England

ENGLAND is the largest of the four political divisions that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are the other three political divisions of the United Kingdom, which is often called Great Britain or simply Britain. England is the industrial and trading center of the United Kingdom.

England lies in the southern and eastern part of the island of Great Britain in the British Isles. It covers about three-fifths of the island. England has much charming countryside, with green pastures and neat hedges. But most of the English people live in sprawling cities. London, the capital, is England's largest city.

England has a rich history. The Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid industrialization, began there in the 1700's. English sailors, traders, explorers, and colonists helped found the British Empire--the largest empire in history. England produced William Shakespeare, who is considered the greatest dramatist of all time, and Sir Isaac Newton, one of history's most important scientists.

The English people have a long history of freedom and democracy. Their democratic ideas and practices have influenced many countries, including the United States and Canada. Most English people take great pride in their history and have deep respect for England's customs and traditions.

People

Population. England has a population of more than 53 million. About 95 percent of the people live in urban areas. About 35 percent live in the seven metropolitan areas.

Greater London is the largest metropolitan area in England and one of the largest such areas in the world. It covers 610 square miles (1,580 square kilometers) and has about 6 1/2 million people. The six metropolitan counties, with the largest city of each in parentheses, are (1) Greater Manchester (Manchester), (2) Merseyside (Liverpool), (3) South Yorkshire (Sheffield), (4) Tyne and Wear (Newcastle upon Tyne), (5) West Midlands (Birmingham), and (6) West Yorkshire (Leeds).

Until the mid-1800's, most of the English people lived in the countryside. During the Industrial Revolution, huge numbers of people moved to cities and towns to work in factories, mines, and mills. By the beginning of the 1900's, about four-fifths of the people lived in cities.

During the 1800's and early 1900's, millions of people left England to settle elsewhere. From the 1930's to the 1960's, the number of people moving to England outnumbered those leaving. Since the 1970's, however, the number leaving has been slightly larger than the number of people entering England. Most of the English emigrants have gone to the United States or to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or other countries that were once part of the British Empire.

Refugees from Europe flowed into England before and after World War II (1939-1945). Since the 1950's, a large number of immigrants have come from Pakistan and from countries in Asia and the West Indies that belong to the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is an association of countries and other political units that were once part of the British Empire. Most of the immigrants have settled in cities and towns already facing housing shortages. During the early 1960's, the British government began restricting immigration. The wives and children of immigrants already living in England make up about half of the new immigrants who are accepted each year.

Ancestry. Celtic-speaking people lived in what is now England by the mid-600's B.C. Over the next 1,700 years, the land was invaded by the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans. The Normans, the last people to invade England, came in A.D. 1066. Each group of invaders added its own traditions and speech to English civilization and helped shape the character of the English people.

Language. English is the official language of the United Kingdom. It developed mainly from the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French languages. For a discussion of the English language, including the history of its development.

Many English words have different meanings in England than they have in the United States. In England, for example, freight cars are trucks and trucks are lorries. Gasoline is called petrol. Elevators are lifts, and cookies are called biscuits.

The way English is spoken varies throughout England. For example, people in the western part of England speak with a flatter accent and pronounce the letter r more clearly than do people in other areas. In east Yorkshire, in the northern part of England, the accent is soft and rather musical. People in the East End section of London speak a harsh dialect called cockney.