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The United Kingdom is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. With a total area of approximately , the UK occupies the major part of the British Isles archipelago and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands.〔Oxford English Dictionary: "British Isles: a geographical term for the islands comprising Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."〕 The mainland areas lie between latitudes 49°N and 59°N (the Shetland Islands reach to nearly 61°N), and longitudes 8°W to 2°E. The Royal Greenwich Observatory, in South East London, is the defining point of the Prime Meridian. The UK lies between the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and comes within of the north-west coast of France, from which it is separated by the English Channel. It shares a 499 km international land boundary with the Republic of Ireland.〔Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, 1999〕〔MFPP Working Paper No. 2, "The Creation and Consolidation of the Irish Border" by KJ Rankin and published in association with Institute for British-Irish Studies, University College Dublin and Institute for Governance, Queen's University, Belfast (also printed as IBIS working paper no. 48)〕 The Channel Tunnel bored beneath the English Channel, now links the UK with France. The British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are covered in their own respective articles, see below. == Area == The total area of the United Kingdom is approximately , comprising the island of Great Britain, the northeastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland (Northern Ireland) and many smaller islands. England is the largest country of the United Kingdom, at accounting for just over half the total area of the UK. Scotland at ,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Scotland Facts )〕 is second largest, accounting for about a third of the area of the UK. Wales and Northern Ireland are much smaller, covering respectively. The area of the countries of the United Kingdom is set out in the table below. Information about the area of England, the largest country, is also broken down by region. The British Antarctic Territory, which covers an area of 1,709,400 km2 is geographically the largest of the British Overseas Territories followed by the Falkland Islands which covers an area of 12,173 km2. The remaining twelve overseas territories cover an area 5,997 km2. Other countries with very similar land areas to the United Kingdom include Guinea (slightly larger), Uganda, Ghana and Romania (all slightly smaller). The UK is the world's 80th largest country by land area and the 10th largest in Europe (if European Russia is included). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Geography of the United Kingdom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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