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England (including recent related patents.)
EnglandEngland (In Detail) (In Detail) Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (God and my right) Official languageNone, English is de factoCapitalLondon Area - TotalRanked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 1st UK49,138,831377/km² Unification9th Century by Egbert of Wessex CurrencyPound Sterling Time zoneUTC+0 National anthemsUnofficial:God Save the QueenLand of Hope and GloryJerusalem England is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the nations that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England must not be confused with the United Kingdom or the island of Great Britain. Many people use the word England to refer to one or both of these. This usage is incorrect and can cause offence, particularly to people from other parts of the UK. It is of interest to note that England is far from being an independent nation since it has no national government, has no currency of its own, has no armed forces, and is not represented in the Olympic Games. The name "England" is derived from "Engla-lond" or "land of the Angles". Other terms for England include "Blighty", from the Hindustani "bila yati" meaning "foreign"; "this Green and Pleasant Land", from William Blake's poem Jerusalem. "Albion" was used by writers such as Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy in the 1st century, in reference to the white (Latin: "alba") cliffs of Dover. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 History 2 Politics 3 Subdivisions 4 Geography 5 Economy 6 Demographics 7 Culture 8 Miscellaneous topics 9 External links History Main article: History of England The country of England (as distinct from the states and provinces which had occupied the same territory at earlier times) formed through the gradual merging of the Angle, Saxon and Jute kingdoms during the 7th., 8th and 9th. Centuries CE. Egbert, King of Wessex (d.839 CE) is often regarded as the first king of all England, though his official title was Bretwalda (literally, "Overlord of Britain") and he was technically a "first among equals" with other English rulers. The title "King of England" emerged two generations later with Alfred the Great (ruled 871-899 CE) Some school histories of England begin with the accession of William the Conqueror in 1066. This may be because the English are proud of their long history of independence, and therefore like to start the clock after the last successful invasion. Although William re-organised (and largely replaced) the English aristocracy, it cannot truly be said that he "founded" or "unified" the country. Much of the existing Anglo-Saxon infrastructure survived William's conquest, and the Norman immigrants formed only a minority (albeit a dominant minority) in English society. More recent school histories begin with the geographical area which would one day become England, and therefore refer first to the various waves of Celtic and Gallic invaders, the invasions of Julius Caesar and later Roman expeditions. These studies of the history of the place itself, before it had gained the name "England" help us to understand the later developments of England as a nation. The flag is painted with a red cross on a white background. This is the St George cross, which becamed a symbol of the crusade in the 13th century (1200) and was used as a national flag until 1606 when it became a component of the union flag for Great Britain. At that time period, the Republic of Guinea used it also. Politics Main article: Politics of England England, as a significant political entity, ceased to exist with the Act of Union 1707, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. All of Great Britain has been ruled by the government of the United Kingdom between that date and 1999, when the first elections to the newly created Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales left England as the only nation in the Union with no representative body. There are calls by some for an English Parliament but the current Labour government favours the establishment of regional governments, claiming that England is too large to be governed as a sub-state entity. In some regions, notably the south-west and south-east there is little interest, but in the north of England there is some support. Referenda will take place on this issue, possibly some time in 2004, and consideration has still to be given to what powers regions would be granted, and what impact this may have on the powers of counties or central government. Considerable disquiet was caused when changes were made to the system of counties in 1889. Unlike the other nations of the Kingdom, there is very little call for independence of England from the UK. This is overwhelmingly due to its dominance in the Union. Those groups that do campaign for such a thing tend to be right-wing organisations. Since the promulgation of the 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan and the 1536 Act of Union with Wales, England has shared a legal identity with Wales as the joint entity of England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland retain separate legal systems and identities. Subdivisions Main article: Subdivisions of England Historically, the highest level of local government in England was the county. These divisions had emerged from a range of units of old, pre-unification England, whether they were Kingdoms, such as Essex and Sussex; Duchies, such as Yorkshire, Cornwall and Lancashire or simply tracts of land given to some