English Speaking Countries

1. English Speaking Countries

2. United Kingdom Capital – London Area – 244,820Km² Population – 59,834,300

3. United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom, or the UK) occupies part of the British Isles in northwestern Europe, with most of its territory and population on the island of Great Britain. It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland on the island of Ireland and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean.

4. The United Kingdom, often referred to as "Britain", is a constitutional monarchy and unitary state composed through a political union of four constituent entities: the three constituent countries of England, Scotland and Wales (known as the Home Nations) on Great Britain, and the province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. The UK has several overseas territories, including Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, and through the Crown has a constitutional relationship with the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The UK has close relationships with the fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, which share the same monarch as head of state. The UK has a highly developed economy, the fourth-largest in the world (as measured in terms of Gross domestic product. It is one of the most populous member states of the European Union and a founding partner of both the UN (with a permanent seat on the Security Council) and NATO. The UK is also one of the major nuclear weapon states.

5. The UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. The attitude of the present government towards further integration is conservative, with the official opposition favouring a return of some powers and competencies to the UK. It has not chosen to adopt the Euro as domestic political opinion runs strongly against such a move, whilst the government itself has not seen fit to advance membership based on a judgement of the economic costs and benefits in doing so.

6. United States of America Capital – Washington, DC Area – 9,631,418Km² Population – 298,290,000

7. U. S. A. The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Alaska borders the Pacific Ocean to the south, the Bering Strait to the west, and the Arctic Ocean to the north, while Hawaii lies far to the southwest of the mainland in the Pacific Ocean. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguousUnited States, and as the Lower 48. Alakska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia, is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia had also donated land, but it was returned in 1847).

8. The United States of America is a Federal republic situated primarily in North America. It is bordered on the north by Canada and to the south by Mexico. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories with differing degrees of affiliation. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, America[1], the U.S., the U.S.A., the U.S. of A., the States, or (poetically) Columbia.

9. Since the twentieth century, following World War I, the United States has emerged as the dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural and technological affairs. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is today's sole global superpower. The country celebrates its founding date as July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence that rejected British authority in favor of self-determination. The structure of the government was profoundly changed on March 4, 1789, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution.

10. Australia Capital – Canberra Area – 7,686,850Km² Population – 20,406,800

11. Australia The Commonwealth of Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the world's smallest continent and a number of islands in the Southern, Indian and Pakcific Oceans. Australia's neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the French dependency of New Caledonia to the northeast, and New Zealand to the southeast.

12. The continent of Australia has been inhabited for over 40,000 years by Indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled as the penal colony of New South Wales on 26 January 1788. As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the nineteenth century. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Since federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and remains a Commonwealth Realm. The capital city is Canberra although the current population of around 20.5 million is concentrated mainly in the large coastal cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.

13. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Australis, meaning of the South. Legends of an "unknown land of the south" (terra australis incognita) date back to the Roman times and were commonplace in mediaeval geography, but they were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent. The Dutch adjectival form Australische ("Australian", in the sense of "southern") was used by Dutch officials in Batavia to refer to the newly discovered land to the south as early as 1638. The first use of the word "Australia" in English was a 1693 translation of Les Aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Découverte et le Voyage de la Terre Australe, a 1692 French novel by Gabriel de Foigny under the pen name Jacques Sadeur. Alexander Dalrymple then used it in An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, published in 1771. He used the term to refer to the entire South Pacific region, not specifically to the Australian continent. In 1793, George Shaw and Sir James Smith published Zoology and Botany of New Holland, in which they wrote of "the vast island, or rather continent, of Australia, Australasia or New Holland."

14. Canada Capital – Ottawa Area – 9,984,670Km² Population – 32,270,500

15. Canada Originally inhabited exclusively by aboriginal peoples, Canada was founded as a union of British colonies, some of which had earlier been French colonies. A federal dominion of ten provinces with three territories, Canada peacefully obtained sovereignty from its last colonial possessor, the United Kingdom, in a process beginning in 1867 with its formation and ending in 1982 when Canada gained the authority to amend its own constitution. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. Canada's head of state is its monarch, who is represented in Canada by the Governor General. The head of government is the Prime Minister.

16. Canada defines itself as a bilingual and multicultural nation. Both English and French are official languages. In the early 1970s, Canada began to adopt policies based on the concepts of cultural diversity and multiculturalism. Many Canadians now view this as one of the country's key attributes. A technologically advanced and industrialized nation, Canada is a net exporter of energy because of its large fossil fuel deposits, nuclear energy generation, and hydroelectric power capacity. Its diversified economy relies heavily on an abundance of natural resources and trade, particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship, one which can be described as the strongest trade partnership in history.