Flight ticket Manchester Schiphol

Schiphol

Terminals and destinations

Piers B and C are dedicated Schengen areas. Pier E, F and G are dedicated non-Schengen areas. Piers D and H/M are mixed piers, using the same gate positions for Schengen and non-Schengen flights.

Pier D has two floor levels. The lower floor is used for non-Schengen flights, the upper floor is used for Schengen flights. By using stairs, the same jetways are used to access the aircraft. Schengen gates are numbered D-59 and up, non-Schengen gates are numbered from D-1 to D-59.

Piers H and M, the low-cost pier, share the same construction. Here, the H-gates are non-Schengen gates, the M-gates are Schengen gates. Both areas are on the same level.

NOTE: The airlines and destinations listed are not definite; very few airlines have a daily pier; this is based on regularity.

Airport Schiphol in media

In the 1983 book Floodgate by Alistair MacLean, Schiphol is subject to a terrorist attack, in which the entire airport is flooded, after an explosion of the surrounding dikes.

Netherlands

Demographics and urbanisation

Agglomerations consisting of only one municipality are not included. Sources are CBS based see and - Rotterdam (Rotterdam, Barendrecht, Capelle aan den IJssel, Krimpen aan den IJssel, Spijkenisse, Schiedam, Vlaardingen, Maasland, Maassluis, Rozenburg)

- The Hague ('s-Gravenhage, Rijswijk, Wateringen, Voorburg, Leidschendam, Wassenaar, Westland, Zoetermeer, Delft) - Utrecht (Utrecht, Nieuwegein, IJsselstein, Maarssen) - Eindhoven (Eindhoven, Veldhoven, Geldrop, Son en Breugel, Waalre) - Tilburg (Tilburg, Goirle) - Groningen (Groningen, Haren) - Haarlem (Haarlem, Heemstede, Bloemendaal) - Arnhem (Arnhem, Rozendaal) - Leiden (Leiden, Katwijk, Voorschoten, Leiderdorp, Oegstgeest, Rijnsburg, Valkenburg, Warmond) - Dordrecht (Dordrecht, 's-Gravendeel, Hardinxveld-Giessendam, Papendrecht, Sliedrecht, Zwijndrecht) - Heerlen (Heerlen, Kerkrade, Landgraaf, Brunssum) - 's-Hertogenbosch ('s-Hertogenbosch, Vught) - Sittard-Geleen (Sittard-Geleen, Beek, Stein) - Amersfoort (Amersfoort, Leusden)

Language, religion, and culture

The official language is Dutch, which is spoken by a majority of the inhabitants, the exception being some groups of immigrants.

Another official language is West Frisian, which is spoken in the northern province of Friesland, called Fryslân in that language. West Frisian is co-official only in the province of Friesland, although with a few restrictions. Several dialects of Low Saxon (Nedersaksisch in Dutch) are spoken in much of the north and east and are recognised by the Netherlands as regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, as well as the Meuse-Rhenish Franconian varieties in the southeastern province of Limburg, here called Limburgish language.

There is a tradition of learning foreign languages in the Netherlands: about 70% of the total population have good knowledge of English, 55- 59% of German and 19% of French.

The Netherlands is one of the more secular countries in the Western Europe, with only 39% being religiously affiliated (31% for those aged under 35), although 62% are believers (but 40% of those not in the traditional sense). Fewer than 20% visit church regularly .

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2005, 34% of Dutch citizens responded that "they believe there is a god", whereas 37% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 27% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".

In 1950, before the secularisation of Europe, and the large settlement of non-Europeans in the Netherlands, most Dutch citizens identified themselves as Christians. In 1950, out of a total population of almost 13 million, a total of 7,261,000 belonged to Protestant denominations, 3,703,000 belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and 1,641,000 had no acknowledged religion.

However, Christian schools are still funded by the government, but the same applies for schools founded on other religions, nowadays Islam in particular. While all schools must meet strict quality criteria, from 1917 the freedom of schools is a basic principle in The Netherlands.

Three political parties in the Dutch parliament (CDA, ChristianUnion and SGP) base their policy on the Christian belief system.

The Netherlands has had many well-known painters. The 17th century, when the Dutch republic was prosperous, was the age of the "Dutch Masters", such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, Jacob van Ruysdael and many others. Famous Dutch painters of the 19th and 20th century were Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondriaan. M. C. Escher is a well-known graphics artist. Willem de Kooning was born and trained in Rotterdam, although he is considered to have reached acclaim as an American artist. Han van Meegeren was an infamous Dutch art forger.

