]

GDP (nominal) 2006 estimate

- Total $2.2 trillion[5]

- Per capita $44,000[5]

HDI (2006) 0.940 (high)

Currency Pound sterling (GBP)

Time zone GMT (UTC0)

- Summer (DST) BST (UTC+1)

Internet TLD .uk4

Calling code 44

Patron saint St. George

English is established by de facto usage.

Cornish is officially recognised as a Regional or Minori ty language under

the European Charter for Regional o r Minority Languages.

[6]

Also .eu, as part of the European Union. ISO 3166-1 is GB, but .gb is

unused. All these top level domain names are assigned to the United

Kingdom as a whole, with no separate allocation to the countries which

comprise it.

Contents

1 Etymology and usage2 History

3 Government and politics

4 Law and criminal justice5 Geography

6 Economics7 Demography8 Culture

9 Language

10 Religion

11 Education12 Healthcare13 Transport14 People15 Nomenclature16 National symbols, insignia and anthems

17 Notes18 References19 External links

Etymology and usage

See also: Terminology of the British Isles

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.[15]

(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.) 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,[16]

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) orAngli (in Latin).[17] According to the Oxford EnglishDictionary, 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.

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."[18]

History

Early history

1

2

3

4


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Stonehenge, a Neolithic and

Bronze Age megalithicmonument in Wiltshire,thought to have been erected

c.20002500 BC.

Roman Britain in 125AD, showing native

tribes, cities, main roadsand legions deployed.

An Anglo-Saxon helmetfound at Sutton Hoo,

probably belonging toRaedwald of EastAnglia circa 625.

Bones and flint tools found in Norfolk and Suffolk show thatHomo erectus lived in

what is now England about 700,000 years ago.[19] At this time, Great Britain 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,[20] about 13,000 years

ago. The migrants arriving during this period contrast with the other of the inhabitantsof 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.

In the summer of 55 BC, Julius Caesar invaded Britain with an army of two legions. Caesar

set out from Gaul and was hampered by the weather while crossing the English Channel. He

landed in southern England and although he established a beachhead, his cavalry was unable

to land to support the infantry and a storm damaged the fleet. Faced with being cut off from

support and the Roman territory of Gaul, Caesar ordered the ships repaired and retreated.[21]

He returned the following year with a larger force and a bigger fleet designed to be able to

withstand conditions in the English Channel and to be better at landing. Although the fivelegions and 2,000 cavalry, a combined force of about 30,000 men, successfully landed the

fleet again suffered storm damage. After Caesar fought his way across the River Thames the

Britons adopted guerrilla tactics. Caesar secured a treaty with Cassivellaunus, a warlord

leading the British resistance, and some other chiefs of the local tribes before returning to

Gaul.[22] Despite the decay of the treaty in the early 1st century AD, which had stipulated

that the Trinovantes a tribe who were allied with Rome were unharmed, Rome did not get

involved in Britain until 43 AD.[23]

Boudica, queen of the Iceni, led a major uprising of the Briton tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.[24][25] David Mattingly estimates that in the period of the conquest (4383 AD), between 100,000 and 250,000 were

killed, out of a total population of some two million.

[26]

With the fall of the Roman Empire 400 years later, the Romansleft the province of Britannia, much of which later came to be known as England.

[27]

Medieval England

The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early medival 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.[28][29] 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 ofEngland. Christianity is thought to have come from three directionsfrom Rome to the south,

and Scotland and Ireland to the north and west, respectively. From about 500 AD, it is

believed England was divided into seven petty kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy:

Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex.[30] 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 England.[31] The "Great Heathen Army" of Danish

Vikings pillaged and conquered much of England in the late 9th century.[32]


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The signing of theMagna Carta in 1215. It

was one of the firststeps towards the idea of

modern democracy.

Fifteenth-century miniature

depicting the English victoryover France at the Battle of

Agincourt.

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth Imade to commemorate the

English victory over theSpanish Armada in 1588.

Originally, England 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.[33]

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 tiesand nature, however, were forever changed following the Norman Conquest in 1066.[34]

England took its first Census when the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086 for tax

purposes.[35] Over 10% of Englands population entered in the Domesday Book were

slaves.[36] More than 90% of the English population (of about two million) lived in the

countryside.[37]

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 years (Hundred Years' War) starting with Edward III;[38] 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).[39]

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 15351542. Wales shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity

originally calledEnglandand laterEngland and Wales.[31] An epidemic of catastrophic

proportions, the Black Death first reached England in the summer of 1348.[40] 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.[40] The Great Plague of London in 16651666was the last plague outbreak.[41]

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.[note 2]

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 (16421651) 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 (16491653) and personal rule by Oliver Cromwell during The Protectorate (16531659).