noble, as is the case with Berkshire. These counties all still exist in, or near to their original form as the traditional counties. In many places, however, they have been heavily modified or abolished outright as administrative counties. This came about due to a number of factors. The fact that the counties were so small meant, and still means, that there was no regional government able to co-ordinate an overarching plan for the area. This was especially true in the metropolitan areas surrounding the cities, as the county lines were usually drawn up before the industrial revolution and the mass urbanisation of England. The solution was the creation of large metropolitan counties centred on cities. These were later broken up, with several other counties, into unitary authorities, unifying the county and district/borough levels of government. London is a special case, and is the one Region which currently has a representative authority as well as a directly elected mayor. The thirty-two London boroughs remain the local form of government in the city. Other than Greater London, the official Regions are:
This article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Today Show Book Club #13) by Mark Haddon Can You Keep a Secret? by SOPHIE KINSELLA The Photograph by Penelope Lively Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella Brick Lane: A Novel by Monica Ali A Spectacle of Corruption : A Novel by DAVID LISS The Ideal Bride by Stephanie Laurens England's Perfect Hero by Suzanne Enoch Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Elizabeth and Mary : Cousins, Rivals, Queens by JANE DUNN I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson Playing with Fire : A Novel of Suspense by Peter Robinson The Age of Shakespeare by Frank Kermode Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding Recent England related patents From USPTO: 6718313: Integrating live chat into an online credit card application 6718305: Specifying a tree structure for speech recognizers using correlation between regression classes 6718282: Fault tolerant client-server environment 6718267: Monitoring the corrosion of pipelines by evaluting the noise in data signals transmitted via the pipeline 6718237: Method for reducing capacity demands for conveying geographic location information over capacity constrained wireless systems 6718080: Optical programmable delay system 6718049: Near-infrared disguise detection 6717952: Method and apparatus for media data transmission 6717931: Adaptive spreading factor based on power control 6717354: Electroluminescent materials 6717034: Method for modifying plant biomass 6717033: Poly ADP-ribose polymerase gene and its uses 6717032: Transgenic mice containing DEZ orphan receptor gene disruptions 6717031: Method for selecting a transgenic mouse model of alzheimer's disease 6717030: Protein kinase C epsilon as modulator of anxiety, alcohol consumption and self-administration of drugs of abuse 6717027: Personal hygiene 6717025: Process for removing oxygenates from an olefinic stream 6716994: Mobility-Modifying Cyanine Dyes 6716974: Therapeutic and diagnostic methods and compositions based on jagged/notch proteins and nucleic acids 6716965: Adipocyte complement related protein zacrp13 6716964: CtIP, a novel protein that interacts with CtBP and uses therefor 6716963: Peptide antiangiogenic drugs 6716914: Compatible linear and branched ethylenic polymers and foams therefrom 6716893: UV curable ferromagnetic compositions 6716882: Highly packed polycationic ammonium, sulfonium and phosphonium lipids 6716871: Cyclic AMP-specific phosphodie sterase inhibitors 6716851: Substituted 2-aryl-4-arylaminopyrimidines and analogs as activators or caspases and inducers of apoptosis and the use thereof 6716829: Aldosterone antagonist and cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor combination therapy to prevent or treat inflammation-related cardiovascular disorders 6716816: Multimeric Apo A-I agonist compounds 6716801: Compositions and method for their preparation 6716625: Histidine kinases of Aspergillus and other fungal species, related compositions, and methods of use 6716621: Isolated DNA or gene responsible for Parkinson's disease 6716612: DNA molecules coding for debranching enzymes derived from plants 6716606: Production of pluripotent granulocyte colony-stimulating factor 6716604: Nucleic acid molecules encoding a subunit of a human calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase 6716602: Metabolic rate shifts in fermentations expressing recombinant proteins 6716600: Persephin and related growth factors 6716592: Materials and methods relating to the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and obesity 6716591: B. burgdorferi polypeptides 6716589: Discordant helix stabilization for prevention of amyloid formation 6716586: Insulin-like growth factor agonist molecules 6716582: Cellular arrays for the identification of altered gene expression 6716575: Diagnosis and treatment of AUR1 and/or AUR2 related disorders 6716454: Therapeutic combination of vitamin and calcium in unitary galenic tablet form, a method of obtaining it, and the use thereof 6716453: Method for increasing the active loading of compressible composition forms 6716452: Active agent delivery systems and methods for protecting and administering active agents 6716429: Stabilization of envelope glycoprotein trimers by disulfide bonds introduced into a gp 41 glycoprotein ectodomain 6716428: Antigenic modification of polypeptides 6716412: Methods of ultrasound treatment using gas or gaseous precursor-filled compositions |
