ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in United Kingdom. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in United Kingdom. Citizens of the United Kingdom can change their government democratically. Voters are registered by government survey and include both Northern Irish and Commonwealth citizens resident in Britain. Britain was the only European state included in a list of countries shamed for sending "child-soldiers" into battle. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland encompasses the two formerly separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, the ancient principality of Wales, and the six counties of the Irish province of Ulster.
