Overview

England, a country slightly larger than New York State, occupies 50,363 square miles (130,439 square kilometers) of the southern end of the largest island off the Atlantic coast of Europe. A land of rolling hills, moderate climate, abundant rainfall, fertile plains, many navigable rivers, and nearly 2,000 miles of ocean coastline, it is mineral rich and very arable. From the southwestern plateau of Cornwall and southeastern marshy downs through the gentle plains, the Pennine uplands, and the lake country, to the Cambrian mountains and Cheviot Hills, which shapes its western and northern borders with Wales and Scotland, no point is more than 75 miles from the seas that brought commerce, migrations, and invasion throughout much of England's early history.

While 80 percent of its 50 million people are native born, England has large communities of Scots (nearly ten percent), Irish, and Welsh in its border counties and about two million Asian...