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The Restoration under CharlesII restored peace after the Civil

War.

A medival manuscript,showing the Parliamentof England in front of

the king c. 1300

After Cromwell's death in 1659, a brief return, lead by Cromwell's weak son, 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 Scotlandhad been drawing increasingly together since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th

century[42] 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.[42][43] 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,[44] 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.[42] The Kingdom of Ireland was joined to Great Britain

with the 1801 Act of Union to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which lasted until the Irish Free

State was established in 1922. Six Irish counties reverted to the kingdom shortly thereafter, resulting in the current

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Within the Union

After the Union, England and Wales retained their 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 it 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 finally 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.[45]

Berwick remains within the English legal system and so is regarded today as part of England (though there has been

suggestion in Scotland that Berwick should be invited to 'return to the fold').

[46]

The county of Monmouthshire has longbeen 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,

oined the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the united Kingdom of

Great Britain.[47] Prior to this, England was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of

England. However, following the establishment of devolved government for Scotland andWales in 1999, England was left as the only country within the United Kingdom still governed

in matters by the UK government and the UK parliament in London.[note 3]

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.[note 4] 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.[48]

This "question" is also exacerbated by the large numberof 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 the policy decisions he takes.

There are calls for a devolved English parliament, such as by former minister Frank Field MP, [49] and there is opinion


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The Palace of Westminster, theseat of the Parliament of the

United Kingdom.

Manchester Town Hall

The Royal Courts of Justice

poll evidence of public support for the idea.[50] Some minor English parties go further, calling for the dissolution of the

Union.[51] 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. [52] The Conservative

Party, on the other hand, are considering proposals to ban Scottish MPs from voting on English only legislation in

Westminster.[53] 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

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 majority of England's MPs had been Labour

candidates, with 284 MPs elected, with 35.4% of the popular vote in the 529 English

constituencies. The Conservative Party won more votes than any other single

partywith 35.7% of the vote in Englandachieving 194 Conservative MPs. The

Liberal Democrats were the third largest party, winning 47 MPs with 22.5% of the vote.

One candidate for Respect and one Kidderminster Hospital campaigner were the other

English MPs elected.[54]

Subdivisions and local government

The upper-tier subdivisions of England are the nine Regions of England or European Union

government office regions.[55] 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.[note 5] During the campaign, a common criticism of the

proposals was that England did not need "another tier of bureaucracy".[56]

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

The English common law legal system, developed over the centuries, is also the

foundation of many legal systems throughout the English-speaking countries of the

world.[57]

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 thefacts 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.[58]

A decision of the highest appeal court inEngland 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 between 1981 and 1995, but fell 42% overall from 1995 to 2006/7.[59] However,


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A view of Borrowdale fromGrayrigg Forest in the Lake

District.

The rolling terrain of the NorthYork Moors

The River Avon under thePulteney Bridge in Bath,

Somerset

A view of Sheffield, one ofEngland's largest cities

despite this fall in crime rates, the prison population of England and Wales almost doubled during the same period to

over 80,000, giving England and Wales the highest rate of incarceration in Western Europe at 147 inmates per 100,000

population.[60] Her Majesty's Prison Service, which reports to the Ministry of Justice, manages most of the prisons within

England and Wales.[61]

Geography

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)[62] sea gap. The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, directly links England

to mainland Europe. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.[63]

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, and the North and South Downs.

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

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.[64] The lowest temperature recorded in England

is 26.1 C (15.0 F) on 10 January 1982 at Edgmond, near Newport, in Shropshire.

Major rivers

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 townsand cities have, over the centuries, grown to form complex urban agglomerations.[65][66] For the official definition of a UK (and therefore English) city, see City status inthe United Kingdom.


