Ben Nevis, the highest mountain, rises to only 1,345 metres (4,413 ft),[6] and Lough Neagh, which is notably larger than other lakes in the island group, covers 390 square kilometres (151 sq mi).

This led to a landscape that was long dominated by temperate rainforest, although human activity has since cleared the vast majority of forest cover.

The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, by 12,000 BC, when Great Britain was still part of a peninsula of the European continent.

The expansion of the British Empire and migrations following the Irish Famine and Highland Clearances resulted in the dispersal of some of the islands' population and culture throughout the world, and rapid depopulation of Ireland in the second half of the 19th century.

[36] According to Philip Freeman in 2001, "it seems reasonable, especially at this early point in classical knowledge of the Irish, for Diodorus or his sources to think of all inhabitants of the Brettanic Isles as Brettanoi".

[37] Strabo used Βρεττανική (Brettanike),[38][39][40] and Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, used αἱ Πρεττανικαί νῆσοι (the Prettanic Isles) to refer to the islands.

[41] According to A. L. F. Rivet and Colin Smith in 1979 "the earliest instance of the name which is textually known to us" is in The Histories of Polybius, who referred to them as: αἱ Βρεταννικαί νήσοι, romanized: hai Bretannikai nēsoi, lit.

[50][51] John Skelton's English translation of Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica, written in the middle 1480s, mentions the British Isles as the yles of Bretayne.

[52] Thomas Twyne's English translation of Dionysius Periegetes's Orbis descriptio, published in 1572, mentions the British Isles as the Iles of Britannia.

[60] Of particular note was the Caledonian orogeny during the Ordovician and early Silurian periods, when the craton Baltica collided with the terrane Avalonia to form the mountains and hills in northern Britain and Ireland.

Further collisions caused the Variscan orogeny in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, forming the hills of Munster, south-west England, and southern Wales.

Despite this, Britain retained its primeval forests longer than most of Europe due to a small population and later development of trade and industry, and wood shortages were not a problem until the 17th century.

By the 18th century, most of Britain's forests were consumed for shipbuilding or manufacturing charcoal and the nation was forced to import lumber from Scandinavia, North America, and the Baltic.

Other small mammals, such as rabbits, foxes, badgers, hares, hedgehogs, and stoats, are very common and the European beaver has been reintroduced in parts of Scotland.

In general, Great Britain has slightly more variation and native wildlife, with weasels, polecats, wildcats, most shrews, moles, water voles, roe deer and common toads also being absent from Ireland.

On a global scale, this disaster led to the creation of an Irish diaspora that numbers fifteen times the current population of the island.

Around 1.9 million years ago these two ice sheets frequently merged, essentially creating a land bridge between Scandinavia and northern Great Britain.

[15][90] However, the Irish Sea was formed before Doggerland was completely covered in water, with Ireland becoming an island roughly 6,000 years before Great Britain did.

[91] The first evidence of human activity on the islands dates from 840,000 or 950,000 years ago, based in flint tools found near Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast of Great Britain.

The Romans expanded their civilisation to control southern Great Britain but were impeded in advancing any further, building Hadrian's Wall to mark the northern frontier of their empire in 122 AD.

A century later, the marriage of the future Henry II of England to Eleanor of Aquitaine created the Angevin Empire, partially under the French Crown.

The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 repeated similar themes: a Catholic king pushing for religious tolerance in opposition to a Protestant parliament in England.

Mass migrations following the Irish Famine and Highland Clearances resulted in the distribution of the islands' population and culture throughout the world and a rapid de-population of Ireland in the second half of the 19th century.

Of these, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved governments, meaning that each has its own parliament or assembly and is self-governing with respect to certain matters set down by law.

For judicial purposes, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales (the latter being one entity) form separate legal jurisdictions, with there being no single law for the UK as a whole.

In addition to this, voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland return members to a devolved parliament in Edinburgh and in Cardiff and an assembly in Belfast.

[99] In the Crown dependencies, any resident can vote in general elections,[100][101][102] but in Jersey and the Isle of Man only British citizens can run for office.

In 2008, a UK Ministry of Justice report investigating how to strengthen the British sense of citizenship proposed to end this arrangement, arguing that "the right to vote is one of the hallmarks of the political status of citizens; it is not a means of expressing closeness between countries".

Similarly, the Parliamentary Assembly has no legislative powers but investigates and collects witness evidence from the public on matters of mutual concern to its members.

Also, since 2001, the professional club teams of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy and South Africa compete against each other in the United Rugby Championship.