United Kingdom Snapshots, introduction, tourist attractions, and photographs. Hotel reservations

The United Kingdom is located in Western Europe, between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, and northwest of France. The U.K. includes England, Scotland and the northern one-sixth of the island of Ireland with total land area about 241,590 sq km, slightly smaller than Oregon of the United States.

England lies near vital North Atlantic sea lanes; only 35 km from France and now linked by tunnel under the English Channel.

Besides the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, some of world famous vacation destinations, including Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, are U.K. Crown colonies.

The United Kingdom has 60,270,708 (2004 estimate) population, including English 81.5%, Scottish 9.6%, Irish 2.4%, Welsh 1.9%, Ulster 1.8%, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, and other 2.8%. English is the official language in the United Kingdom.

Great Britain, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing parliamentary democracy and in advancing literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-fourth of the earth's surface. Today, the U.K. is a modern and prosperous European nation.

As a leading trading power and financial center, the United Kingdom deploys an essentially capitalistic economy, one of the quartet of trillion dollar economies of Western Europe. Over the past two decades the government has greatly reduced public ownership and contained the growth of social welfare programs.

U.K. agriculture is intensive, highly mechanized, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labor force. The U.K. has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial nation. Services, particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account by far for the largest proportion of U.K. GDP while industry continues to decline in importance.

London, the capital of the United Kingdom, is a world favorite travel destination because of its world-class museums, historical attractions, great architectures, famous theaters, great shopping and fashion, excellent dining and colorful nightlife. The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace are some of the famous tourist attractions in London.