Sport

Main article: Sport in the United Kingdom

The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every July.
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every July.

A number of major sports originated in the United Kingdom, including football, rugby, cricket, tennis and golf.

The most popular sport in the UK is football. The UK does not compete as a nation in any major football tournament. Instead, the home nations compete individually as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Because of this four-team arrangement that the UK does not compete in football events at the Olympic Games. However, there are proposals for a united team taking part in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which are to be held in London. The English and Northern Irish football associations have confirmed participation in this team while the Scottish FA and the Welsh FA have declined to participate, fearing that it would undermine their independent status.

The UK is home to many world-renowned football clubs, such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Glasgow Rangers. Clubs compete in national leagues and competitions and some go on to compete in European competitions. British teams have been successful in European Competitions including some who have become European Cup/UEFA Champions League winners: Liverpool (five times), Manchester United (twice), Nottingham Forest (twice), Aston Villa, and Celtic. More clubs from England have won the European Cup than any other country (four compared to three from Italy, Germany and the Netherlands). Moreover, England ranks second in the all time list of European club trophies won with 35, one behind Italy's 36. The European Cup competition itself was brought about due to the success of another UK club, Wolverhampton Wanderers, against top European sides[94] in the 1950s. The English Premier League is also the most-watched football league in the world and is particularly popular in Asia: in the People's Republic of China, matches attract television audiences between 100 million and 360 million, more than any other foreign sport.[95][96]
The new Wembley Stadium is the most expensive stadium ever built costing £793 million ($1.6 billion).
The new Wembley Stadium is the most expensive stadium ever built costing £793 million ($1.6 billion).

The 90,000 capacity Wembley Stadium is the main sporting stadium of the UK. Between the demolition of the former 'twin towers' stadium and construction of the new one (completed in March 2007), Cardiff's 73,000 seater Millennium Stadium served in this role.

The early reference to the separate national identities in the UK is perhaps best illustrated by the game of cricket. Cricket was invented in England. There are league championships but the English national team dominates the game in Britain. There is no UK team. Some Irish and Scottish players have played for England because neither Scotland nor Ireland have Test status and only play in One Day Internationals.

The UK has proved successful in the international sporting arena in rowing. It is widely considered that the sport's most successful rower is Steven Redgrave who won five gold medals and one bronze medal at five consecutive Olympic Games as well as numerous wins at the World Rowing Championships and Henley Royal Regatta.

Both forms of rugby are national sports. Rugby league originates from and is generally played in the North of England, whilst Rugby Union is played predominantly in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Southern England. Having supposedly originated from the actions of William Webb Ellis at the School at Rugby, it is considered the national sport of Wales. In rugby league the UK plays as one nation — Great Britain — though in union it is represented by four nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (which consists of players from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). England is the holder of the Rugby World Cup. Every four years the British and Irish Lions tour either Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. Here, rugby football differs internationally to association football, as the England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland (including the Republic of Ireland) teams combine to form the British and Irish Lions although they compete separately in all other international competitions.

The game of tennis first originated from the UK's second city of Birmingham between 1859 and 1865. The Wimbledon Championships are international tennis events held in Wimbledon in south London every summer and are regarded as the most prestigious of the tennis calendar.

Thoroughbred racing is also very popular throughout the UK. It originated under Charles II of England as the "Sport of Kings" and is a royal pastime to this day. World-famous horse races include the Grand National, the Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot. The town of Newmarket is considered to be the centre of English racing[citation needed].
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, generally regarded as the world's "Home of Golf".
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, generally regarded as the world's "Home of Golf".

Golf is one of the most popular participation sports played in the UK, with St Andrews in Scotland being the sport's home course. Cricket is also popular, although the popularity of the game is dramatically greater in England than in other parts of the UK, all four constituent nations as of 2006 compete at the One-Day International level — Scotland independently, Wales as part of the English team, and Northern Ireland as part of all-Ireland.

Shinty (or camanachd) (a sport derived from the same root as the Irish hurling and similar to bandy) is popular in the Scottish Highlands, sometimes attracting crowds numbering thousands in the most sparsely populated region of the UK.

The country is closely associated with motorsport. Many teams and drivers in Formula One (F1) are based in the UK and drivers from Britain have won more world titles than any other country. The country also hosts legs of the F1 and World Rally Championship and has its own Touring Car Racing championship, the BTCC. The British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone each July.

[edit] Visual art

Main article: Art of the United Kingdom

Flint Castle, by J. M. W. Turner (c.1775 – 1851).
Flint Castle, by J. M. W. Turner (c.1775 – 1851).