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The City of London is a major business and commercialcentre, ranking alongside New York City and Tokyo as the

leading centre of global finance.[68]

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[67]

Population

(2001

Census)

Localities Major localities

1 Greater London Urban Area 8,278,251 67 Croydon, Barnet, Ealing, Bromley

2 West Midlands Urban Area 2,284,093 22 Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall

3Greater Manchester UrbanArea

2,240,230 57 Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Stockport, Oldham

4 West Yorkshire Urban Area 1,499,465 26 Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield

5 Tyneside 879,996 25Newcastle upon Tyne, North Shields, South Shields,Gateshead, Jarrow

6 Liverpool Urban Area 816,216 8 Liverpool, St Helens, Bootle, Huyton-with-Roby

7 Nottingham Urban Area 666,358 15

Nottingham, Beeston and Stapleford, Carlton, Long

Eaton

8 Sheffield Urban Area 640,720 7Sheffield, Rotherham, Chapeltown,Mosborough/Highlane

9 Bristol Urban Area 551,066 7 Bristol, Kingswood, Mangotsfield, Stoke Gifford

10Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton

461,181 10Brighton, Worthing, Hove, Littlehampton, Shoreham,Lancing

11 Portsmouth Urban Area 442,252 7 Portsmouth, Gosport, Waterlooville, Fareham

12 Leicester Urban Area 441,213 12 Leicester, Wigston, Oadby, Birstall

13 Bournemouth Urban Area 383,713 5 Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, New Milton

14Reading/Wokingham UrbanArea

369,804 5 Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, Crowthorne

15 Teesside 365,323 7Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar,Billingham

Economics

England's economy is among the largest in the world. It

follows the Anglo-Saxon economic model. England's

economy is the largest of the four economies of the UnitedKingdom, with 100 of Europe's 500 largest corporations

based in London.[69] As part of the United Kingdom,

England is a major centre of world economics. One of the

world's most highly industrialised countries, England is a

leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key

technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry

and the manufacturing side of the software industry.

London exports mainly manufactured goods and imports materials such as petroleum, tea, wool, raw sugar, timber,

butter, metals, and meat.[70] England exported more than 30,000 tons of beef last year, worth around 75,000,000, with

France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain being the largest importers of beef from England.[71]

The central bank of the United Kingdom, which sets interest rates and implements monetary policy, is the Bank of

England in London. London is also home to the London Stock Exchange, the main stock exchange in the UK and the

largest in Europe. London is one of the international leaders in finance[72] and the largest financial centre in Europe.


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Ceremonial Counties ofEngland, colour-coded to show

population. The City of Londonis not included.

Ethnic makeup of England(2005 est.)

Traditional heavy and manufacturing industries have declined sharply in England in recent decades, as they have in the

United Kingdom as a whole. At the same time, service industries have grown in importance. For example, tourism is the

sixth largest industry in the UK, contributing 76 billion pounds to the economy. It employs 1,800,000 full-time equivalent

people6.1% of the working population (2002 figures). The largest centre for tourism is London, which attracts millions

of international tourists every year.

England's official currency is the Pound Sterling (also known as theBritish poundor GBP).[73][74]

Demography

With 50,431,700 inhabitants (84% of the UK total),[10] England is the most populous

and most ethnically diverse nation in the United Kingdom. If it were a sovereign state,

England would have the fourth largest population in the European Union and would be

the 25th largest country by population in the world.

The population of England grew from 8.3 million in 1801 to 30.5 million in 1901.[67]

England's population continues to grow: with the exception of 1976, there have been

more births than deaths every year since 1901.[10] While the percentage of people over

65 increases, the percentage of people under 16 is falling, meaning the country's

population is ageing overall. With a density of 383 people per square kilometre

(992/sq mi),[75] it is the most densely populated country in Europe, having recently

overtaken the Netherlands.

The generally accepted view is that the ethnic background of the English populace,

before 19th and 20th century immigration, was a mixed European one deriving from

historical waves of Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman invasions, along

with the possible survival of pre-Celtic ancestry.[76]

The economic prosperity of England has also made it a destination for economic migrants from Scotland, Wales,

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was particularly true during the Industrial Revolution.

Since the fall of the British Empire, many denizens of former colonies have migrated to Britain including the Indian

sub-continent and the British Caribbean. A BBC-published report of the 2001 census, by the Institute for Public Policy

Research stated that the vast majority of immigrants settled in London and the South East of England. The largest groups

of residents born in other countries were from the Republic of Ireland, India, Pakistan, Germany, and the Caribbean.

