Great Britain

Great Britain is an island^[5] situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people in mid-2008,^[3] it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000^[6] smaller islands and islets. The island of Ireland lies to its west.

Additional info

.gb

.gb is a reserved Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United Kingdom. Introduced at the same time as the UK's other top-level domain (.uk), it was never widely used. It is no longer possible to register under this domain.

.uk

.uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United Kingdom. As of July 2008, it is the fifth most popular top-level domain worldwide (after .com, .cn, .de and .net), with over 7 million registrations.^[2]

Acer platanoides

Acer platanoides (Norway Maple) is a species of maple native to eastern and central Europe and southwest Asia, from France east to Russia, north to southern Scandinavia and southeast to northern Iran.^[2] ^[3]

Acer pseudoplatanus

Acer pseudoplatanus (Sycamore or Sycamore Maple to distinguish it from other plants called sycamore) is a species of maple native to central Europe and southwestern Asia, from France east to Poland, and south in mountains to northern Spain, northern Turkey, and the Caucasus.^[2]^[3] In Scotland the Sycamore is known as the Plane tree although it is not in fact a member of the Platanus genus. It is its apparent similarity to the plane that led to it being named pseudoplatanus, using the Ancient Greek prefix pseudo (false).

Administrative geography of the United Kingdom

The administrative geography of the United Kingdom is complex, multi-layered and non-uniform. The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For local government in the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own system of administrative and geographic demarcation. Consequently, there is "no common stratum of administrative unit encompassing the United Kingdom".^[1]

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is a family of computer programs developed by Adobe Systems, designed to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF).^[1] Some software in the family, particularly the creating software, is commercial, and some is freeware. Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is available as a no-charge download from Adobe's web site, and allows the viewing and printing of PDF files.^[2] Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.

Algae

Algae (pronounced /ˈældʒiː,ˈælgiː/; singular alga /ˈælɡə/, Latin for "seaweed") are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms. The largest and most complex marine forms are called seaweeds. They are photosynthetic, like plants, and "simple" because they lack the many distinct organs found in land plants. For that reason they are currently excluded from being considered plants.^[3]

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries, at first under Athenian leadership successfully repelling the military threat of Persian invasion. The Athenian Golden Age ends with the defeat of Athens at the hands of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.

Angles

The Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The Angles were one of the main groups that settled in Britain in the post-Roman period, founding several of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, and their name is the root of the name "England".

Anglesey

The Isle of Anglesey^[1] (pronounced /ˈænɡəlsi/; Welsh: Ynys Môn, pronounced [ˈənɨs ˈmoːn]) is an island and county off the northwest coast of Wales, with a predominantly Welsh-speaking population.^[2] It is connected to the mainland by two bridges spanning the Menai Strait: the original Menai Suspension Bridge (carrying the A5), designed by Thomas Telford in 1826; and the more recently constructed Britannia Bridge (originally designed by Robert Stephenson); which carries the A55 and the North Wales Coast Railway line.

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066.^[1] The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:^[2]

Anne of Great Britain

Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714)^[1] became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702, succeeding her brother-in-law, William III of England and II of Scotland. Her Catholic father, James II and VII, was deemed by the English Parliament to have abdicated when he was forced to retreat to France during the Glorious Revolution of 1688/9; her brother-in-law and her sister then became joint monarchs as William III & II and Mary II, the only such case in British history. After Mary's death in 1694, William continued as sole monarch until his own death in 1702.

Antelope

Antelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species found in the family Bovidae. The term does not refer to a monophyletic group, as not all members of Bovidae are considered antelope. Instead, the term refers to a ‘miscellaneous’ group within the family encompassing the species which are not cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, or goats. A group of antelope is called a herd^[1]

Aristotle

Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings constitute a first at creating a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Art of the United Kingdom

Art of the United Kingdom refers to the artistic works associated with the United Kingdom and its peoples since its formation in 1707.^[1] (For details about art in the individual countries of the United Kingdom, including prior to 1707, see English art, Irish art, Scottish art, Welsh art.)

Background extinction rate

Background extinction rate, also known as ‘normal extinction rate’, refers to the standard rate of extinction in earth’s geological and biological history before humans became a primary contributor to extinctions. This is primarily the pre-human extinction rates during periods in between major extinction events.

Bank of England

The Bank of England (formally the Governor and Company of the Bank of England) is, despite its name, the central bank of the whole of the United Kingdom and is the model on which most modern, large central banks have been based. It was established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and to this day it still acts as the banker for the UK Government. The Bank was privately owned and operated from its foundation in 1694 until it was nationalized in 1946. In 1997 it became an independent public organisation, wholly-owned by Government, with independence in setting monetary policy.^[2]^[3]^[4] The Bank has a monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales, although not in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee has devolved responsibility for managing the monetary policy of the country. The Treasury has reserve powers to give orders to the committee "if they are required in the public interest and by extreme economic circumstances" but such orders must be endorsed by parliament within 28 days.^[5]

Beech

Fagus crenata – Japanese Beech
Fagus engleriana – Chinese Beech
Fagus grandifolia – American Beech
Fagus hayatae – Taiwan Beech
Fagus japonica – Japanese Blue Beech
Fagus longipetiolata – South Chinese Beech
Fagus lucida – Shining Beech
Fagus mexicana – Mexican Beech or Haya
Fagus orientalis – Oriental Beech
Fagus sylvatica – European Beech
Fagus taurica

Bellis perennis

Bellis perennis is a common European species of Daisy, often considered the archetypal species of that name. Many related plants also share the name "Daisy", so to distinguish this species from other daisies it is sometimes qualified as Common Daisy, Lawn Daisy or occasionally English daisy. It is native to western, central and northern Europe. The species is widely naturalised in North America,^[1] and also in South America.^[1]

Ben Nevis

Ben Nevis (Scottish Gaelic: Beinn Nibheis, pronounced [peˈɲivəʃ]) is the highest mountain in the British Isles. It is located at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological species, which is the product of nearly 3.5 billion years of evolution.^[1]^[2]

Birmingham

Birmingham (pronounced /ˈbɝːmɪŋəm/ (

listen), BUR-ming-əm, locally /ˈbɝːmɪŋɡəm/ BUR-ming-gəm) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the largest of the British Core Cities and the second most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 (2006 estimate),^[2] and is often referred to as the Second city of the United Kingdom.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]