British Isles
The North Atlantic archipelago of Great Britain, Ireland and thousands of smaller islands.
via Wikipedia: British Isles · see source
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean lying off the north-western edge of mainland Europe. The two largest are Great Britain and Ireland, joined by the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, and more than six thousand lesser islands. Together they cover 315159 km2 and hold close to 75 million people. Two sovereign states share the archipelago: the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Channel Islands near France are usually counted as part of the group even though they sit apart from it geographically. The name is geographic rather than political, though its use in relation to Ireland is disputed.
Quick Facts
- Location
- North-western Europe
- Body of water
- Atlantic Ocean
- Total islands
- 6,000+
- Highest mount
- Ben Nevis, Scotland
- Elevation (m)
- 1345
- Population
- 71,891,524
Facts from the source article.
Background
Some of the oldest rock in the islands, found in Ireland, Wales and north-west Scotland, is 2.7 billion years old. People returned after the last glacial period by 12,000 BC, when Great Britain was still attached to the continent; it became an island by 7000 BC as Doggerland flooded. Gaels, Picts and Britons, speakers of Insular Celtic languages, lived here at the start of the 1st millennium BC. Rome conquered much of Britain from AD 43, Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power faded, and Viking raids began in the 9th century. The Norman conquest of England in 1066 brought a new ruling class. The Acts of Union 1707 and 1800 drew Britain and Ireland into one state, until most of Ireland left the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence.
Did You Know?
- The earliest known references to the islands as a group came from seafarers of the Greek colony of Massalia.
- The historian J. G. A. Pocock coined the term Atlantic archipelago in 1975.
- The earliest Oxford English Dictionary citation of the phrase is from a work by John Dee dated 1577.
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