Although Germany was high on the list, this was mainly the result of children being born to British forces personnel

stationed in that country.[77]

About half the population increase between 1991 and 2001 was due to foreign-born

immigration. In 2004 the number of people who became British citizens rose to a record

140,795a rise of 12% on the previous year. The number had risen dramatically since

2000. The overwhelming majority of new citizens come from Africa (32%) and Asia

(40%), the largest three groups being people from India, Pakistan and Somalia.[78] One

in five babies in the UK are born to immigrant mothers according to official statistics

released in 2007. 21.9% of births in the UK in 2006 were to mothers born outside the

United Kingdom compared with 15.3% in 2001.[79] As of 2007, 22% of primary school

children and 17.7% of children at secondary school in England were from ethnic

minority families.[80]


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Sunday roast consisting of roastbeef, roast potatoes, vegetables

and Yorkshire pudding

Isaac Newton, promulgator ofuniversal gravitation,

Newtonian mechanics andinfinitesimal calculus.

Clifton Suspension Bridge,Bristol, designed by Brunel and

completed in 1864.

Cuisine

Although highly regarded in the Middle Ages, English cuisine later became a source of

fun among Britain's French and European neighbours, being viewed until the late 20th

century as crude and unsophisticated by comparison with continental tastes. However,

with the influx of non-European immigrants (particularly those of south and east Asian

origins) from the 1950s onwards, the English diet was transformed. Indian and Chinese

cuisine in particular were absorbed into British culinary life, with restaurants and

takeaways appearing in almost every town in Britain, and 'going for an Indian'becoming a regular part of British social life. A distinct hybrid food style composed of

dishes of Asian origin, but adapted to British tastes, emerged and was subsequently

exported to other parts of the world. Many of the well-known Indian dishes in the

western world, such as Tikka Masala and Balti, are in fact dishes of this sort.[95]

Dishes forming part of the old tradition of English food include:

Apple pieBangers and mashBedfordshire clanger

Black PuddingBubble and SqueakCornish pastyCottage pieDevonshire Cream TeaFaggot and peas

Fish and chipsFull English breakfastGravy

Jellied eelsLancashire hotpotLincolnshire sausageMince piesPie and mashPloughman's lunch

Pork pieScouseShepherd's pie

Spotted DickSteak and kidney pieSunday roastToad in the holeYorkshire pudding

Engineering and innovation

As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant

inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway,a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising

public transport and modern-day engineering.

In addition, England produced numerous scientists and inventors such as Richard

Arkwright, who invented the first industrial spinning machine, while Charles Babbage

was the 19th century inventor of the first computer; Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers

invented the modern computer, and many of its associated concepts and initial

technologies. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and much of the

technologies on which it is based (HTTP, HTML). James Blundell performed the first

blood transfusion. Hubert Cecil Booth invented the vacuum cleaner, and James Dyson

invented the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner. Edwin Beard Budding invented the

lawnmower. George Cayley invented the seat belt. Christopher Cockerell invented thehovercraft, while John Dalton was a pioneer of atomic theory. Michael Faraday, best

known for his revolutionary electric motor, also came from England. Thomas Fowler

invented the thermosiphon, while Robert Hooke discovered Hooke's law of elasticity.

Turn of the 20th century inventor E. Purnell Hooley invented tarmac. Thomas

Newcomen and Thomas Savery were both inventors of the first steam engines. Perhaps

the most famous is Isaac Newton, who promulgated universal gravitation, Newtonian

mechanics and infinitesimal calculus. Other inventors include Stephen Perry, inventor

of the rubber band; Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device; George

Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers; Joseph Swan, joint inventor

and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb; Richard Trevithick,

builder of the earliest steam locomotives; Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill; FrankWhittle, inventor of the jet engine; and Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the

modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore


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The Robin Hood Memorial, byNottingham Castle.

William Shakespeare,the English poet andplaywright widely

regarded as the greatestwriter in the English

language and one of thegreatest in Western

literature.[97][98][99]

The Beatles as they arrive atJFK Airport, New York City on

7 February 1964

English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and

sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being

the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional

Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via

Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and

legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct

Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with theArthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[96]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it

would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern

Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be

considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and

stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical

characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.

Literature

The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a

wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher

Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane

Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bront, Emily Bront, Charles Dickens,

Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster,

Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S.

Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling

novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John

Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats,

John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from

1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters,

Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England

continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles;

contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis,

Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.

Music

Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by

their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, wereovershadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however,

many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry

Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of

England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of

composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph

Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most

influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led

Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest

selling in the world.

[100]

England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements suchas hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock,

shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop, grime and dubstep.

