Northern Ireland Post Codes & Zip Codes List

Northern Ireland, UK Description

Northern Ireland is a constituent state of the United Kingdom, located in the island of Ireland's northeastern quadrant, on the western continental periphery commonly referred to as Atlantic Europe. It is the only part of the United Kingdom that is not part of the European Union. Northern Ireland is occasionally referred to as Ulster, despite the fact that it consists of only six of the nine counties that comprised that historic Irish province.

A long history of newcomers and emigrants has shaped Northern Ireland, which has welcomed Celts from Europe's continental shores as well as Vikings, Normans, and Anglo-Saxons. Over the course of the 17th century, thousands of Scottish Presbyterians were forcibly resettled and English military garrisons were established, resulting in the institutionalization of the ethnic, religious, and political divisions that eventually led to violent conflict.

Since the 1920s, when Northern Ireland was officially separated from the Republic of Ireland, the region has been wracked by sectarian violence. It doesn't matter how serious Northern Ireland's peacemaking efforts have been since the mid-1990s; those who are familiar with the shibboleths and cultural codes that define its peoples are the best equipped to navigate the region, dictating which football (soccer) team to root for, which whiskey to sip, and which song to sing. An old graffito once scrawled on the walls of Belfast captures the complexities of those political markers: "If you are not confused, you do not understand the situation." Outsiders are increasingly familiar with Northern Ireland because of its contributions to world culture, including poetry by Seamus Heaney and music by Van Morrison. However, Northern Ireland's political fortunes have improved since then, and with that improvement has come a flourishing of the arts.

Located in Northern Ireland's capital, Belfast, a modern city whose historic core was severely damaged by aerial bombardment during World War II. Belfast, once known for its shipyards (where the Titanic was built), has seen a significant reduction in the size of its industrial base. Aesthetically, the city is similar to Northern Ireland's other major cities, Londonderry (also known as Derry locally and historically) and Armagh, in that it is adorned with parks and orderly residential neighborhoods. It is even more beautiful in Northern Ireland's countryside: lush, fertile, and dotted with rivers and lakes. These features, as well as the country's folk and artistic traditions, have found poetic expression in the country's folk and artistic traditions.

Geographical Description of Northern Ireland

On the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland occupies approximately one-sixth of the total land area. It is separated from Scotland, which is also a part of the United Kingdom, on the east by the narrow North Channel, which is only 13 miles (21 kilometers) wide at one point and forms a natural border with the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea separates Northern Ireland from England and Wales on the east and southeast, respectively, and the Atlantic Ocean separates it from the rest of the world on the north. The Republic of Ireland forms the southern and western borders of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

In terms of topography, Northern Ireland can be thought of as a saucer with its center at Lough (lake) Neagh, and the highlands can be considered the inverted rim of that saucer. On the rim of the saucer, five of Ireland's six historic counties—Antrim, Down, Armagh, Tyrone and Londonderry—converge to form the lake, and each has its own highland region that extends from its shores. Towards the north and east, Antrim's mountains (which are actually a plateau) rise steeply from the sea and slope upward. It reaches an elevation of 1,817 feet (554 bmetres) at Trostan, with the plateau terminating in an impressive basalt and chalk cliff coastline, broken by a series of glaciated valleys known as glens and facing Scotland, but otherwise isolated from the remainder of Northern Ireland. Slieve Croob (which rises to 1,745 feet (532 metres) in the southeast) and the Mourne Mountains (which reach an elevation of 2,789 feet (850 metres) at Slieve Donard (Northern Ireland's highest point) are all within two miles (3 kilometers) of each other in the southwest. In the southeast, the rounded landscape of drumlins—smooth, elongated mounds left by the final Pleistocene glaciation' South of Carlingford Lough, this magnificent landscape of granite peaks is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.

The scenery is gentler south of Lough Neagh, but the land rises to a height of 1,886 feet (575 metres) in Slieve Gullion, near the Irish border, where the land rises to 1,886 feet (575 metres). West of Lough Neagh, the land gently rises to the more rounded Sperrin Mountains; Sawel, at 2,224 feet (678 metres), is the highest of several 2,000-foot-plus hills in the area; Sawel is also the highest point in the area (610 metres). Located in the far southwest, historically known as County Fermanagh, the region is geographically centered on the basin of Lough Erne, in a drumlin-strewn area surrounded by hills rising to more than 1,000 feet (300 metres) in elevation.

The Economy of Northern Ireland

Because of its close ties to the rest of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland's economy is inextricably intertwined with it. Trade between Northern Ireland and its closest neighbor, the Republic of Ireland, has grown significantly in recent years despite the fact that economic ties between the two countries have historically been underdeveloped. Northern Ireland's economy has long been underperforming in comparison to the rest of the United Kingdom, owing largely to political and social unrest on the island of Ireland. The International Fund for Ireland was established in the 1980s by the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland to aid in the development of the country's economy. Providing economic assistance to the entire island, with a particular emphasis on Northern Ireland, the fund's mission is to alleviate poverty. The European Union also provides financial assistance to the Northern Ireland government and its citizens.