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Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles. It lies to the northwest of Continental Europe with Ireland to the west and comprises the larger part of the territory of the United Kingdom. Great Britain is also used as a geopolitical term describing the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales, which together comprise the entire island and some outlying islands. In everyday speech and non-official writing in all English-speaking and most other countries, "Great Britain", and simply "Britain", are much more commonly used than "United Kingdom" to designate the sovereign state officially known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (see United Kingdom). In addition, "Great Britain" and/or the abbreviation "GB" (or "GBR") are officially used for the entire UK by the Universal Postal Union, the International Olympic Committee, NATO, the International Organization for Standardization, and other organisations. (See also country codes and international licence plate codes). The term Great Britain was used officially for the first time during the reign of King James VI of Scotland, I of England. Though England and Scotland each remained legally in existence as separate countries with their own parliaments, on 20 October 1604 King James proclaimed himself as 'King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland', a title that continued to be used by many of his successors. In 1707, an Act of Union joined both parliaments. That Act used two different terms to describe the new all island nation, a 'United Kingdom' and the 'Kingdom of Great Britain'. However, the former term is regarded by many as having been a description of the union rather than its name at that stage. Most reference books therefore describe the all-island kingdom that existed between 1707 and 1800 as the Kingdom of Great Britain." In 1801, under a new Act of Union, this kingdom merged with the Kingdom of Ireland, over which the monarch of Great Britain had ruled. The new kingdom was from then onwards unambiguously called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties were given independence to form a separate Irish Free State. The remaining truncated kingdom has therefore since then been known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England's economy is the largest of the four economies of the United Kingdom, with 100 of Europe's 500 largest companies based in London. As part of the United Kingdom, England is a major centre of world economics. One of the world's most highly industrialised countries, England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry and the manufacturing side of the software industry. London exports mainly manufactured goods and imports things such as petroleum, tea, wool, raw sugar, timber, butter, metals, and meat. England also exports large amounts of meat, exporting over 30,000 tonnes of beef last year, worth around £75,000,000, with France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain being the biggest importers of beef from England. The central bank of the United Kingdom, where interest rates are set and monetary policy is implemented, is the Bank of England in London. London is also home to the London Stock Exchange, the main stock exchange in the UK and the largest in Europe. London, is an international leader in finance and the largest financial centre in Europe. England follows the Anglo-Saxon economic model. Traditional heavy and manufacturing industries have declined sharply in England in recent decades, as they have in the United Kingdom as a whole. At the same time, service industries have grown in importance. For example, tourism is the sixth largest industry in the UK, contributing 76 billion pounds to the economy. It employs 1,800,000 full-time equivalent people — 6.1% of the working population (2002 figures). The largest centre for tourism is London, which attracts millions of international tourists every year.
As part of the United Kingdom, England's official currency is the Pound Sterling (also known as the British pound or GBP). Local small businesses play an incredibly important part of the economy of Great Britain, and there must be a way for small businesses to market themselves in an effective way on a large scale. Luckily there is... WebNet has been developed for small businesses as a low cost local marketing platform. WebNet GB has been set up for companies to market their existing site, or provide a site for low cost to have a presence on the Internet.
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