Science and philosophy


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Charles Darwin.

England's new WembleyStadium. It is the mostexpensive stadium ever

built.[103]

The WimbledonChampionships, a Grand Slam

tournament, is held inWimbledon, London every

June/July.

Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac

Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J.

Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren,

Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard

Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented

by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[101]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly

during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicalsinfluenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[102] although the

Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English

philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke,

Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard

Williams.

Sport

Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket,

rugby union and rugby league, Association football, tennis and badminton. Of these,

association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectatorsports.[104]

England contains more UEFA Elite stadia than any other country, and is home to some

of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United and

Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team

are currently ranked 6th by FIFA[105] and 4th by Elo)[106] and won the World Cup in

1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a

major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup

in 1990 and the European Championship in 1996, as well as the quarter-finals of the

World Cup in 2002 and 2006 and of the European Championships in 2004. More

recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 23 to

Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home atWembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time

since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football

championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European

Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England

sacked their manager, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a

direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[107]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing

as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and

the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have

taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the

team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the

Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs

like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced

some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years

but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20

will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sportingactivity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London

will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and


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Places in the world where English is spoken.Countries where it is the majority language are dark

blue; countries where it is an official but not majoritylanguage are light blue.

Beowulf is one of theoldest surviving epic

poems in what isidentifiable as a form of

the English language.

1948.

Language

English

As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by

hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the

language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today

(although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European

language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is

closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the

Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English"

emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman

Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under

the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-

Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower

social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture ofLatin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into

fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of

which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of

French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were

coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended

this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted thatthanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the

United Statesthe English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca. English

language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools,

tourism spending, and publishing houses.

Other languages

There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[108] but English is the

only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native

spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall,

which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by

about 2,000 people.[109] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless

supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall

County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public

bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are

over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border.[110]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf

Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[111] but does

not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government

departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives

sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters

should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of

Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority

communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese beingthe most common languages that people living in Britain consider theirfirst language. These are often used by official

bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as

needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.


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Canterbury Cathedral in Kent,the centre of the Church ofEngland and the worldwide

Anglican Communion.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of

Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly

strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English

(such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.

Religion

Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing

percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[112][113] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages :

Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%. [114]

The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 found that 38% of people in the UK believed in a god, 40% believed in "some sort

of spirit or life force" and 20% did not believe in either.[115]

Christianity

See also: Churches Together in England

Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental

Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic

Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of

Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman

Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th

century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the

Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster

(1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church

was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of

Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later

the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism.Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an

established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in

law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major

consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in

England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are

historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the

United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the

"Quakers") and the Salvation Armyboth founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially inthe London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably

boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England.

Other religions


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A Sikh gurudwara in theChapeltown area of Leeds.

Christ Church, University ofOxford.

The chapel of King's College,Cambridge University.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, immigration from many colonial

countries, often from South Asia and the Middle East have resulted in a considerable

growth in Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism in England. Cities and towns with large Muslim

communities include Birmingham, Blackburn, Coventry, Bolton, Bradford, Leicester,

London, Luton, Manchester, Oldham and Sheffield. Cities and towns with large Sikh

communities include London, Slough, Staines, Hounslow, Southall, Reading, Ilford,

Barking, Dagenham, Leicester, Leeds, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and others.

The Jewish community in England is mainly in the Greater London area, particularlythe north west suburbs such as Golders Green;[116] although Manchester, Leeds and

Gateshead also have significant Jewish communities.[117][118] England was also the

founding place for many Neopagan religions, notably Wicca.[119] Many people in England identify themselves as

Atheists or Agnostics, while many others are apathetic and do not have specific religious beliefs or disbeliefs.

Education

See also: List of universities in England

There is a long history of the promotion of education in England in schools, colleges

and universities. England is home to the oldest existing schools in the English speakingworld: The King's School, Canterbury and The King's School, Rochester, believed to be

founded in the 6th and 7th century respectively. At least eight existing schools in

England were founded in the first millennium. Sherborne School was granted a royal

charter in 1550, but may have been the site of a school since the 8th century.[120] Most

of these ancient institutions are now fee-paying schools; however, some state schools

are also very old, most notably Beverley Grammar School founded in 700. The oldest

surviving girls' school in England is Red Maids' School founded in 1634. The most

famous schools in England are now fee-paying institutions, including Winchester

College (founded 1382), Eton College (1440), St Paul's School (1509), Rugby School

(1567) and Harrow School (1572).[121]

England is also home to the two oldest universities in the English speaking world:

Oxford University (12th century) and Cambridge University (early 13th century). There

are now more than 90 universities in England.[122]

Primary and secondary education in England is administered by the Department for

Children, Schools and Families. Schools are of two main types:state schools fundedthrough taxation and free to all, andprivate schools (also known as "public" or "independent" schools) funded throughfees. Standards are monitored by regular inspections of state-funded schools by the Office for Standards in Education,

and of private schools by the Independent Schools Inspectorate.