The Royal Academy is located in London. Other major schools of art include the Slade School of Art; the six-school University of the Arts, London, which includes the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Chelsea College of Art and Design; the Glasgow School of Art, and Goldsmiths, University of London. This commercial venture is one of Britain's foremost visual arts organisations. Major British artists include Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, William Morris, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Gilbert and George, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Howard Hodgkin, Antony Gormley, and Anish Kapoor. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the Saatchi Gallery in London brought to public attention a group of multigenre artists who would become known as the Young British Artists. Damian Hirst, Chris Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Tracy Emin, Mark Wallinger, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Wood, and the Chapman Brothers are among the better known members of this loosely affiliated movement.

[edit] Symbols
The Statue of Britannia in Plymouth.
The Statue of Britannia in Plymouth.

* The flag of the United Kingdom is the Union Flag commonly known as the "Union Jack", though this is technically only correct when flown from a Jack Mast at sea. Some people dispute this and claim that the name originated from King James VI who designed the first Union Flag, hence the name "Union Jack" or Jac's Union, Jac being short for Jacobus, a Latinised name commonly used when speaking of the King. Created from the superimposition of the flags of England (St George's Cross) and Scotland (Saint Andrew's Cross), with the Saint Patrick's cross, representing Ireland, being added to this in 1801.

Flag Country Patron saint Flower
Flag of England England St. George Red and White rose
Flag of Scotland Scotland St. Andrew Cotton thistle
Flag of Wales Wales St. David Leek/Daffodil
Flag of Northern Ireland1 Northern Ireland St. Patrick Shamrock/Flax

'^1' There is no official flag of Northern Ireland following the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. However, the Ulster Banner is often used for sporting events. See Northern Ireland flags issue.

* The national anthem of the United Kingdom is "God Save the King", with "King" replaced with "Queen" whenever the monarch is female. The anthem's name, however, remains "God Save the King".[97]

Flags of the United Kingdom, (England, Scotland, Flag of Wales and the unofficial Northern Irish flag).
Flags of the United Kingdom, (England, Scotland, Flag of Wales and the unofficial Northern Irish flag).

* Britannia is a personification of the United Kingdom, originating from the Roman occupation of southern and central Great Britain.[98] Britannia is symbolised as a young woman with brown or golden hair, wearing a Corinthian helmet and white robes. She holds Poseidon's three-pronged trident and a shield, bearing the Union Flag. Sometimes she is depicted as riding the back of a lion. At and since the height of the British Empire, Britannia has often associated with maritime dominance, as in the patriotic song Rule Britannia.
* The lion has also been used as a symbol of the United Kingdom; one is depicted behind Britannia on the 50 pence piece and one is shown crowned on the back of the 10 pence piece. It is also used as a symbol on the non-ceremonial flag of the British Army. Lions have been used as heraldic devices many times, including in the royal arms of both the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Kingdom of Gwynedd in Wales. The lion is featured on the emblem of the England national football team, giving rise to the popular football anthem Three Lions, and the England national cricket team. The "three lions" on the English coat of arms were originally two leopards. An extra leopard was added by Richard the Lionheart and with the help of his name, they became known as three lions. They are now drawn to look more like lions. Leopards are traditionally depicted lying down whereas lions were drawn standing on all fours or up on their hind legs attacking, as in the Scottish Lion Rampant.
* The bulldog is sometimes used as a symbol of Great Britain, and is often associated with Winston Churchill's defiance of Nazi Germany.
* Britain (especially England) has been personified as the character John Bull, although this character is rarely used in modern times.
* The ancient British landscape, and especially some of its distinctive flora such as the oak tree and the rose, have long been a widely used proxy for the visual representation of British identity. The red rose is the emblem of the Labour Party, the England national rugby union team, the Rugby Football Union and Lancashire.

[edit] Miscellaneous data

* Cellular frequency: GSM 900, GSM 1800, UMTS 2100
* Cellular technology: GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA
* Date format: DD/MM/YY (example: 22/12/05) or 22 December 2005 (22nd December 2005 widely used also if date is written in words)
* Time format: Generally 12-hour format when spoken or in writing (example: 5:15 pm), 24-hour format is used in some official documentation, timetables and by the military (example: 17:15 or 1715). A full stop may also be used instead of the colon when writing the time; for instance, 5.15 pm.
* Decimal separator is a full stop: 123.45
* Thousands are separated by a comma - 10,000 - or with a space - 10 000.
* In Britain, a billion used to be represented as 1,000,000,000,000 (or one million million) but this has fallen into disuse and a billion is now commonly seen as 1,000,000,000 (or a thousand million).
* Voltage: 230V (+10% / -6%), 50 Hz; British 3-pin power plugs and sockets
* Postal code: UK postcodes
* Driving is on the left.