The Netherlands is the country of philosophers Erasmus of Rotterdam and Spinoza. All of Descartes' major work was done in the Netherlands. The Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) discovered Saturn's moon Titan and invented the pendulum clock. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was the first to observe and describe single-celled organisms with a microscope.

In the Dutch Golden Age, literature flourished as well, with Joost van den Vondel and P.C. Hooft as the two most famous writers. In the 19th century, Multatuli wrote about the bad treatment of the natives in Dutch colonies. Important 20th century authors include Harry Mulisch, Jan Wolkers, Simon Vestdijk, Cees Nooteboom, Gerard (van het) Reve and Willem Frederik Hermans. Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl was published after she died in The Holocaust and translated from Dutch to all major languages.

Replicas of Dutch buildings can be found in Huis ten Bosch, Nagasaki, Japan. A similar Holland Village is being built in Shenyang, China.

Windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, cheese and Delftware pottery are among the items associated with the Netherlands.

Military

Conscription in the Netherlands was suspended in 1996. All military specialities, except the Submarine service and Marine Corps(Korps Mariniers), are open to women. The Dutch Ministry of Defence employs almost 80,900 personnel, including 22,900 civilian and 68,000 military personnel[citation needed]. The military is composed of four branches, all of which carry the prefix Koninklijke (Royal):

Economy

As a founding member of the Euro, the Netherlands replaced (for accounting purposes) its former currency, the "Gulden" (Guilder), on January 1, 1999, along with the other adopters of the single European currency. Actual Euro coins and banknotes followed on January 1, 2002. One Euro is equivalent to 2.20371 Dutch guilders.

The Netherlands has a prosperous and open economy in which the government has reduced its role since the 1980s. Industrial activity is predominantly in food-processing (for example Unilever and Heineken International), chemicals (for example DSM), petroleum refining (for example Royal Dutch Shell), and electrical machinery (for example Philips). In the northern place Slochteren one of the largest natural gas fields in the world is situated. So far (2006) exploitation of this field resulted in a total revenue of ?159 billion since the mid 1970s. N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie still is the largest public-private partnership P3 world-wide following the global energy-transition of 1963 from coal to gas, coupling oil and gas prices. With just over half of the reserves used up and an expected continued rise in oil prices, the revenues over the next few decades are expected to be at least that much.

The Netherlands has the 16th largest economy in the world, and ranks 10th in GDP (nominal) per capita. Between 1998 and 2000 annual economic growth (GDP) averaged nearly 4%, well above the European average. Growth slowed considerably in 2001-05 due to the global economic slowdown, but accelerated to 4.1% in the third quarter of 2007. Inflation is 1.3% and is expected to stay low at around 1.5% in the coming years. Unemployment is at 4.0% of the labour force. By Eurostat standards however, unemployment in the Netherlands is at only 2.9% - the lowest rate of all European Union member states. The Netherlands also has a relatively low GINI coefficient of 0.326. Despite ranking only 10th in GDP per capita, UNICEF ranked the Netherlands 1st in child well-being.

A highly mechanised agricultural sector employs no more than 4% of the labour force but provides large surpluses for the food-processing industry and for exports. The Dutch rank third worldwide in value of agricultural exports, behind the United States and France, with exports earning $55 billion annually. A significant portion of Dutch agricultural exports are derived from fresh-cut plants, flowers, and bulbs, with the Netherlands exporting two-thirds of the world's total. The Netherlands also exports a quarter of all world tomatoes, and one-third of the world's exports of peppers and cucumbers. The Netherlands' location gives it prime access to markets in the UK and Germany, with the port of Rotterdam being the largest port in Europe. Other important parts of the economy are international trade (Dutch colonialism started with cooperative private enterprises such as the VOC), banking and transport. The Netherlands successfully addressed the issue of public finances and stagnating job growth long before its European partners.