University education is the responsibility of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. Students attending

English Universities now have to pay tuition fees towards the cost of their education, as do English students who chooseto attend a Scottish university (though Scottish students attending Scottish universities get their fees paid for them by the

Scottish Government.)

Healthcare


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Norfolk and Norwich

University Hospital. The NHSis England's publicly fundedhealthcare system.

Heathrow Terminal 5. LondonHeathrow Airport has the mostinternational passenger traffic

of any airport in the world.[126][127]

A Eurostar high speed train.

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England

responsible for provided the majority of healthcare in the country. The NHS provides

most services at no cost to the patient though there are charges associated with eye

tests, dental care, prescriptions, and many aspects of personal care.

The NHS began on 5 July 1948, putting into effect the provisions of the National Health

Service Act 1946. Private health care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for

largely by private insurance, but it is used by less than 8% of the population, and

generally as a top-up to NHS services. Recently the private sector has been increasinglyused to increase NHS capacity despite a large proportion of the public opposing such

involvement.[123]

The NHS is largely funded from general taxation (including a proportion from National Insurance payments).[124] The

UK government department responsible for the NHS is the Department of Health, headed by the Secretary of State for

Health (Health Secretary), who sits in the British Cabinet. Most of the expenditure of The Department of Health

(98.6 billion in 20089)[125] is spent on the NHS.

Transport

The government department overseeing transport is the Department for Transport.

The growth in private car ownership in the latter half of the 20th century led to major

road-building programmes. Important trunk roads built include the A1 Great North

Road from London to Newcastle and Edinburgh, and the A580 "East Lancs." road

between Liverpool and Manchester. The M6 motorway is the country's longest

motorway running from Rugby through North West England to the Scottish border.

Other major roads include the M1 motorway from London to Leeds up the east of the

country, the M25 motorway which encircles London, the M60 motorway which

encircles Manchester, the M4 motorway from London to South Wales, the M62

motorway from Liverpool to Manchester and Yorkshire, and the M5 motorway from

Birmingham to Bristol and the South West.

Most of the British National Rail network of 16,116 kilometres (10,014 mi) lies in

England. Urban rail networks are also well developed in London and other cities,

including the Manchester Metrolink and the London Underground. The London

Underground is the oldest and most extensive underground railway in the world, and as

of 2007 consists of 407 km (253 mi) of line [128] and serves 275 stations.

There are around 7,100 km (4,400 mi) of navigable waterways in England, of which

roughly half is owned by British Waterways. An estimated 165 million journeys are

made by people on Britain's waterways annually. The Thames is the major waterway in

England, with imports and exports focused at the Port of Tilbury, one of the three major

ports in the UK. Ports in the UK handled over 560 million tonnes of domestic andinternational freight in 2005.

London Heathrow Airport is England's largest airport, the largest airport by passenger

volume in Europe and one of the world's busiest airports. London Gatwick Airport is

England's second largest airport, followed by Manchester Airport. Other major airports include London Stansted Airport

in Essex, about 50 kilometres (30 mi) north of London, Luton Airport and Birmingham International Airport.

People


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Statue of Alfred theGreat in Winchester

The ancestry of the English, considered as an ethnic group, is mixed; it can be traced to the

mostly Celtic Romano-Britons,[129] to the eponymous Anglo-Saxons,[130] the Danish-

Vikings[131] that formed the Danelaw during the time of Alfred the Great and the Normans,[132][133] among others. The 19th and 20th centuries, furthermore, brought much new

immigration to England.

Ethnicity aside, the simplest view is that an English person is someone who was born or lives

in England, holds British nationality and regards themselves as English, regardless of his or

her racial origin. It has, however, been a notoriously complicated, emotive and controversialidentity to delimit. Centuries of English dominance within the United Kingdom has created a

situation where to be English is, as a linguist would put it, an "unmarked" state. Over the last

five years, celebrations of St George's Day, England's national day, have increased year on

year.[134]

Modern celebration of English identity is often found around its sports, one field in which the

British Home Nations often compete individually. The English football team, rugby union

team and cricket team often cause increases in the popularity of celebrating Englishness.

