About England 
London exports mainly manufactured goods and imports materials such as
petroleum, tea, wool, raw sugar, timber, butter, metals, and meat. England
exported more than 30,000 tons of beef last year, worth around
£75,000,000, with France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and
Spain being the largest importers of beef from England.
The central bank of the United Kingdom, which sets interest rates and
implements monetary policy, is the Bank of England in London. London is also
home to the London Stock Exchange, the main stock exchange in the UK and the
largest in Europe. London is one of the international leaders in finance and
the largest financial centre in Europe.
Traditional heavy and manufacturing industries have declined sharply in
England in recent decades, as they have in the United Kingdom as a whole. At
the same time, service industries have grown in importance. For example,
tourism is the sixth largest industry in the UK, contributing 76 billion pounds
to the economy. It employs 1,800,000 full-time equivalent people—6.1% of the
working population (2002 figures). The largest centre for tourism is London,
which attracts millions of international tourists every year.
As part of the United Kingdom, England's official currency is the Pound
Sterling (also known as the British pound or GBP).
VI. With 50,431,700 inhabitants, or 84%
of the UK's total, England is the most populous nation in the United Kingdom;
as well as being the most ethnically diverse. England would have the fourth
largest population in the European Union and would be the 25th largest country
by population if it were a sovereign state.
The country's population is 'ageing', with a declining percentage of the
population under age 16 and a rising one of over 65. Population continues to
rise and in every year since 1901, with the exception of 1976, there have been
more births than deaths. England is one of the most densely populated countries
in Europe, with 383 people per square kilometre (992/sq mi), making it second
only to the Netherlands.
The generally accepted view is that the ethnic background of the English
populace, before 19th- and 20th century immigration, was a mixed European one
deriving from historical waves of Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman
invasions, along with the possible survival of pre-Celtic ancestry. Genetic
studies have shown that the modern-day English gene pool contains more than 50%
Germanic Y-chromosomes.
The economic prosperity of England has also made it a destination for
economic migrants from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland. This was particularly true during the Industrial Revolution.
Since the fall of the British Empire, many denizens of former colonies have
migrated to Britain including the Indian sub-continent and the British
Caribbean. A BBC-published report of the 2001 census, by the Institute for
Public Policy Research stated that the vast majority of immigrants settled in
London and the South East of England. The largest groups of residents born in
other countries were from the Republic of Ireland, India, Pakistan, Germany,
and the Caribbean. Although Germany was high on the list, this was mainly the
result of children being born to British forces personnel stationed in that
country.
About half the population increase between 1991 and 2001 was due to
foreign-born immigration. In 2004 the number of people who became British
citizens rose to a record 140,795—a rise of 12% on the previous year. The number
had risen dramatically since 2000. The overwhelming majority of new citizens
come from Africa (32%) and Asia (40%), the largest two groups being people from
India and Pakistan. One in five babies in the UK are born to immigrant mothers,
according to official statistics released in 2007. 21.9% of all births in the
UK in 2006 were to mothers born outside the United Kingdom compared with just
12.8% in 1995.
In 2006, an estimated 591,000 migrants arrived to live in the UK for at
least a year, while 400,000 people emigrated from the UK for a year or more,
with Australia, Spain, France, New Zealand and the U.S. most popular
destinations. Largest group of arrivals were people from the Indian
subcontinent who accounted for two-thirds of net immigration, mainly fuelled by
family reunion. One in six were from Eastern European countries. They were
outnumbered by immigrants from New Commonwealth countries.
The European Union allows free movement between the member states. While
France and Germany put in place controls to curb Eastern European migration,
the UK and Ireland did not impose restrictions. Following Poland's entry into
the EU in May 2004 it is estimated that by the start of 2007 about 375,000
Poles have registered to work in the UK, although the total Polish population
in the UK is believed to be 750,000. Many Poles work in seasonal occupations
and a large number is likely to move back and forth including between Ireland
and other EU Western nations. A quarter of Eastern European migrants, often
young and well-educated, plan to stay in Britain permanently. Most of them had
originally intended to go home but have changed their minds after living there
VII. England has a vast and influential
culture that encompasses elements both old and new. The modern culture of
England is sometimes difficult to identify and separate clearly from the
culture of the wider United Kingdom, so intertwined are its composite nations.
However, the traditional and historic culture of England is more clearly
defined.
English Heritage is a governmental body with a broad remit of managing
the historic sites, artefacts and environments of England. London's British
Museum, British Library and National Gallery contain some of the finest
collections in the world.
