People and Culture
The UK has a very multicultural society and is very open to new religions and cultures. While also keeping long-held traditions like maintaining a royal party, the UK has changed greatly and has become much more cosmopolitan and multicultural. The UK is seen as a destination of great diversity with London being the hub for many international students.
Religion
The main religion in the UK is Christianity which makes up about 50 percent of the religious population, largely split between the Church of England and Catholicism.
In addition to Christianity, the UK has large numbers of practicing members of other major world religions, as follows:
- Christian: 50.7%
- Muslim: 2.5%
- Hindu: 0.7%
- Jewish: 0.6%
- Sikh: 0.3%
- Buddhist: 0.6%
- Other non-Christian: 1.5%
Language
The main language in the UK is English, which is spoken throughout the whole country. In Wales, some people still speak Welsh. However, since all Welsh people also speak English, you only need to speak English in the UK. For such a relatively small country, there are a lot of dialects, and some of them can be hard to understand, even for English people. Dialects can include:
- Cockney: people from London (and probably the most common)
- Brummy: people from Birmingham
- Mancunian: people from Manchester
- West Country: people from Devon, Cornwall and Bristol area
- Scouser: people from the Liverpool area
- Geordie: people from Newcastler, Middlesborough and Sunderland
- Scottish: people from Scotland
- Welsh: people from Wales
If the UK sounds like a location with the type of culture you would like to immerse yourself in as an international student, begin the process of searching for a UK university.