Substantial populations descended from English colonists and immigrants exist in the United States, Canada, Australia,

South Africa and New Zealand. In the 1980 U.S. Census 50 million Americans claimed English ancestry.

[135]

About 70%of Australia's population in 1999 were of Anglo-Celtic origins.[136]

Nomenclature

The country is named after the Angles, one of several Germanic tribes who settled the country in the fifth and sixth

centuries.

Most Celtic languages use names referring to the Saxons, another family of Germanic tribes that arrived at about the

same time as the Angles. For example, the Scottish Gaelic name is Sasainn, the Irish name is Sasana, and the Cornishname isPow Sows. The name for England in Welsh isLloegr, an ancient geographic term, not Saxon-related; but the

inhabitants are referred to as "Saeson". Most other European languages use names derived from the Angles - forexample, FrenchAngleterre, Spanish and PortugueseInglaterra,ngiltere in Turkish, andAnglia in Polish andRomanian ( in Greek). In German, Danish, Swedish and some other languages, the identical formEnglandis used.Many languages in other parts of the world use similar words, such asIngriis in Somali and (Ying-lun) inCantonese.

Informal names sometimes used for England include:

The slang "Blighty", from the Hindustani bila yati meaning "foreign".[137]

The ancient name "Albion", supposedly referring to the white (Latin: alba) cliffs of Dover.[138] Although it refersto the whole island of Great Britain, it is occasionally, and incorrectly, used for England. Following the Romanconquest of Britain, the term contracted to mean only the area north of Roman control and is today a relative of

Alba, the Celtic languages name for Scotland.More poetically, England has been called "this sceptred isle... this other Eden" and "this green and pleasant land",quotations from the poetry of William Shakespeare (inRichard II) and William Blake (And did those feet inancient time) respectively.

Slang terms sometimes used for the people of England include "Sassenachs" or "Sasanachs" (from the Scots Gaelic and

Irish Gaelic respectively, both originally meaning "Saxon", and originally a Scottish Highland term for Lowland Scots),

"Limeys" (in reference to the citrus fruits carried aboard English sailing vessels to prevent scurvy) and "Pom/Pommy"

(used in Australian English and New Zealand English), but these may be perceived as offensive.

National symbols, insignia and anthems


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Saint George slaying thedragon, by Paolo Uccello, c.

1470.

The flag of England is the StGeorge's Cross. The red cross

appeared as an emblem ofEngland during the MiddleAges and the Crusades and is

one of the earliest knownemblems representing England.

The two main symbols of England are the St George's Cross (the English flag), and the

Three Lions coat of arms of England. Other national symbols exist, but have varyingdegrees of official usage, such as the oak tree and the rose. England's National Day is St

George's Day (Saint George being the patron saint), which is on 23 April.[139]

St. George's Cross

The St. George's Cross is a red cross on a white background and is the flag of England.

It is believed to have been adopted for the uniform of English soldiers during the

Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries.[140] From about 1277 it became the

national flag of England.

St. George's Cross was originally the flag of Genoa and was adopted by England and

the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from

the protection of the powerful Genoese fleet. The maritime Republic of Genoa was

rising and going to become, with its rival Venice, one of the most important powers in

the world. The English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this

privilege. The cross of St George would become the official Flag of England.

A red cross acted as a symbol for many Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries. Itbecame associated with St. George and England, along with other countries and cities

(such as Georgia, Milan and the Republic of Genoa), which claimed him as their patron

saint and used his cross as a banner. It remained in national use until 1707, when the

Union Flag (also known as the Union Jack, especially at sea) which English and Scottish

ships had used at sea since 1606, was adopted for purposes to unite the whole of Great Britain under a common flag. The

flag of England no longer has much of an official role, but it is widely flown by Church of England properties and at

sporting events.

Until recently, the flag was not commonly flown in England with the British Union Flag being used instead. This was

certainly evident at the 1966 football World Cup when English fans predominantly flew the latter. However, since

devolution in the United Kingdom, the St George Cross has experienced a growth in popularity and is now thepredominant flag used in English sporting events.[141]

Three Lions

The coat of arms of England are described asgules, three lions passant guardant or armed and

langued Azure.[142] The earliest surviving record of their use was by Richard I ("Richard theLionheart") in the late 12th century.

