Regional situation
Northern Ireland is a constituent country of the United Kingdom, lying in the northeast of the island of Ireland, covering 5,459 square miles (14,139 km²), about a sixth of the island's total area. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west. At the time of the UK Census in April 2001, its population was 1,685,000, constituting between a quarter and a third of the island's total population and about 3% of the population of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland consists of six of the nine counties of the historic Irish province of Ulster. In the UK, it is generally known as one of the four Home Nations that form the Kingdom.
Gross value added (GVA) per head in Northern Ireland in 2006 was £15,200 compared with £19,100 for the UK as a whole.
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