where is great britain located on a map
Great Britain Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world.[5][note 1] In 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan.[7][8] The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, and together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands, comprise the British Isles archipelago.[9]
British Empire Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians,[98][99] around 10,000,000 square miles (26,000,000Â km2) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire.[100] Victory over Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than Russia in Central Asia.[101] Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted the role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica,[9] and a foreign policy of "splendid isolation".[102] Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many countries, such as China, Argentina and Siam, which has been described by some historians as an "Informal Empire".[103][104]
United Kingdom Prior to the creation of the UK, Wales had been conquered and annexed by the Kingdom of England. This meant that the United Kingdom created in 1707 by the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland encompassed all of Great Britain. The Kingdom of Ireland merged with this state in 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.[note 10] There are fourteen British Overseas Territories,[20] the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land mass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies.
Great Britain After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae (c.Â 1136) refers to the island as Britannia major ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"), the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, which had been settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by migrants from Britain.[23] The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the daughter of Edward IV of England, and James the son of James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee". It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland".
London Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. It was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium.[9] London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1.12-square-mile (2.9Â km2) medieval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire,[10][11][12] which today largely makes up Greater London,[13][14][note 1] a region governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.[15][note 2][16]
Gibraltar Gibraltar (/dʒɪˈbrɔːltər/ ji-BRAWL-tər, /dʒɪˈbrɒltər/ ji-BROL-tər or other permutations; Spanish pronunciation: [xiβɾalˈtaɾ]) is a British Overseas Territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula.[8][9] It has an area of 6.7 km2 (2.6 sq mi) and shares its northern border with Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region. At its foot is a densely populated city area, home to over 30,000 Gibraltarians and other nationalities.[10]