The United Kingdom was formed by the Acts of Union on January 1st, 1801 with the formal name of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in which it brought together Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland in one union.
After a three year war of independence, on December 6th, 1922, the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were formed as two separate nations.
The country has a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, formally uniting the countries England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into one Union.
Apart from these countries, the United Kingdom consists of fourteen oversea territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Saint Helena-Ascension-Tristan da Cunha, Turks and Caicos Islands, Pitcairn Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) and three Crown dependencies (Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man).
The United Kingdom also is a part of the British Commonwealth of Nations, a union of 52 countries, mostly former parts of the British Empire. Although these countries all have their own government, they all recognise the British Crown as their head of state.