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Great Britain
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Great Britain is the fourth most populous country in Europe. The English constitute more than 80% of the nation's inhabitants. The Scottish make up nearly 10%, and there are smaller groups of Irish and Welsh descent. Great Britain's population has shown increasing ethnic diversity since the 1970s, when people from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Africa, and China began immigrating; in the late 1990s these groups accounted for close to 3% of the population. English is the universal language of Great Britain. In addition, about a quarter of the inhabitants of Wales speak Welsh and there are about 60,000 speakers of the Scottish form of Gaelic in Scotland.
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Great Britain is the fourth most populous country in Europe. Those of English descent constitute about 77% of the nation’s inhabitants. The Scottish make up 8%, and there are smaller groups of Welsh (about 4.5%) and Irish (2.7%) descent. Great Britain’s population has shown increasing ethnic diversity since the 1970s, when people from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Africa, and China began immigrating; in the early 21st cent. these groups accounted for more than 5% of the population. There is ... a significant minority of Poles, who arrived after Poland joined the European Union. English is the universal language of Great Britain.
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In the early 1990s Great Britain had 158 institutions of higher education, of which 76 had university status. Traditionally, British universities have been completely self-governing, with their academic and financial independence guaranteed by a committee that disburses funds authorized by Parliament. New universities and other higher educational institutions have been founded since World War II, and admissions policies have been broadened. The number of secondary schools has been increased at the same time. Such changes... have not been accepted without controversy. Certain factions within the country feel that mass education tends to lower educational standards.
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Great Britain has abundant supplies of coal, oil, and natural gas. Production of oil from offshore wells in the North Sea began in 1975, and the country is self-sufficient in petroleum. Other mineral resources include iron ore, tin, limestone, salt, china clay, oil shale, gypsum, and lead.
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Theatrical dance in Great Britain dates back to the beginning of the 18th century with works like John Weaver's comic ballet d'action The Tavern Bilkers (1702) and his serious ballet d'action The Loves of Mars and Venus (1717). Handel included a substantial dance element in several of his operas of the 1730s (Il pastor fido, Ariodante, and Alcina). Didelot's most famous ballet, Zéphyre et Flore, was premiered in London in 1796, while Blasis published his Code of Terpsichore there in 1828. Romantic ballet flourished in the 1840s, thanks mainly to the productions of Perrot (Ondine, La Esmeralda, Pas de quatre). Late in the 19th century two London theatres, the Alhambra and the Empire, housed most of the important dance events in the country. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes came to Covent Garden in 1911, inspiring a new generation of dance lovers with its chic modernist repertoire.
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Prior to the late 1990s, the government of Great Britain was unitary in structure. Thus, the powers of local government derived from Parliamentary acts, and responsibility for the overall administration of the country rested within specified cabinet ministries. Local authorities... were essentially independent. This system began to change fundamentally in 1997, with the passage of a referendum in Scotland providing for the establishment of a regional parliament, and one in Wales authorizing a regional assembly with much more limited powers. In Northern Ireland, a new legislative assembly, authorized by the Good Friday peace accord, was elected in June 1998; it will eventually assume many of the powers formerly exercised from London.
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Great Britain