British Isles British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consists of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and over six thousand smaller isles. They have a total area of about 315,159 km and a combined population of just under 70 million, and include two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland (which covers roughly five-sixths of the island of Ireland) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The islands of Alderney, Jersey, Guernsey and Sark, and their neighbouring smaller islands, are sometimes
History of the British Isles Insular Celtic group. What languages were spoken in the islands before is unknown, though they are assumed to have been Pre-Indo-European. In 55 and 54 BC, Roman general and future dictator Gaius Julius Caesar launched two separate invasions of the British Isles, though neither resulted in a full Roman occupation of the island. From AD 40 to about AD 410, southern Britain was a part of the Roman Empire, with archaeologists referring to this area as "Roman Britain", and this time span the "Romano-British period" or the "Roman Iron Age". In and around the same time period, Ireland was being