Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Understandable English Podcast.
And today we are talking about the UK.
So not just about the UK, but what is it made up of?
Who are the people that live there?
Is the population growing?
So the number of people.
And where do people live?
So after listening to this episode, you should understand a little bit more about how the UK is made.
So the people that live there, the population.
So, to start with something that I have said before, a lot of people confuse Great Britain and the United Kingdom.
The simple answer is that Great Britain or Britain is made up of England, Scotland and Wales.
Whereas the UK, the United Kingdom, is Britain, so England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
And that's what makes the United Kingdom.
And every 10 years, there is a census.
A census of a population is when they measure how many people there are where they live, what religious backgrounds they have and lots of other information about the people that live in the UK.
This census or survey has been done in the UK every 10 years since the year 1801.
The only year that it wasn't done was in 1941 during World War II.
In terms of population size.
The UK is the 21st largest country in the world by the number of people.
And at the moment, there are approximately 67 million people live in the UK.
So when you think of all the countries in the UK, you might think, hmm, 67, that's pretty normal.
But when we look at the demographics, the statistics, we see that most of these people live in one country or region of the UK, and that is England.
From the 67 million people that live in the UK, 56 million live in England.
That is 83.5% roughly of the British population that live in England.
And, by comparison, only 3 million people live in Wales, 54 million people in Scotland and my home area, Northern Ireland.
Only 19 million people live there, which is not so much.
But you might say to me Oliver, maybe it's just because England is so much bigger in terms of space.
Well, that's not very true either.
Because if we look at the population density, so the amount of people per square kilometer, we can see a different picture.
In England 434 people live per square kilometre, but if we compare it to Scotland, there are 70 people per square kilometre, in wales 150 and in northern ireland 141.
Of course england has a lot more flat land, but even accounting for that, the population density is just so much higher.
And why is this?
The main reason is that there is more economic activity and development in England.
And as a result a lot of people from the other regions move to England for work and for settling down and having a family.
England also has a much higher rate of in-migration, so people moving to England from other countries than the rest of the UK.
And of course, there is the first reason is that England is bigger.
There are more cities, more towns, a lot more funding and development.
And all of these reasons listed combined is why many, many more people live live in England than the rest of the UK.
And it's the reason why England is growing probably the fastest compared to the rest of the UK.
In 10 years, so from 2011 until 2021, the UK grew by approximately 4 million people.
And of this 4 million, 3 million was in England.
So only 1 million in growth for the other areas of the UK.
So the UK actually has very good population growth compared to other developed countries.
There are some countries in the world which are declining, so their population is getting smaller every year.
For example, if we look at Germany, the population growth is 0%.
So Germany has reached a point of population stagnation.
So there's no net gain in population at the moment and likely it will go into population decline, so a decrease in population over time.
Countries such as Poland have a population decline of 0.4% roughly.
And Russia as well, 0.4%.
So every year, the total amount of people is getting less and less.
And to compare, at the moment the UK has a very healthy rate of growth, with about 04 in the last year.
But recently this has been as high as almost 1%.
So not 0.8%.
A lot of this comes from immigration.
So people moving to the UK to live and work.
And it is estimated that by 2050, the UK will have a population of at least 74 million people.
So why is this potentially a very good thing for the economy of the UK?
The main reason is that there is a lot of younger people moving to the UK, which means our population isn't really aging anymore.
We still have a lot of young working people which can build and grow the economy.
It is one of the main arguments as to why immigration is actually quite a good thing for the UK.
So finally about religion and ethnicity.
So the UK is a very diverse country.
So we have lots of different religions and faiths.
The main religion or the largest religion is, of course Christianity, with about 60 or just under identifying as Christian.
Then we have Muslim, so the Islamic faith, with approximately 44, then hindu, with just over one percent, and then smaller groups of less than a percentage of the population of sikh jewish, buddhist and other religion, and those that identify as having no religion make up 25 percent of the population, so one quarter.
So I hope this episode helps you to understand how many people there are in the UK where they live, why the population in England is so much larger than the rest of the UK and just to understand a little bit more about the total population.
So who lives in the UK?
Thank you for listening and I hope you have an amazing day.
I will see you in the next episode.
Goodbye.