Manchester

Culture

Bands that have emerged from the Manchester music scene include The Smiths, the Buzzcocks, The Fall, Joy Division and its successor group New Order, Oasis and Doves. Manchester was credited as the main regional driving force behind indie bands of the 1980s including Happy Mondays, The Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, James, and The Stone Roses. These groups came from what became known as the "Madchester" scene that also centred around the Fac 51 Haçienda (also known as simply The Haçienda) developed by founder of factory records Tony Wilson. Although from southern England, The Chemical Brothers subsequently formed in Manchester.[105] Ex-Stone Roses' frontman Ian Brown and ex-Smiths Morrissey continue successful solo careers. Other notable Manchester acts include Take That and Simply Red. Greater Manchester natives include A Guy Called Gerald, Richard Ashcroft and Jay Kay of Jamiroquai. Older Manchester artists include the 1960s band's The Hollies, Herman's Hermits and the Bee Gees who, whilst commonly associated with Australia, grew up in Chorlton.[106]

Larger venues include the Manchester Opera House, featuring large-scale touring shows and West End shows; the Palace Theatre; the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester's former cotton exchange; and the Lowry Centre, a touring venue in Salford. Smaller sites include the Library Theatre, a producing theatre in the basement of the central library; the Green Room; the Contact Theatre; and Studio Salford. The Dancehouse is dedicated to dance productions.[107]

In the 19th century, Manchester featured in works highlighting the changes that industrialisation had brought to Britain. These included Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848),[108] and The Condition of the English Working Class in 1844, written by Friedrich Engels while living and working in Manchester. Charles Dickens is reputed to have set his novel Hard Times in the city, and while it is partly modelled on Preston, it shows the influence of his friend Elizabeth Gaskell.[109]

The night-time economy of Manchester has expanded significantly since about 1993, with investment from breweries in bars, public houses and clubs, along with active support from the local authorities.[110] The more than 500 licensed premises[111] in the city centre have a capacity to deal with over 250,000 visitors,[112] with 110-130,000 people visiting on a typical weekend night.[111] The night-time economy has a value of about £100 million pa[113] and supports 12,000 jobs.[111]

The Madchester scene of the 1980s, from which groups including The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, 808 State, James and The Charlatans emerged, was based around clubs such as The Hacienda.[114] The period was the subject of the movie 24 Hour Party People. Many of the big clubs suffered problems with organised crime at that time; Haslam describes one where staff were so completely intimidated that free admission and drinks were demanded (and given) and drugs were openly dealt.[114] Following a series of drug-related violent incidents, The Hacienda closed in 1997.[110] Public houses in the Canal Street area have had a gay clientele since at least 1940[110] and now form the centre of Manchester's gay community. Following the council's investment in infrastructure, the UK's first gay supermarket was opened; since the opening of new bars and clubs the area attracts 20,000 visitors each weekend[110] and has hosted a popular festival each August since 1991.[115] The TV series Queer as Folk is set in the area.

Education

There are two universities in Manchester. The University of Manchester is the largest full-time non-collegiate university in the United Kingdom and was created in 2004 by the merger of Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST.[116] It includes the Manchester Business School, which offered the first MBA course in the UK in 1965. Manchester Metropolitan University was formed as Manchester Polytechnic on the merger of three colleges in 1970. It gained university status in 1992, and in the same year absorbed Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education in South Cheshire.[117]

The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Royal Northern College of Music are grouped around Oxford Road on the southern side of the city centre, which forms Europe's largest urban higher education precinct.[118] Together they have a combined population of 73,160 students in higher education,[119] though almost 6,000 of these were based at Manchester Metropolitan University's campuses at Crewe and Alsager in Cheshire.[120]

One of Manchester's most notable secondary schools is the Manchester Grammar School. Established in 1515,[121] as a free grammar school next to what is now the Cathedral, it moved in 1931 to Old Hall Lane in Fallowfield, south Manchester, to accommodate the growing student body. In the post-war period, it was a direct-grant grammar school (i.e. partially state funded), but it reverted to independent status in 1976 after abolition of the direct-grant system.[122] Its previous premises are now used by Chetham's School of Music. There are two schools nearby: Withington Girls' School and Manchester High School for Girls.

Sport

Two Premiership football clubs bear the city's name, Manchester City and Manchester United. Manchester City's ground is at the City of Manchester Stadium (48,000 capacity); Manchester United's Old Trafford ground, the largest club football ground in the United Kingdom, with a capacity of 76,000, and England's only UEFA-rated 5-star stadium, is just outside the city, in the borough of Trafford. Lancashire County Cricket Club's ground is also in Trafford.[123]

The City of Manchester Stadium was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. After the games, one of the stands was replaced in preparation for Manchester City's arrival in 2003. The stadium holds 48,000 fans all-seated, and is one of the largest football stadiums in England. It will host the 2008 UEFA Cup Final. Old Trafford is the only club football ground in England to have hosted the UEFA Champions League Final, in 2003. It is also the venue of the Super League Grand Final in Rugby League.

