United kingdom

United KingdomUnited Kingdom♣ ♣ Bollos, LeoBollos, Leo

♣ ♣ Castilla, AzilaCastilla, Azila

♣ ♣ De Leon, DanielDe Leon, Daniel

♣ ♣ Ebriega, VincentEbriega, Vincent

♣ ♣ Jacinto, AlbertJacinto, Albert

♣ ♣ Ong, JustineOng, Justine

♣ ♣ National AnthemNational Anthem• “God Save The Queen” is an anthem used in a number of Commonwealth realms. It is the national anthem of the United Kingdom and its territories and dependencies, Norfolk Island, one of the two national anthems of the Cayman Islands and New Zealand (since 1977) and the royal anthem of Canada (since 1980), Australia (since 1984), Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Jamaica, and Tuvalu.

• In the UK, the sovereign and his or her consort are saluted with the entire anthem, while other members of the royal family who are entitled to royal salute (such as the Prince of Wales) receive just the first six bars.

• The first six bars also form all or part of the Vice Regal Salute in some Commonwealth realms outside the UK (e.g., in Canada, governors general and lieutenant governors are saluted with the first six bars of "God Save the Queen", followed by the first four and last four bars of "O Canada"), as well as the salute given to governors of British overseas territories.

• The words of the song, like its title, are adapted to the gender of monarch, with "King" replacing "Queen", "he" replacing "she", and so forth, when a king reigns. In the UK, the last line of the third verse is also changed.

• Like many aspects of British constitutional life, its official status derives from custom and use, not from Royal Proclamation or Act of Parliament. In general only one or two verses are sung, but on rare occasions three.

• The variation in the United Kingdom of the lyrics to "God Save the Queen" is the oldest amongst those currently used, and forms the basis on which all other versions used throughout the Commonwealth are formed; though, again, the words have varied throughout the years.

God Save the Queen (standard version)

God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen,

God save the Queen: Send her victorious, Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us: God save the Queen.

O Lord, our God, arise, Scatter her enemies, And make them fall.

Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix,

God save us all. Thy choicest gifts in store, On her be pleased to pour;

Long may she reign: May she defend our laws, And ever give us cause

To sing with heart and voice God save the Queen

*** When the monarch of the time is male, "Queen", and all female pronouns are replaced with "King" and male pronouns. In addition, the lyrics of the 3rd verse are modified slightly to read, "With heart and voice to sing, God save the King".

♣ ♣ TerritoryTerritory• The United Kingdom comprises Great Britain, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland is twice the size of New York State.

• England, in the southeast part of the British Isles, is separated from Scotland on the north by the granite Cheviot Hills; from them the Pennine chain of uplands extends south through the center of England, reaching its highest point in the Lake District in the northwest.

• To the west along the border of Wales—a land of steep hills and valleys—are the Cambrian Mountains, while the Cotswolds, a range of hills in Gloucestershire, extend into the surrounding shires.

♣ ♣ TerritoryTerritory

Great Britain Northern Ireland

Scotland Wales

♣ ♣ TerritoryTerritory• Important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Thames, Humber, Tees, and Tyne. In the west are the Severn and Wye, which empty into the Bristol Channel and are navigable, as are the Mersey and Ribble.

Land area: 93,278 sq mi (241,590 sq km)

Total area: 94,526 sq mi (244,820 sq km)

♣ ♣ PeoplePeople• The Population of United Kingdom, according to the 2001 census, is 58,789,194, making it the eighteenth largest population in the world and the third largest in the European Union. The population of the United Kingdom exceeded 60 million as of 2004.

• 84% of the population of the United Kingdom lived in England. England’s population sometime mid-2007 was over 51.1 million. Meanwhile, as of mid-2007, Northern Ireland had 1.8 million, Scotland had 5.1 million, and Wales had 3.0 million.

• The predominant spoken language of the UK is English. Other languages include Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

♣ ♣ PeoplePeople• Religions of the UK are Church of England (Anglican), Roman Catholic, Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), and Muslim.

• The English people are very reserved when it came to manners (politeness is heavily expected), speech, self-discipline, and the manner of clothing (how you dress). The English are also known to use terms of endearment (ex: sir, madam, etc.)