The English have played a significant role in the development of the arts
and sciences. Many of the most important figures in the history of modern
western scientific and philosophical thought were either born in, or at one
time or other resided in, England. Major English thinkers of international
significance include scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon,
Charles Darwin and New Zealand-born Ernest Rutherford, philosophers such as
John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell and Thomas Hobbes, and
economists such as David Ricardo, and John Maynard Keynes. Karl Marx wrote most
of his important works, including Das Kapital, while in exile in Manchester,
and the team that developed the first atomic bomb began their work in England,
under the wartime codename tube alloys.
VIII.
Language
Places in the
world where English language is spoken. Countries are dark blue where English
is an official language, de facto official language, or national language.
Countries are light blue where it is an official, non-primary language or non-official
primary language.
Beowulf is one of
the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the
English language.As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by
hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of
England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially
designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of
the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages.
As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English"
emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.
Used by
aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was
displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French
language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to
the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of
Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came
back into fashion among all classes and for all official business except
certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Although,
Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence,
both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined
from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has
extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.
It is most
commonly accepted that—thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the
United States—the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca,
while English common law is also the foundation of many legal systems
throughout the English-speaking countries of the world. English language
learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language
schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.
Additional
languages
UK legislation
does not recognise any language as being official, but English is the only
language used in England for general official business. The other national
languages of the UK (Welsh, Irish, Scots and Scottish Gaelic) are confined to
their respective nations, except Welsh to some degree.
The only
non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic
language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has
been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about
2,000 people. This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for
official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government
under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County
Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is,
however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the
language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and
Welsh is still spoken by some natives around Oswestry, Shropshire, on the Welsh
border.
Most deaf people
within England speak British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to
Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout
the UK speak BSL as their first or preferred language, but does not give
statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and
most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for
deaf people. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL
interpreters.
Different
languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and
the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many
of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali,
Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and
Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain
consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to
communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large
cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the
result of specific legislative ordinances.
Other languages
have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England,
including Romany.
Despite the
relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional
accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood
elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English
(such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of
the effects of immigration.
IX. Due to immigration in the
past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as
well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of
attendance in various denominations have begun to decline[citation needed].
England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following
affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh:
0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No Faith: 22.3%.The EU Eurobarometer
poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while
40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not
believe in either.
Christianity
Christianity
reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe;
the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic
Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The
Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of
Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time
include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical
accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most
notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral
(1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce
of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of
a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the
Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the
other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an
established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church'
recognised in law).
The 16th century
break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the
Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics).
The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is
part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and
parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.
Other major
Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the
Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not
insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the
"Quakers") and the Salvation Army—both founded in England. There are
also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.
The Roman
Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century.
Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland
and more recently Poland.
The Church of
England is still the official state church.
Other religions
Throughout the
second half of the 20th century, immigration from many colonial countries,
often from South Asia and the Middle East have resulted in a considerable
growth in Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism in England. Cities and towns with large
Muslim communities include Birmingham, Blackburn, Coventry, Bolton, Bradford,
Leicester, London, Luton, Manchester, Oldham and Sheffield. Cities and towns
with large Sikh communities include London, Slough, Staines, Hounslow,
Southall, Reading, Ilford, Barking, Dagenham, Leicester, Leeds, Birmingham,
Wolverhampton and others.
The Jewish
community in England is mainly in the Greater London area, particularly the
north west suburbs such as Golders Green; although Manchester, Leeds and
Gateshead also have significant Jewish communities.
X. The ancestry of the English,
considered as an ethnic group, is mixed; it can be traced to the mostly Celtic
Romano-Britons, to the eponymous Anglo-Saxons, the Danish-Vikings that formed
the Danelaw during the time of Alfred the Great and the Normans, among others.
The 19th and 20th centuries, furthermore, brought much new immigration to
England.
Ethnicity aside,
the simplest view is that an English person is someone who was born in England
and holds British nationality, regardless of his or her racial origin. It has,
however, been a notoriously complicated, emotive and controversial identity to
delimit. Centuries of English dominance within the United Kingdom has created a
situation where to be English is, as a linguist would put it, an
"unmarked" state. The English frequently include themselves and their
neighbours in the wider term of "British", while the Scots and Welsh
tend to be more forward about referring to themselves by one of those more
specific terms. This reflects a more subtle form of English-specific patriotism
in England; St George's Day, the country's national day, is barely celebrated.
The celebrations have increased year on year over the past five years.
Modern
celebration of English identity is often found around its sports, one field in
which the British Home Nations often compete individually. The English
Association football team, rugby union team and cricket team often cause
increases in the popularity of celebrating Englishness.
The
utillized literature
1.
“Wikipedia”, the free encyclopedia.
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