ENGLAND

predominant country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It occupies more than half the island of Great Britain. It is bounded on the north by Scotland; on the west by the Irish Sea, Wales, and the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the English Channel; and on the east by the North Sea. For current history and for statistics on society and economy, see Britannica Book Of The Year. predominant constituent unit of the United Kingdom, occupying more than half the island of Great Britain. It is bounded on the north by Scotland; on the west by the Irish Sea, Wales, and the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the English Channel; and on the east by the North Sea. Outside the British Isles, England is often erroneously considered synonymous with the island of Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) and even with the entire United Kingdom. Despite the political, economic, and cultural legacy that has secured the perpetuation of its name, England no longer officially exists as a governmental or political unitunlike Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which all have varying degrees of self-government in domestic affairs. It is rare for institutions to operate for England alone. Notable exceptions are the Church of England (Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, including Northern Ireland, have separate branches of the Anglican Communion) and sports associations for cricket, rugby, and football (soccer). In many ways England has seemingly been absorbed within the larger mass of Great Britain since the Act of Union of 1707. England's dominance within the United Kingdom nevertheless is unquestionable. It accounts for more than half of the nation's land area, most of its fertile valleys, and more than four-fifths of its population, including six of the seven largest metropolitan areasmaking England one of the more densely populated countries in the world. England also has a higher proportion of wealth and natural resources than the rest of the nation. One of the fundamental English characteristics is diversity within a small compass. No place in England is more than 75 miles (120 km) from the sea, and even the farthest points in the country are no more than a day's journey by road or rail from London, the national capital and England's historical capital. Greater London, with its ring of densely populated boroughs, dominates England as England dominates Great Britain. The Englishness of England is a quality generally acknowledged but difficult to define. Although most institutions are British, poets have rarely saluted Britain. Yet poets by the score have celebrated England and the English, from William Langland in the 14th century onward. Shakespeare is self-consciously English. Art historian Nikolaus Pevsner wrote of the Englishness of English art. This is not an insular character. The English of Anglo-Saxon England absorbed the Danish and Norse invaders and their Norman French conquerors. When the English went on to conquer the remainder of the British Isles and then established a worldwide empire, they did so without the dilution or dispersal of their essential character. The dominant role of the English is recognized implicitly in the numerous histories of Britain and the British Empire that are called A History of England. Area 50,351 square miles (130,410 square km). Pop. (1998 est.) 49,494,600. Additional reading Many sources deal with Great Britain or the United Kingdom rather than with England exclusively. Britain: The Official Yearbook of the United Kingdom (annual), is a useful general reference.A.E. Trueman, Geology and Scenery in England and Wales, new ed., rev. by J.B. Whittow and J.R. Hardy (1971), is a detailed and illustrated interpretation of the physical geography. Paul Coones and John Patten, The Penguin Guide to the Landscape of England and Wales (1986); and J.A. Steers, The Sea Coast, 4th ed. (1969), are also useful. Studies of rural conditions include Joe Cornish, David Noton, and Paul Wakefield, The Countryside of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (also published as Countryside: A Photographic Tour of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, 1998); Victor Bonham-Carter, The Survival of the English Countryside (1971; also published as Land and Environment: The Survival of the English Countryside, 1973); and Howard Newby, Green and Pleasant Land?: Social Change in Rural England (1979, reissued 1985).Historical geography is discussed in W.G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape, rev. ed. (1988, reprinted 1992); and R.A. Dodgshon and R.A. Butlin (eds.), An Historical Geography of England and Wales, 2nd ed. (1990). Robin H. Best and J.T. Coppock, The Changing Use of Land in Britain (1962); and Robert Arvill, Man and Environment: Crisis and the Strategy of Choice, 5th ed. (1983), discuss the geographic impact of industrialization. The development of regional economic differences is traced in Jim Lewis and Alan Townsend (eds.), The North-South Divide: Regional Change in Britain in the 1980s (1989); and Helen M. Jewell, The North-South Divide: The Origins of Northern Consciousness in England (1994).Governmental organization and politics are treated in Dennis Kavanagh, British Politics: Continuities and Change, 4th ed. (2000); Richard Rose, Politics in England: Change and Persistence, 5th ed. (1989); Ian Budge et al., The New British Politics (1998); Jeremy Paxman, Friends in High Places: Who