Since union with Scotland and Northern Ireland, the arms of England are no longer used on their own;

instead they form a part of the conjoined Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. However, both

the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board use logos based on the three lions.

In recent years, it has been common to see banners of the arms flown at English football matches, in

the same way the Lion Rampant is flown in Scotland.

Royal Standard of England is based on the Royal coat of arms of England.

In 1996, Three Lions was the official song of the England football team for the 1996 European Football Championship,which were held in England.

Rose


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The Tudor rose is the national floral emblem of England, and was adopted as a national emblem

of England around the time of the Wars of the Roses.[143]

The rose is used in a variety of contexts in its use for England's representation. TheRose of

Englandis a Royal Badge, and is a Tudor, or half-red-half-white rose,[144] symbolising the end ofthe Wars of the Roses and the subsequent marriage between the House of Lancaster and the

House of York. This symbolism is reflected in the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom and

the crest of the FA. However, the rose of England is often displayed as a red rose (which also

symbolises Lancashire), such as the badge of the England national rugby union team. A white rose (which alsosymbolises Yorkshire) is also used on different occasions.

Anthem

England does not have an official designated national anthem, as the United Kingdom as a whole has "God Save the

Queen". However, the following are often considered unofficial English national anthems:

"I Vow to Thee, My Country""Land of Hope and Glory""Nimrod""Jerusalem"

"Heart of Oak"

"God Save the Queen" is usually played for English sporting events, such as football matches, against teams from outside

the UK,[145] although "Land of Hope and Glory" was used as the English anthem for the 2002 Commonwealth

Games.[146] Since 2004, "Jerusalem" has been sung before England cricket matches,[147] and "Rule Britannia"

("Britannia" being the Roman name for Great Britain, a personification of the United Kingdom) was often used in the

past for the English national football team when they played against another of the home nations. More recently,

however, "God Save the Queen" has been used by the rugby union and football teams.[145]

Notes

^ The official definition of LUZ (Larger Urban Zone) is used by the European Statistical Agency (Eurostat) when describing

conurbations and areas of high population. This definition ranks London highest, above Paris (see Larger Urban Zones (LUZ)

in the European Union); and a ranking of population within municipal boundaries also puts London on top (see Largest cities

of the European Union by population within city limits). However, research by the University of Avignon in France ranks

Paris first and London second when including the whole urban area and hinterland, that is the outlying cities as well (see

Largest urban areas of the European Union).

1.

^ "The Reformation must not be confused with the changes introduced into the Church of England during the 'Reformation

Parliament' of 152936, which were of a political rather than a religious nature, designed to unite the secular and religious

sources of authority within a single sovereign power: the Anglican Church did not until later make substantial change in

doctrine".Scruton, Roger (1996).A Dictionary of Political Thought(2 ed.). Pan Books. ISBN 978-0333647868.

2.

^ Groups such as Mebyon Kernow who proclaim a distinct national identity for Cornwall and campaign for a Cornish

assembly would dispute this claim.

3.

^ Scottish and Welsh MPs are also unable to vote on devolved issues affecting theirown constituencies.4.^ "The Government is now expected to tear up its twelve-year-old plan to create eight or nine regional assemblies in England

to mirror devolution in Scotland and Wales.""Prescott's dream in tatters as North East rejects assembly". The Times.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article503255.ece. Retrieved on 2008-02-15.

5.

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^ "Population Estimates by Ethnic Group

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^ Parkin, Powell & Matthews 2007, p. 698.3.

^ Parkin, Powell & Matthews 2007, p. 696.4.

^ ab Parkin, Powell & Matthews 2007, p. 697.5.

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^ Thomas, Mark G. et al. Evidence for a segregated

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^ "England AD 4101066 Early medieval".

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^ Gardiner, Juliet (2000). The Penguin Dictionary ofBritish History (2 ed.). Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN978-0140514735.

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^ Miller, Edward; John Hatcher (1978). MedievalEngland: Rural Society and Economic Change,1086-1348 (3 ed.). Longman. Original from the Universityof Michigan. pp. 134147. ISBN 978-0582482180.

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^ Domesday Book Slave (http://www.domesdaybook.net

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^ Warwick Beresford, Maurice; John Kenneth Sinclair

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england - wikipedia, the fr

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