First class sporting facilities were built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, including the City of Manchester Stadium, the National Squash Centre and the Manchester Aquatics Centre.[124] Manchester has competed twice to host the Olympic Games, beaten by Atlanta for 1996 and Sydney for 2000. The Manchester Velodrome was built as a part of the bid for the 2000 games.[110] It hosted the UCI Track Cycling World Championships for the third time in 2008. Various sporting arenas around the city will be used as training facilities by athletes preparing for the 2012 Olympics in London. The MEN Arena hosted the FINA World Swimming Championships in 2008.[125]

Media

ITV franchisee Granada Television has its headquarters in Quay Street, in the Castlefield area of the city.[126] Granada produces the world's oldest and most watched television soap opera, Coronation Street,[127] which is screened five times a week on ITV1. Local news and programmes for the north-west region are produced in Manchester.

Manchester is one of the three main BBC bases in England,[126] alongside London and Bristol. Programmes including A Question of Sport, Mastermind,[128] and Real Story,[129] are made at New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road, just south of the city centre. The hit series Cutting It was set in the city's Northern Quarter and ran on BBC1 for five series. Life on Mars was set in 1973 Manchester. Also, The Street, winner of a BAFTA and International Emmy Award in 2007 is set in Manchester.[130] The first edition of Top of the Pops was broadcast from a converted church in Longsight on New Year's Day 1964.[131] Manchester is also the regional base for the BBC One North West Region so programmes like North West Tonight are produced here.[132] The BBC intends to relocate large numbers of staff and facilities from London to Media City at Salford Quays. The Children's (CBBC), Comedy, Sport (BBC Sport) and New Media departments are all scheduled to move before 2010.[133] Manchester has its own television channel, Channel M, owned by the Guardian Media Group and operated since 2000.[126] The station produces almost all content including local news locally and is available nationally on the BSkyB television platform. Television characters from Manchester include Daphne Moon (played by Jane Leeves), of Frasier, Charlie Pace (played by Dominic Monaghan) of Lost, Naomi Dorrit (Lost) and Nessa Holt (Las Vegas), both played by local actress Marsha Thomason.

The city has the highest number of local radio stations outside London including BBC Radio Manchester, Key 103, Galaxy, Piccadilly Magic 1152, 105.4 Century FM, 100.4 Smooth FM, Capital Gold 1458, 96.2 The Revolution and Xfm.[134][135] Radio Manchester returned to its former title in 2006 after becoming BBC GMR in 1988.[136] Student radio stations include Fuse FM at the University of Manchester and MMU Radio at the Manchester Metropolitan University.[137] A community radio network is coordinated by Radio Regen, with stations covering the South Manchester communities of Ardwick, Longsight and Levenshulme (All FM 96.9) and Wythenshawe (Wythenshawe FM 97.2).[135] Defunct radio stations include Sunset (which became) Kiss 102 (now Galaxy), and KFM which became Signal Cheshire (now Imagine FM). These stations, as well as pirate radio, played a significant role in the city's House music culture, also known as the Madchester scene, which was based around clubs like The Haçienda which had its own show on Kiss 102. Radio producer and author Karl Pilkington, of The Ricky Gervais Show fame, is from Manchester.

Manchester is also featured in several Hollywood films such as My Son, My Son! (1940), directed by Charles Vidor and starring Brian Aherne and Louis Hayward. Also Grand Hotel (1932), in which Wallace Beery often shouts "Manchester!". Others include Velvet Goldmine starring Ewan McGregor, and Sir Alec Guinness's The Man in the White Suit. More recently, the entire city of Manchester is engulfed in runaway fires in the 2002 film 28 Days Later. The city is also home to the Manchester International Film Festival[138] and has held the Commonwealth film festival.

