General Information

Capital:

London 7,007,100 (1995 est.)

Area:

244,820 sq km (93,341 sq mi)

Form of government

Parliamentary monarchy

GDP per capita

Purchasing power parity-$21,800 (1999 est.)

Population

59,113,439 (July 1999 est.)

Ethnic composition

English - 81.5%

Scottish - 9.6%

Irish - 2.4%

Welsh - 1.9%

Ulster - 1.8%

Other - 2.8%

(West Indian, Asian Indians, Pakistani, Chinese, Africans, Bangladeshis, Arabs)

Official Language(s)

English (non-statutory)

Minority Language(s)

Along with English, the official State language, there are six minority languages:

• Cornish, the autochthonous language of Cornwall
• Gaelic and Scots, spoken in Scotland
• Welsh, spoken in Wales
• Ulster Scots speakers are found in all parts of the north of Ireland but the main concentrations are in Counties Down, Antrim, North and West Londonderry, North and West Tyrone and spilling across the border into east Donegal in the Republic of Ireland
• Irish, in Northern Ireland

Over 500,000 Welsh speakers (19% of the population), 1991 census

1.5 million Scots speakers (The General Register Office (Scotland) in 1996 estimated)

142,003 people in Northern Ireland claiming knowledge of the Irish language (this includes people who do not claim the ability to speak the language)

67,000 speakers of Gaelic (the 1991 census)

According to estimates, Cornish is spoken fluently by about 200 people, and with varying levels of fluency, by a few thousand more

The census did not include a question on the Ulster-Scots language. From studies that were done in the 1960s it was estimated that there were 168,000 native speakers with 10,000 to 15,000 monolingual speakers and the rest bilingual. It is now estimated that this has declined to 100,000 with 5,000 to 10,000 monolingual speakers. Ulster-Scots survives mainly as a spoken language with very few speakers completely literate in the language. There are very few revivalist speakers.

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