England
England is the largest and most populous country of the United Kingdom, occupying most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. It shares land borders with fellow UK countries Scotland, to the north, and Wales, to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the sea. England is named after the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes originating in Angeln in Northern Germany, who settled there in the 5th and 6th centuries. It has not had a distinct political identity since 1707, when Great Britain was established as a unified political entity; however, it has a legal identity separate from those of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as part of the entity "England and Wales." England's largest city, London, is also the capital of the United Kingdom.

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 Britain, divided from France only by a 21-mile (34-km) sea gap.

Most of England consists of rolling hills, but it is more mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the Pennines, dividing east and west. The dividing line between terrain types is usually indicated by the Tees-Exe line. There is also an area of flat, low-lying marshland in the east, much of which has been drained for agricultural use.

The list of England's largest cities is much debated because in British English the normal meaning of city is "a continuously built-up urban area"; these are hard to define and various other definitions are preferred by some people to boost the ranking of their own city. London is by far the largest English city. Manchester and Birmingham vie for second place. A number of other cities, mainly in the north of England, are of substantial size and influence. These include: Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Bradford and Leicester. Using the standard U.S. city limits definition of a city the top six are: Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester. Note that London is not on this list (Greater London is a region and the City of London is tiny), and that one of the two candidates for the status of England's "second city", Manchester, is down in sixth. In the UK, this method of ranking cities is generally used only by people whose own city is promoted by it.

The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, links England to the European mainland. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.

The highest temperature ever recorded in England was 38.5°C (101.3 °F) on August 10, 2003 in Kent.

Scotland
Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe and a constituent nation of the United Kingdom. It occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shares a land border to the south with England and is bounded by the North Sea on the east and the Atlantic Ocean on the west.

Previously an independent kingdom, Scotland entered into a personal union with England in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland became James I of England after the death of Elizabeth I. This union was made formal on May 1, 1707 by the Act of Union. The Scottish Parliament was abolished on March 26, 1707. The union merged both kingdoms, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, with a new single Parliament sitting in Westminster, London, but most aspects of Scotland's institutions, notably the country's legal system, remained separate. In 1801, Scotland became one of four constituent nations of the United Kingdom, along with England, Ireland (latterly Northern Ireland) and Wales.

In 1999, the people of Scotland voted to create a new parliament, established by the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998. The new devolved Scottish Parliament has been given powers to govern the country on Scotland-specific matters and has limited power over taxes.

Scotland's territorial extent is generally that established by the 1237 Treaty of York between Scotland and England and the 1266 Treaty of Perth between Scotland and Norway. Exceptions include the Isle of Man, which is now a crown dependency outside the United Kingdom, Orkney and Shetland, which are Scottish rather than Norwegian, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was defined as subject to the laws of England by the 1746 Wales and Berwick Act.

The patron saint of Scotland is Saint Andrew, and Saint Andrew's Day is celebrated in the country on November 30.

Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Ireland, where it shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, the only part of the United Kingdom with an international land border. It was created by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920.

It covers 14,139 km² (5,459 mi²) in the north-east of the island of Ireland, about a sixth of the total area of the island, and has a population of 1,685,000 (April 2001) — between a quarter and a third of the island's total population.

Northern Ireland was covered by an ice sheet for most of the last ice age and on numerous previous occasions, the legacy of which can be seen in the extensive coverage of drumlins in Counties Fermanagh, Armagh, Antrim and particularly Down. The centrepiece of Northern Ireland's geography is Lough Neagh, at 392 km² the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles. A second extensive lake system is centred on Lower and Upper Lough Erne in Fermanagh.

There are substantial uplands in the Sperrin Mountains (an extension of the Caledonian fold mountains) with extensive gold deposits, granite Mourne Mountains and basalt Antrim Plateau, as well as smaller ranges in South Armagh and along the Fermanagh–Tyrone border. None of the hills is especially high, with Slieve Donard in the dramatic Mournes reaching 848 metres, Northern Ireland's highest point. The volcanic activity which created the Antrim Plateau also formed the eerily geometric pillars of the Giant's Causeway.

The Lower and Upper River Bann, River Foyle and River Blackwater form extensive fertile lowlands, with excellent arable land also found in North and East Down, although much of the hill country is marginal and suitable largely for animal husbandry.

The valley of the River Lagan is dominated by Belfast, whose metropolitan area includes over a third of the population of Northern Ireland, with heavy urbanisation and industrialisation along the Lagan Valley and both shores of Belfast Lough.

The whole of Northern Ireland has a temperate maritime climate, rather wetter in the west than the east, although cloud cover is persistent across the region. The weather is unpredictable at all times of the year, and although the seasons are distinct, they are considerably less pronounced than in interior Europe or the eastern seaboard of North America. Average daytime maximums in Belfast are 6.5°C (43.7°F) in January and 17.5°C (63.5°F) in July. The damp climate and extensive deforestation in the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in much of the region being covered in rich green grassland.

Wales
Wales (Welsh: Cymru; pronounced IPA: /'k?m?i/, approximately "KUM-ree") is a country and one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom (along with England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). Wales is located in the south-west of Great Britain, and is bordered by England to the east, the Bristol Channel to the south, St George's Channel in the west, and the Irish Sea to the north.

The term Principality of Wales, in Welsh, Tywysogaeth Cymru, is often used, although the Prince of Wales has no role in the governance of Wales and this term is unpopular among some in Wales. The region has not been politically independent since 1282, when it was conquered by King Edward I of England. The capital of Wales since 1955 has been Cardiff, although Caernarfon is the location where the Prince of Wales is invested, and Machynlleth was the home of a parliament called by Owain Glyndwr during his revolt at the start of the fifteenth century. In 1999, the National Assembly for Wales was formed, which has limited domestic powers and cannot make law.

Parts of Wales have been heavily industrialised since the eighteenth century. Coal, copper, iron, lead, and gold have been mined in Wales, and slate has been quarried. Ironworks and tinplate works, along with the coal mines, attracted large numbers of immigrants during the nineteenth century, particularly to the valleys north of Cardiff.

Due to the hilly climate, much of Wales is unsuitable for crop-growing, and livestock farming has traditionally been the focus of agriculture.

The Welsh landscape, protected by three National Parks, and the unique Welsh culture bring in tourism, which is especially vital for rural areas.

Light engineering is still an important activity in the main population areas of the South and extreme North-East, but the economy, as elsewhere in the UK, is now focused on the service sector.