The Guardian newspaper was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian. Its head office is still in Manchester, though many of its management functions were moved to London in 1964. Its sister publication, the Manchester Evening News, has the largest circulation of a UK regional evening newspaper. It is free in the city centre, but paid for in the suburbs. Despite its title, it is available all day.[139] The Metro North West is available free at Metrolink stops, rail stations and other busy locations. The MEN group distributes several local weekly free papers.[140] For many years most of the national newspapers had offices in Manchester: The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Sun. Only The Daily Sport remains based in Manchester. At its height, 1,500 journalists were employed, though in the 1980s office closures began and today the "second Fleet Street" is no more.[141] An attempt to launch a Northern daily newspaper, the North West Times, employing journalists made redundant by other titles, closed in 1988.[142] Another attempt was made with the North West Enquirer, which hoped to provide a true "regional" newspaper for the North West, much in the same vein as the Yorkshire Post does for Yorkshire or The Northern Echo does for the North East; it folded in October 2006.[142] There are several local lifestyle magazines, including YQ Magazine and Moving Manchester.[143]

Twin cities and consulates

Manchester has formal twinning arrangements (or "friendship agreements") with several places.[144][145] In addition, the British Council maintains a metropolitan centre in Manchester.[146] Although not an official twin city, Tampere, Finland is known as "the Manchester of Finland" - or "Manse" for short.

Manchester is home to the largest group of consuls in the UK outside London. The expansion of international trade links during the industrial revolution led to the introduction of the first consuls in the 1820s and since then over 800, from all parts of the world, have been based in Manchester. Manchester has remained (in consular terms at least) the second city of the UK for two centuries, and hosts consular services for most of the north of England. The reduction in the amount of local paperwork required for modern international trade is partly offset by the increased number of international travellers. Many pass through Manchester Airport, easily the UK's biggest and busiest airport outside the London area.[148]

United Kingdom

Sport

The Scottish football league system is much smaller, with just two national leagues: the Scottish Premier League (SPL) and the Scottish Football League which has three divisions. There are, however, other regional leagues that are not connected to the national system, most notably the Highland Football League. One English club, Berwick Rangers, plays in the Scottish system. Scotland is home to world-renowned football clubs such as Rangers and Celtic. Scottish teams that have been successful in European Competitions include Celtic (European Cup in 1967), Rangers (European Cup Winners Cup 1972) and Aberdeen (European Cup Winners Cup and European Super Cup in 1983).

The Welsh football league system includes the League of Wales and regional leagues. League of Wales club The New Saints play their home matches on the English side of the border in Oswestry. The Welsh clubs of Cardiff City, Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport County, Swansea City and Wrexham play in the English system. Cardiff's 73,000 seater Millennium Stadium is the principal sporting stadium of Wales.

The Northern Irish football league system includes the Irish Football League. One Northern Irish club, Derry City, plays their football outside of the UK in the Republic of Ireland football league system.

Both forms of rugby are national sports. Rugby League originates from and is generally played in the Northern England, whilst Rugby Union is played predominantly in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Southern England. Though supposedly originating from the actions of William Webb Ellis at the School at Rugby, it is now considered the national sport of Wales. In rugby league the UK has been represented by a single 'Great Britain' team but this will change for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup in which Scotland, England and Ireland will compete as separate nations.[125] This bring it into line with Rugby Union in which England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (which consists of players from Ireland and Northern Ireland) already compete in international competition. However, every four years a British and Irish Lions team tours Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, composed of players selected from all the Home nations.

There is no UK-wide team in Cricket. The game was invented in England and the England Cricket Team, technically the England and Wales team, is the only national team in the UK with Test status. Irish and Scottish players have played for England because neither Scotland nor Ireland have Test status and only play in One Day Internationals. As of 2006, teams representing Scotland, England (and Wales), and Ireland (including Northern Ireland) compete at the One-Day International level. England and Wales has a professional league championship in which County teams compete.

The game of tennis first originated from the City of Birmingham between 1859 and 1865. The Wimbledon Championships are international tennis events held in Wimbledon in south London every summer and are regarded as the most prestigious event of the global tennis calendar.

Thoroughbred racing is popular throughout the UK. It originated under Charles II of England as the "Sport of Kings" and is a royal pastime to this day. World-famous horse races include the Grand National, the Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot. The town of Newmarket is considered the centre of English racing, largely due to the famous Newmarket Racecourse.

The UK has proved successful in the international sporting arena in rowing. It is widely considered that the sport's most successful rower is Steven Redgrave who won five gold medals and one bronze medal at five consecutive Olympic Games as well as numerous wins at the World Rowing Championships and Henley Royal Regatta.

Golf is one of the most popular participation sports played in the UK, with St Andrews in Scotland being the sport's home course.

