There were hundreds of years of fighting between both kingdoms of Great Britain. In 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I of England died, her closest relative was King James VI of Scotland. He became king of England and Ireland as well as king of Scotland. The kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland had the same monarch ever since. James VI and I was the first to be named "King of Great Britain", and he ordered the design of the Union Jack. The Union Jack has been the British national flag ever since.
In 1707, the Parliaments of England and Scotland agreed the Treaty of Union, which joined the two countries into one country called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain" under Queen Anne with the Acts of Union 1707. This union merged Scotland and England into one kingdom. England and Scotland kept their own laws, with English law in England and Wales and Scots law in Scotland. The division between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England continued. Ireland and Great Britain continued to have the same king, but Ireland did not become part of the new kingdom in 1707.
Scotland and England had already independently had much influence over Ireland since 1200. In 1800 laws were passed in the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland to merge the two kingdoms and their two parliaments. The country was then called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". The Union Jack was changed so that the flag of Saint Patrick (a red saltire) shows Ireland to be a part of the country.
In 1922 much of Ireland became independent from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State (now called Ireland). However, six northern counties (called Northern Ireland) are part of the United Kingdom. The country was renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in 1927.
The new Parliament of Northern Ireland set up in the 1920s stopped working in the 1970s, because of The Troubles. However, devolution started again with the Northern Ireland Assembly after the Belfast Agreement (the "Good Friday Agreement") in 1998. Devolution in Scotland and Wales started the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament the same year.
The UK is north-west off the coast of mainland Europe. Around the UK are the North Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. The UK also rules, usually indirectly, a number of smaller places (mostly islands) around the world, which are known as British Overseas Territories. They were once part of the British Empire. Examples are Gibraltar (on the Iberian Peninsula next to the Strait of Gibraltar) and the Falkland Islands (in the south Atlantic Ocean).
In the British Isles, the UK is made up of four different countries: Wales, England and Scotland and Northern Ireland. The capital city of Wales is Cardiff. The capital city of England is London. The capital city of Scotland is Edinburgh and the capital city of Northern Ireland is Belfast. Other large cities in the UK are Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Southampton, Leicester, Coventry, Bradford and Nottingham.
The physical geography of the UK varies greatly. England consists of mostly lowland terrain, with upland or mountainous terrain only found north-west of the River Tees-River Exe line. The upland areas include the Lake District, the Pennines, the North York Moors, Exmoor, and Dartmoor. The lowland areas are typically traversed by ranges of low hills, frequently composed of chalk, and flat plains. Scotland is the most mountainous country in the UK and its physical geography is distinguished by the Highland Boundary Fault which goes across the Scottish mainland from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is the is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.
The weather of the United Kingdom is changeable and unpredictable. Summers are moderately warm, winters are cool to cold. Rain falls throughout the year, and more on the west than the east because of its northerly latitude and the warm water from the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream. The usually moderate prevailing winds from the Atlantic may be interrupted by Arctic air from the north-east or hot air from the Sahara.
The United Kingdom is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has met some Kyoto Protocol targets. It has signed the Paris Agreement. The British government want the UK to be carbon neutral by the year 2050.
The United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy based on a constitutional monarchy. The people of the United Kingdom vote for a members of Parliament to speak for them and to make laws for them. Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is the head of state. The government, led by the Prime Minister, governs the country and appoints cabinet ministers. Today, the Prime Minister is Boris Johnson, who is the leader of the centre-right Conservative Party.
Parliament is where laws are made. It has three parts: the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Queen. The House of Commons is the most powerful part. It is where Members of Parliament sit. The Prime Minister sits here as well, because they are a Member of Parliament.
Scotland has its own devolved Parliament with power to make laws on things like education, health and Scottish law. Northern Ireland and Wales have their own devolved legislatures which have some powers but less than the Scottish parliament. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign and it could end the devolved administrations at any time. The UK is a unitary state and not a federation of states.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the legislature, the political assembly that makes laws and decides tax. The British people are represented by members of parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. MPs are chosen in elections. The MPs in the House of Commons decide who will be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The prime minister decides who will be in the British Government (Her Majesty's Government). The government is not controlled by the king or queen, but by Parliament. In Britain, Parliament is made up of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Unlike the House of Commons, the people in the House of Lords are not elected. The people who sit in the House of Lords are called peers. Most peers are appointed by the government. There are some who are hereditary peers (who inherit their peerages from ancestors or other family members). Certain bishops in the established Church of England also attend the House of Lords. (The Church of England is the national church in England. The Church of Scotland does not have bishops, and neither Wales nor Northern Ireland have an established national church.) Together, the two houses make a bicameral legislature, in which the House of Commons has more power. In the past, the House of Lords had more power. Before the 20th century, the prime minister was often a member of the House of Lords. As the House of Lords lost its powers, as political reforms tried to improve democracy, the House of Commons became more powerful and the prime minister started always to be a member of the House of Commons.
After the English Civil War during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the monarchy ended for a time. The British Isles were a republic, which Cromwell named the "Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland". Although the monarchy was restored after his death, the Crown slowly became the secondary power, and Parliament the first. Until the early twentieth century, only men who owned property could vote to choose MPs. In the nineteenth century, more people were given suffrage. In 1928, all men and women got the vote: this is called universal suffrage.