Portal:England
The England portal
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. The country is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers roughly 62%, and over 100 smaller adjacent islands. It has land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. The population was 56,490,048 at the 2021 census. London is both the largest city and the capital.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The Kingdom of England, which included Wales after 1535, ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707 when the Acts of Union put the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year into effect; this resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland that created the Kingdom of Great Britain.
England is the origin of many well known worldwide exports, including the English language, the English legal system (which served as the basis for the common law systems of many other countries), association football, and the Church of England; its parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England is home to the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world: the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, and the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209. Both universities are ranked among the most prestigious in the world.
England's terrain chiefly consists of low hills and plains, especially in the centre and south. Upland and mountainous terrain is mostly found in the north and west, including Dartmoor, the Lake District, the Pennines, and the Shropshire Hills. The country's capital is London, the greater metropolitan of which has a population of 14.2 million as of 2021, representing the United Kingdom's largest metropolitan area. England's population of 56.3 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century. (Full article...)
Nancy Freeman-Mitford CBE (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973) was an English novelist, biographer, and journalist. The eldest of the Mitford sisters, she was regarded as one of the "bright young things" on the London social scene in the inter-war period. She wrote several novels about upper-class life in England and France, and is considered a sharp and often provocative wit. She also has a reputation as a writer of popular historical biographies.
Mitford enjoyed a privileged childhood as the eldest daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale. Educated privately, she had no training as a writer before publishing her first novel in 1931. This early effort and the three that followed it created little stir. Her two semi-autobiographical post-war novels, The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949), established her reputation. (Full article...)Selected article -
Football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association football clubs, England has more clubs involved in the code than any other country. England hosts the world's first club, Sheffield F.C.; the world's oldest professional association football club, Notts County; the oldest national governing body, the Football Association; the joint-oldest national team; the oldest national knockout competition, the FA Cup; and the oldest national league, the English Football League. Today England's top domestic league, the Premier League, is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, with five of the ten richest football clubs in the world as of 2022.
The England national football team is one of only eight teams to win the FIFA World Cup, having done so once, in 1966. A total of six English club teams have won the UEFA Champions League, formerly known as the European Cup. (Full article...)General images
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.
The National Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge. (Full article...)Did you know?
- ...that the HMS Queen (1902) was fitted with Babcock and Wilcox cylindrical boilers due to service problems with the water service boilers?
- ...that the Charter Roll is the administrative record created by the medieval office of the chancery that recorded all the charters issued by the chancery?
- ...that Canterbury in eastern Kent was abandoned at the end of the Roman period, but was resettled by the Saxons?
- ...that English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams has sold more albums in the United Kingdom than any other British solo artist in history?
In the news
- 4 May 2024 – 2024 London mayoral election
- Sadiq Khan wins re-election as mayor of London, England, with 43.8% of the vote, becoming the first London mayor to be elected to a third term. (BBC News)
- 30 April 2024 – 2024 Hainault sword attack
- A man attacks people with a sword after crashing a car into a house in Hainault, London, England, United Kingdom, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four other people, including two police officers. (BBC News) (The New York Times)
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“ | The rustics of England, especially those inhabiting the South hams (villages) of Devonshire, have great fun Wassailing the Orchards on Christmans Eve, New Year's and Twelfth Nigh (Boxing Day), when they drink toasts to the largest apple trees and sprinkle them with cyder (cider) carried by the beadle, the parish clerk, or some other such obsolete individual. The Devonshire people do this because they did it the year before. | ” |
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England • Bedfordshire • Brighton • Cheshire • Cornwall • Derbyshire • Dorset • Greater Manchester • Hampshire • Lincolnshire • London • Merseyside • Northamptonshire • North East England • Sheffield • Surrey. Warwickshire • West Midlands • Worcestershire • Yorkshire
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- Requested articles: Charterhouse Lane • Renewable energy in England • Ealing Village
- Expand: Dorothy Boyd • David Troughton
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East Midlands | London | North East | North West | South East | South West | West Midlands | Yorkshire and the Humber |
Ireland | Northern Ireland | Scotland | United Kingdom | Wales |
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