Shinty (or camanachd) (A sport derived from the same root as the Irish hurling and similar to bandy) is popular in the Scottish Highlands, sometimes attracting crowds numbering thousands in the most sparsely populated region of the UK.

The country is closely associated with motorsport. Many teams and drivers in Formula One (F1) are based in the UK and drivers from Britain have won more world titles than any other country. The country hosts legs of the F1 and World Rally Championship and has its own Touring Car Racing championship, the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC). The British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone each July.

Culture

The origins of the UK as a political union of formerly independent countries has resulted in the preservation of distinctive cultures in each of the home nations.

For details, see articles on:Culture of England, Culture of Scotland, Culture of Wales, Culture of Northern Ireland.

The United Kingdom has been influential in the development of cinema, with the Ealing Studios claiming to be the oldest studios in the world. Despite a history of important and successful productions, the industry is characterised by an ongoing debate about its identity, and the influences of American and European cinema. Famous films include the Harry Potter and Ian Fleming's James Bond series which, although now made by American studios, used British source materials, locations, actors and filming crew.

The English playwright and poet William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time.[126][127][128]

Among the earliest English writers are Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century) , Geoffrey Chaucer (14th century) , and Thomas Malory (15th century). In the 18th century, Samuel Richardson is often credited with inventing the modern novel. In the 19th century, there followed further innovation by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, the social campaigner Charles Dickens, the naturalist Thomas Hardy, the visionary poet William Blake and romantic poet William Wordsworth. Twentieth century writers include the science fiction novelist H. G. Wells, the controversial D. H. Lawrence, the modernist Virginia Woolf, the prophetic novelist George Orwell and the poet John Betjeman. Most recently, the children's fantasy Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling has recalled the popularity of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Scotland's contribution includes the detective writer Arthur Conan Doyle, romantic literature by Sir Walter Scott, the epic adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson and the celebrated poet Robert Burns. More recently, the modernist and nationalist Hugh MacDiarmid and Neil M. Gunn contributed to the Scottish Renaissance. A more grim outlook is found in Ian Rankin's stories and the psychological horror-comedy of Iain Banks. Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, is UNESCO's first worldwide city of literature.

In the early medieval period, Welsh writers composed the Mabinogion. In modern times, the poets R.S. Thomas and Dylan Thomas have brought Welsh culture to an international audience.

Authors from other nationalities, particularly from Ireland, or from Commonwealth countries, have lived and worked in the UK. Significant examples through the centuries include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and more recently British authors born abroad such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Sir Salman Rushdie.

In theatre, Shakespeare's contemporaries Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson added depth. More recently Alan Ayckbourn, Harold Pinter, Michael Frayn, Tom Stoppard and David Edgar have combined elements of surrealism, realism and radicalism.

The prominence of the English language gives the UK media a widespread international dimension.

The BBC is the UK's publicly funded radio, television and internet broadcasting corporation, and is the oldest and largest broadcaster in the world. It operates several television channels and radio stations in both the UK and abroad. The BBC's international television news service, BBC World, is broadcast throughout the world and the BBC World Service radio network is broadcast in thirty-three languages globally, as well as services in the national language of Wales on BBC Radio Cymru and programmes in Scottish Gaelic in Scotland and Irish in Northern Ireland.

The domestic services of the BBC are funded by the television licence, a legal requirement for any British household with a television receiver that is in use to receive broadcasts, regardless of whether or not the householders watch BBC channels. Households which are the principal residence of any person over 75 are exempt[129] and the requirement does not extend to radio listeners. The BBC World Service Radio is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the television stations are operated by BBC Worldwide on a commercial subscription basis over cable and satellite services. It is this commercial arm of the BBC that forms half of UKTV along with Virgin Media. There are five major nationwide television channels in the UK: BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five - currently transmitted by analogue terrestrial, free-to-air signals with the latter three channels funded by commercial advertising. In Wales, S4/C the Welsh Fourth Channel replaces Channel 4, carrying Welsh language programmes at peak times. It also transmits Channel 4 programmes at other times.

The UK now has a large number of digital terrestrial channels including a further six from the BBC, five from ITV and three from Channel 4, and one from S4/C which is solely in Welsh, among a variety of others.

The vast majority of digital cable services are provided by Virgin Media with satellite being provided by BSkyB and free-to-air digital terrestrial television by Freeview. The entire country will switch to digital by 2012.