Runs Britain? (1990); and John Mohan (ed.), The Political Geography of Contemporary Britain (1989). Among the historical accounts of England's political system are David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain: The Evolution of Electoral Choice, 2nd ed. (1974, reprinted 1983); and David Butler, The Electoral System in Britain Since 1918, 2nd ed. (1963, reprinted 1986).E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 15411871: A Reconstruction (1981, reissued 1989), provides a comprehensive historical survey of demography and social conditions. The connections between social and cultural history are examined in Raymond Williams, Culture and Society: 17801950 (1958, reprinted 1983; also published as Culture & Society: Coleridge to Orwell, 1993); Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy: Changing Patterns in English Mass Culture (1957, reissued 1966); Roy Lewis and Angus Maude, The English Middle Classes (1949, reissued 1973); Malcolm Muggeridge, The Sun Never Sets: The Story of England in the Nineteen Thirties (1940; also published as The Thirties: 19301940 in Great Britain, 1940, reprinted 1989); E.J.B. Rose, Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations (1969); and Martin J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 18501980 (1981, reissued 1995).Discussions of English national characteristics include George Orwell, The English People (1947, reprinted 1974); and Jeremy Paxman, The English: A Portrait of a People (1998, reissued 2000). Useful sources on the artsincluding architecture and city planningare Nikolaus Pevsner, The Englishness of English Art (1956, reissued 1993), and The Buildings of England, 46 vol. (195174); William Gaunt, A Concise History of English Painting (1964, reissued as English Painting: A Concise History, 1978, reprinted 1993); Alec Clifton-Taylor, The Pattern of English Building, 4th ed. (1987); Frederic J. Osborn and Arnold Whittick, New Towns: Their Origins, Achievements, and Progress, 3rd ed. (1977); and Simon Jenkins, England's Thousand Best Churches (1999). Peter Jon Kellner Administration and social conditions A specifically English role in contemporary government and politics is hard to identify in any formal sense, for these operate on a nationwide British basis. Historically, the English may be credited with the evolution of Parliament, which, in its medieval form, was related to the Anglo-Saxon practice of regular gatherings of notables; and the English may also be credited with the glory of the Revolution of 1688, which affirmed the rule of law, parliamentary control of taxation and of the army, freedom of speech, and religious toleration. Freedom of speech and opinion with proper opportunities for reasonable debate form part of the English tradition, but the development of party and parliamentary government in its modern forms took place after the Act of Union of 1707, when, in politics, the history of England became the history of Britain. Local government England has a distinct system of local government, which has evolved over the centuries. The shires, or historic counties, that developed during Anglo-Saxon times persisted as geographic, cultural, and administrative units for about a thousand years. In 1888 the Local Government Act regularized the administrative functions of the counties and redrew some of the boundaries of the historic counties to create new administrative counties, including the county of London, formed from parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent. Further local government reforms during the 1960s and '70s brought new changes to the boundaries of the administrative counties, many of which lost area to the seven new metropolitan counties, including Greater London. Each of these counties comprised several lower-level districts or boroughs. In 1986 Greater London and the metropolitan counties lost their administrative powers, which passed to their constituent boroughs. During the 1990s another round of local government reorganization brought a further reduction in the area of the administrative counties. Parts of many former administrative counties gained administrative autonomy as unitary authoritiesa new kind of administrative unit. Many, but not all, of the new unitary authorities are urban areas. Thus, the combined effect of 20th-century local government reforms was to separate most of England's major urban areas from the traditional county structure. However, for ceremonial and statistical purposes, the government created a new entity during the 1990sthe ceremonial, or geographic, county, either coterminous with a metropolitan county or encompassing one or more unitary authorities, often together with the administrative county with which they were historically associated. Greater London regained some of its administrative powers in 2000. Local governments have few legislative powers and must act within the framework of laws passed by Parliament. They do have the power to enact regulations and to levy property taxes within limits set by the central government. In addition, they are responsible for a range of community services, including environmental matters, education, highways and traffic, social services, fire fighting, sanitation, planning, housing, parks and recreation, and elections. England's internal subdivisions and administrative units include distinct historic, geographic, and administrative counties; districts; unitary authorities; metropolitan counties and boroughs; and other specialized entities.