In early December 1922, most of Ireland (twenty-six of the country's thirty-two counties) left the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. These 'Twenty-Six Counties' now became the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. Six of Ireland's north-eastern counties, all within the nine-county Province of Ulster, remained within the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland. As a Dominion, the Free State was a constitutional monarchy with the British monarch as its head of state. The monarch was officially represented in the new Free State by the Governor-General of the Irish Free State.