Radio in the UK is dominated by BBC Radio, which operates ten national networks and over forty local radio stations. The most popular radio station, by number of listeners, is BBC Radio 2, closely followed by BBC Radio 1. There are hundreds of mainly local commercial radio stations across the country offering a variety of music or talk formats.

Traditionally, British newspapers could be split into quality, serious-minded newspaper (usually referred to as "broadsheets" due to their large size) and the more populist, tabloid varieties. For convenience of reading, many traditional broadsheets have switched to a more compact-sized format, traditionally used by tabloids. The Sun has the highest circulation of any daily newspaper in the UK, with approximately a quarter of the market; its sister paper, The News of The World similarly leads the Sunday newspaper market,[130] and traditionally focuses on celebrity-led stories. The Daily Telegraph, a right wing broadsheet paper, has overtaken The Times (tabloid size format) as the highest-selling of the "quality" newspapers.[131] The Guardian is a more liberal "quality" broadsheet. The Financial Times is the main business paper, printed on distinctive salmon-pink broadsheet paper.

First printed in 1737, the Belfast News Letter is the oldest known English-speaking daily newspaper still in publication today. One of its fellow Northern Irish competitors, The Irish News, has been twice ranked as the best regional newspaper in the United Kingdom, in 2006 and 2007.[132] Aside from newspapers, British magazines and journals have achieved worldwide circulation including The Economist and Nature.

Scotland has a distinct tradition of newspaper readership (see List of newspapers in Scotland). The tabloid Daily Record has the highest circulation of any daily newspaper outselling the Scottish Sun by 4-1 while its sister paper, the Sunday Mail similarly leads the Sunday newspaper market. The leading "quality" daily newspaper in Scotland is The Herald, though it is the Scotsman's sister paper, the Scotland on Sunday that leads in the Sunday newspaper market. [133]

Classical music: Notable composers from the United Kingdom have included William Byrd, Henry Purcell, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Arthur Sullivan (most famous for working with librettist Sir W. S. Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Benjamin Britten, pioneer of modern British opera. London remains one of the major classical music capitals of the world.

Popular music: Prominent among the UK contributors to the development of rock music in the 1960s and 1970s were The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Queen, and Black Sabbath. Heavy metal, hard rock, punk rock and New Wave were among the variations that followed. In the early 1980s, UK bands from the New Romantic scene such as Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet, Soft Cell and Ultravox were prominent. In the 1990s, Britpop bands and electronica music attained international success. More recent pop acts, including The Smiths, Oasis and the Spice Girls, have ensured the continuation of the UK's massive contribution to popular music.

The United Kingdom is famous for the tradition of "British Empiricism", a branch of the philosophy of knowledge that states that only knowledge verified by experience is valid. The most famous philosophers of this tradition are John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. Britain is notable for a theory of moral philosophy, Utilitarianism, first used by Jeremy Bentham and later by John Stuart Mill, in his short work Utilitarianism. Other eminent philosophers from the UK include William of Ockham, Thomas Hobbes, Bertrand Russell, Adam Smith and Alfred Ayer. Foreign born philosophers who settled in the UK include Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx, Karl Popper, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The modern scientific method was promoted by the English philosopher Francis Bacon in the early seventeenth century, and subsequent advances credited to British scientists and engineers include:

Notable civil engineering projects, whose pioneers included Isambard Kingdom Brunel, contributed to the world's first national railway transport system. Other advances pioneered in the UK include the marine chronometer, television, the jet engine, the modern bicycle, electric lighting, the electric motor, the screw propeller, the internal combustion engine, military radar, the electronic computer, vaccination and antibiotics.

Scientific journals produced in the UK include Nature, the British Medical Journal and The Lancet. In 2006, it was reported that the UK provided 9% of the world's scientific research papers and a 12% share of citations.[134]

The Royal Academy is located in London. Other major schools of art include the Slade School of Art; the six-school University of the Arts, London, which includes the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Chelsea College of Art and Design; the Glasgow School of Art, and Goldsmiths, University of London. This commercial venture is one of Britain's foremost visual arts organisations. Major British artists include Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, William Morris, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Gilbert and George, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Howard Hodgkin, Antony Gormley, and Anish Kapoor. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the Saatchi Gallery in London brought to public attention a group of multigenre artists who would become known as the Young British Artists. Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Tracy Emin, Mark Wallinger, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Wood, and the Chapman Brothers are among the better known members of this loosely affiliated movement.