United Kingdom Introduction
British English, the Scottish burr, the Irish brogue, driving on the left side of the road, standing in queues, pubs, bangers and mash, room temperature beer, scotch and whiskey, woolens, moors and cottages are just a few of the things that come to mind when you think of the United Kingdom. Yes, it is a bit different in the U.K., but those are the things that keep life interesting for expats in the United Kingdom.
This land of poets and kings spreads north from England to Wales and Scotland on the island of Great Britain and reaches across the Irish Sea to also include Northern Ireland, the northern one-sixth of the island of Ireland. Just 21 miles across the English Channel from France at its narrowest point, the United Kingdom is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon.
Over 62 million people share the U.K., making the population density one of the highest in the world. Almost one-third lives in England’s urban and suburban southeast, with over 8.6 million living in London alone.
The people of the British Isles like their lifestyle and their happiness is often reflected in global studies. The U.K. ranks twenty-third globally on the Legatum Institute’s Average Life Satisfaction measure (2012) and thirteenth on its broader Prosperity Index, out of 142 countries studied. As Shakespeare said so eloquently in his play Henry V: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”
But, not all is happy in the misty isles. Although the U.K. is ethnically diverse, partly as a legacy of empire, its
multiculturalism, immigration and national identity issues are spurring a national conversation against a background of concerns about terrorism and Islamist radicalism, which were heightened after the suicide bomb attacks on London’s transport network in 2005. Also, recent acts of terrorism in Northern Ireland have raised the national threat level to “substantial,” indicating that terrorist attacks are a “strong possibility.”