• The United Kingdom has a very high literacy rate of 99%. Education is mandatory from ages 5 to 16.

• 92.1% of the population identify themselves as white (mostly of British Isles descent), while the rest of the population consist of 9.0% South Asian, 2.0% Black, 1.2% mixed race, 0.4% Chinese, and 0.4% of others.

♣ ♣ PeoplePeople

• Historically, indigenous British people were thought to be descended from the varied ethnic stocks that settled there before the 11th century; the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and the Normans.

• However, recent genetic analysis indicates that "about 75 per cent of the traceable ancestors of the modern British population had arrived in the British isles by about 6,200 years ago, at the start of the British Neolithic or Stone Age", and that the British broadly share a common ancestry with the Basque people.

♣ ♣ PeoplePeople• As of 2001, 92.1% of the population identified themselves as White, leaving 7.9% of the UK population identifying themselves as mixed race or ethnic minority.

ETHNIC GROUPETHNIC GROUP POPULATIONPOPULATION % OF % OF TOTALTOTAL

WhiteWhite 54,153,89854,153,898 92.1%92.1%

BlackBlack 1,148,7381,148,738 2.0%2.0%

Mixed RaceMixed Race 677,117677,117 1.2%1.2%

IndianIndian 1,053,4111,053,411 1.8%1.8%

PakistaniPakistani 747,285747,285 1.3%1.3%

BangladeshiBangladeshi 283,063283,063 0.5%0.5%

Other South AsianOther South Asian 247,644247,644 0.4%0.4%

ChineseChinese 247,403247,403 0.4%0.4%

Other (Other (inc. East Asian, Arab, Oceanic, Latin American)inc. East Asian, Arab, Oceanic, Latin American) 230,615230,615 0.4%0.4%

* Percentage of total UK population* Percentage of total UK population

♣ ♣ Government & Government & SovereigntySovereignty

• The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy: Queen Elizabeth II is head of state of the UK as well as of fifteen other Commonwealth countries, putting the UK in a personal union with those other states.

*constitutional monarchy: A constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state.

• The Parliament of the United Kingdom that meets in the Palace of Westminster has two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed House of Lords, and any Bill passed requires Royal Assent to become law.

*A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch are drawn from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined.

♣ ♣ Government & Government & SovereigntySovereignty• The House of Lords includes two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual (the senior bishops of the Church of England) and the Lords Temporal (members of the Peerage) whose members are not elected by the population at large, but are appointed by the Sovereign on advice of the Prime Minister.


• The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber with elections to it held at least every 5 years.

• The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster (commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament"), in the City of Westminster in London. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or, less often, the House of Lords, and are thereby accountable to the respective branches of the legislature


• The position of Prime Minister, the UK's head of government, belongs to the Member of Parliament who can obtain the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons, usually the current leader of the largest political party in that chamber.

• The Prime Minister and Cabinet are formally appointed by the Monarch to form Her Majesty's Government, though the Prime Minister chooses the Cabinet, and by convention The Queen respects the Prime Minister's choices.

• The monarch appoints a Prime Minister as the head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, guided by the strict convention that the Prime Minister should be the member of the House of Commons most likely to be able to form a Government with the support of that House.


• The Prime Minister then selects the other Ministers which make up the Government and act as political heads of the various Government Departments.

• In accordance with constitutional convention, all ministers within the government are either Members of Parliament or peers in the House of Lords.

• The Prime Minister is the de facto source of executive authority in the UK government, since s/he exercises executive functions that are nominally vested in the sovereign.

• While the Prime Minister is the senior Cabinet Minister, s/he is theoretically bound to make executive decisions in a collective fashion with the other Cabinet ministers.


• The head of state, theoretical and nominal source of executive, judicial and legislative power in the UK, is the British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II.

• However, sovereignty in the UK no longer rests with the monarch, since the English Bill of Rights in 1689, which established the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty. Nonetheless, the monarch is still known as the sovereign.

• Today the sovereign has an essentially ceremonial role restricted in exercise of power by convention and public opinion. However the monarch does continue to exercise three essential rights: the right to be consulted, the right to advise and the right to warn

• As a consequence of these ideals, Prime Ministers hold weekly confidential meetings with the monarch in which the sovereign holds the right to express her opinions.

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