The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the history of the British Isles:
History of the British Isles – history of the European island group known as the British Isles.
Throughout history, various political entities have inhabited the British Isles, with varying degrees of power and independence over one another.
The British Isles also includes three Crown dependencies of the United Kingdom.
The following political entities all at one time existed within the British Isles.
Anglo-Saxons inhabited England from the 5th Century, and formed their own kingdoms.
Prior to the Norman invasion of Ireland many Irish Kingdoms existed. Some of the larger ones were:
The following kingdoms all existed in what is now recognised as Scotland:
During the medieval era several kingdoms existed in Wales.
During the modern period the following entities have all existed, but no longer do so.
The history of the British Isles in the classical era was characterised by the attempts of the Roman Empire to conquer the islands.
Throughout history, there have been several events that had a lasting impact on the British Isles as a whole.
Historically, there have been many conflicts between the people inhabiting the British Isles which led to a lasting impact on the history of the islands.
There have been several invasions of the British Isles by outside entities, some of which had a lasting impact on the history of the islands.
The following events had a lasting impact on the political shape of the British Isles.
The following is a timeline showing the major nations within the British Isles, or which controlled parts of the islands, over time.
Media from Commons
Travel information from Wikivoyage
Data from Wikidata
The Acts of Union refer to two Acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of England in 1706, the other by the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. They put into effect the Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706, which merged the previously separate Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into a single Kingdom of Great Britain, with Queen Anne as its sovereign. The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707, creating the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster.
The British Isles are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, and over six thousand smaller islands. They have a total area of 315,159 km2 (121,684 sq mi) and a combined population of almost 72 million, and include two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Channel Islands, off the north coast of France, are normally taken to be part of the British Isles, even though geographically they do not form part of the archipelago. Under the UK Interpretation Act 1978, the Channel Islands are clarified as forming part of the British Islands, not to be confused with the British Isles.
The United Kingdom has three distinctly different legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical area for a variety of historical reasons: English law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and, since 2007, calls for a fourth type, that of purely Welsh law as a result of Welsh devolution, with further calls for a Welsh justice system.
The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially known as Great Britain, was a sovereign state in Western Europe from 1707 to the end of 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The unitary state was governed by a single parliament at the Palace of Westminster, but distinct legal systems—English law and Scots law—remained in use.
The Kingdom of Ireland was a dependent territory of England and then of Great Britain from 1542 to the end of 1800. It was ruled by the monarchs of England and then of Great Britain, and was administered from Dublin Castle by a viceroy appointed by the English king: the Lord Deputy of Ireland. Aside from brief periods, the state was dominated by the Protestant English minority. The Protestant Church of Ireland was the state church. The Parliament of Ireland was composed of Anglo-Irish nobles. From 1661, the administration controlled an Irish army. Although styled a kingdom, for most of its history it was, de facto, an English dependency. This status was enshrined in Poynings' Law and in the Declaratory Act of 1719.
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".
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdom of Great Britain and created the parliament of Great Britain located in the former home of the English parliament in the Palace of Westminster, near the City of London. This lasted nearly a century, until the Acts of Union 1800 merged the separate British and Irish Parliaments into a single Parliament of the United Kingdom with effect from 1 January 1801.
The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the early tenth century, when it was unified from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which would later become the United Kingdom. The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
Dual monarchy occurs when two separate kingdoms are ruled by the same monarch, follow the same foreign policy, exist in a customs union with each other, and have a combined military but are otherwise self-governing. The term is typically used to refer to Austria-Hungary, a dual monarchy that existed from 1867 to 1918 that spanned across parts of Central and Eastern Europe, but applies to other dual monarchies such as the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz. Dual monarchy is an uncommon form of government, and has been practiced few times in history, although many of the world's most powerful countries have been or are dual monarchies.
The history of the British Isles began with its sporadic human habitation during the Palaeolithic from around 900,000 years ago. The British Isles has been continually occupied since the early Holocene, the current geological epoch, which started around 11,700 years ago. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers migrated from the Continent soon afterwards at a time when there was no sea barrier between Britain and Europe, but there was between Britain and Ireland. There were almost complete population replacements by migrations from the Continent at the start of the Neolithic around 4,100 BC and the Bronze Age around 2,500 BC. Later migrations contributed to the political and cultural fabric of the islands and the transition from tribal societies to feudal ones at different times in different regions.
The terminology of the British Isles comprises the words and phrases that are used to describe the geographical and political areas of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the smaller islands which surround them. The terms are often a source of confusion, partly owing to the similarity between some of the actual words used but also because they are often used loosely. Many of the words carry geographical and political connotations which are affected by the history of the islands. The inclusion of Ireland in the geographical definition of British Isles is debated. Ordnance Survey Ireland does not use the term.
A political union is a type of political entity which is composed of, or created from, smaller polities, or the process which achieves this. These smaller polities are usually called federated states and federal territories in a federal government; and prefectures, regions, or provinces in the case of a centralised government. This form of government may be created through voluntary and mutual cession and is described as unionism by its constituent members and proponents. In other cases, it may arise from political unification, characterised by coercion and conquest. The unification of separate states which, in the past, had together constituted a single entity is known as reunification. Unlike a personal union or real union, the individual constituent entities may have devolution of powers but are subordinate to a central government or coordinated in some sort of organization. In a federalised system, the constituent entities usually have internal autonomy, for example in the setup of police departments, and share power with the federal government, for whom external sovereignty, military forces, and foreign affairs are usually reserved. The union is recognised internationally as a single political entity. A political union may also be called a legislative union or state union. A union may be effected in many forms, broadly categorized as:
In the United Kingdom, unionism is a political stance favouring the continued unity of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as one sovereign state, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Those who support the union are referred to as Unionists. Though not all unionists are nationalists, UK or British unionism is associated with British nationalism, which asserts that the British are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of the Britons, which may include people of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, Jersey, Manx and Guernsey descent.
The formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has involved personal and political union across Great Britain and the wider British Isles. The United Kingdom is the most recent of a number of sovereign states that have been established in Great Britain at different periods in history, in different combinations and under a variety of polities. Historian Norman Davies has counted sixteen different states over the past 2,000 years.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the United Kingdom:
Since 1922, the United Kingdom has been made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom.
Scotland is a country which is part of the United Kingdom, having previously been an independent, sovereign country prior to the 1707 union with England. Established in 843, this would make Scotland the second oldest country in Europe and the fifth oldest country in the world. It's monarchy is amongst the oldest in the world, and is the oldest recorded monarchy in Europe.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the United Kingdom.
In England, Unionism is a political ideology which favours the continuation of some form of political union between England and the other Countries of the United Kingdom,. As well as the current state of the United Kingdom, It is part of the wider British unionist movement and is closely linked to the notion of Britishness. Unionism in England is characterised by both opposition to England's independence as a separate state and the belief that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should continue to be constituent countries of the Union.