Geography & demographics
Ulster has the population of just under Two million humans & an region of 24,481 square kilometres (8,952 square miles). Its large city is Belfast (Béal Feirste).

Six of Ulster's nine counties, Antrim (Aontroim), Armagh (Ard Mhacha), Down (An Dún), Fermanagh (Fear Manach), Londonderry (Doire) and Tyrone (Tír Eoghain), form Northern Ireland, one of the constitutional area of the United Kingdom. Unionists sometimes refer to Northern Ireland as "Ulster", but that usage is controversial & disputed by numerous, especially geographers & historiographer world health organization utilise a term alone to use to the nine-county province of Ulster. 3 counties in the province of Ulster, Cavan (An Cabhán), Donegal (Dún na nGall) and Monaghan (Muineachán) are a share of the Republic of Ireland. All about half of Ulster's people sleep in Antrim & Down.

English is spoken by virtually everyone in Ulster, using a exception of the Donegal Gaeltacht community world health organization speak Irish, & immigrants living in the province. Irish is the second virtually all widely-spoken language. Cantonese is the third most common mostly ascribable the considerable Chinese community of Belfast, the province's big city. Belfast has additional Chinese eating place by the capita than any more European city.

A large flow of any stream within Irel& (and a British Isles), Lough Neagh, is in eastern Ulster. A province's greatest point is Slieve Donard, within Down (848 metres). A virtually all to the north point of Ireland, Malin Head, and a 2nd international waters drop around Europe, at Slieve League, are besides around Donegal. A hanker flow of any stream in a British Isles, the Shannon, rises in Cavan. Volcanic activity in eastern Ulster led to the formation of the Antrim Plateau and the Giant's Causeway, one of Ireland's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A geographical centre of Ulster is touching a village of Pomeroy, in Tyrone.

History & politics
Early History
Ulster (Cúige Uladh) is one of a quaternion historic Irish provinces. Its early history extends farther back than written records & is known exclusively by legends like a Ulster Cycle. Around early mediaeval Ireland, Ulster was dominated per Uí Néill dynasty who were depending around Tír Eoghan (''Eoghan's United states'') - modern Tyrone. Fallowing a Norman invasion of a twelfth century, a east of the province was conquered by Norman barons, 1st De Courcy, so De Lacy, world health organization founded the Earldom of Ulster - based as much as a modern counties of Antrim & Down. Yet, per prevent of a 15th century, a Earldom experienced collapsed & Ulster was the single Irish province to become totally outside of English control.

In a 1600s Ulster functioned when the endure sconce of the traditional Gaelic way of life, and charted a kill of the Irish forces in the Nine Years War at the battle of Kinsale (1601), Elizabeth I succeeded in subjugating Ulster & tons of Ireland. A Gaelic leaders of Ulster, a O'Neills, and O'Donnells decamped en masse in 1607 to Catholic Europe, finding their power under English suzerainty limited. This allowed a Crown to settle Ulster with supplementary firm English & Scottish planters, which began within earnest in 1610.

Plantations and Civil Wars

A Plantation of Ulster, which was government run, settled simply a counties confiscated from either victims Irish kin that were taking part in the Nine Years War. This required dispossessing hundreds to thousands of the indigen Irish, world health organization were forced per Crown to choose higher poorer land. Numbers of of the two settled inside northern Connacht. These refugees' influence might however exist as heard around the idiom of Irish spoken in Mayo, which have several similarities to Ulster Irish non witnessed elsewhere inside Connacht. Counties Donegal, Tyrone, Armagh, Cavan, Londonderry and Fermanagh were included in the official plantation. All a same, the virtually all extensive personal injury settlement witharound Ulster of English & Scots occurred in Antrim and Down, which were not officially planted, however got been de-populated when you took a war. This unofficial cash settlement continued easily into a 18th century, interrupted only per Catholic uprising of 1641. Hundreds to thousands of Protestants were slaughtered by dispossessed Catholics, an event which remains strong around Ulster Protestant folk memory. In the following wars, Ulster became a field of honor between a Protestant settlers & a native Irish Catholics. Within 1646, a Irish Catholic army under Owen Roe O'Neill inflicted a bloody defeat on a Scottish Covenanter army at Benburb in county Tyrone, but failed to follow up their victory and the war lapsed into stalemate. A war inside Ulster ended sustaining a kill of a Irish Catholic army at the battle of Scarrifholis in 165& a occupation of the province per Cromwellian New Model Army. A atrocities committed by a lot sides in a war poisoned the relationship between Ulster's ethno-religious communities for generations later on.

Forty years late, within 1689, a conflict was re-fought in the Williamite war in Ireland, which provided Protestant loyalists with the iconic triumph of the Siege of Derry, the Battle of the Boyne and the Battle of Aughrim, which are however commemorated in todays world. Under a subsequent Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, most of Ulster's people was excluded from either power in religious evidence. Roman Catholics, descended from a autochthonous Irish, & Presbyterians, descended from Scottish planters, were each discriminated against per Penal Laws, which gave full political rights simply to Anglican Protestants, who were mostly descended from either English settlers.

Republicanism, Rebellion and communal Strife
Following, in the 1790s, numerous Catholics & Presbyterians, inspired per American and French revolutions joined together in the United Irishmen movement (which was founded in Belfast) to noticed the non-unsectarian independent Irish republic. A United Irishmen were particularly hard around Belfast, Antrim and Down. Still, this time too saw very much sectarian violence between Catholics & members of the Church of Ireland (or Anglicans, world health organization practised a state religion & experienced rights denied to each Presbyterians & Catholics), notably a "battle of the Diamond" in 1795, a faction fight between a rival "Defenders" (Catholic) & "Peep of Day Boys" (Anglican), which led to terminated C deaths & to the innovation of the Orange Order. This event, & numerous others rather it, go on when a Penal Laws were relaxed & Catholics began to buy land and require themselves in the linen trade, activities which antecedently got required numbers of burdensome restrictions. Protestants, including Presbyterians, world health organization inside occasionally area of a province experienced are to identify by using a Catholic community, utilized violence to intimidate Catholics world health organization tried to enter the linen trade. It has been guessed that as much as 7000 Catholics were expelled from either Ulster in the period of this violence. Loyalist militias, primarily Anglicans, also utilized violence against a United Irishmen and Catholic and Protestant republicans throughout the province.

Around 1798, the United Irishmen led by Henry Joy McCracken launched a rebellion around Ulster, mostly supported by Presbyterians, however were fleetly put down per British authorities, world health organization listed severe repression when a scrap experienced ended. In the wake up of the failure of this rebellion, and a gradual abolishment of official religious discrimination fallowing a Act of Union in 1800, Presbyterians came to identify more using a state & their Anglican neighbours, world health organization perceived a babies when the lesser of deuce evils.

Industrialisation, Home Rule and Partition
inside a 19th century, Ulster became a virtually all prosperous province in Ireland, using the merely big-shell industrialization in the united states. In the latter a portion of the century, Belfast overtook Dublin as the big city on the island. Belfast became renowned in that period of time for its brobdingnagian dockyards & shipbuilding - notably of the RMS Titanic. In the 19th century sectarian divisions in Ulster became hardened into a policial categories of unionist (supporters of the Union with Britain, mostly Protestant) & nationalist (advocates of Irish independence, usually, though non just, Catholic). A origins of Northern Ireland's todays politics lie around these late 19th century disputes over Home Rule for Irel&, which Ulster Protestants usually opposed - fearing for their status around an autonomous Catholic-dominated Irel& and likewise non trustful politicians from either a agricultural south and west by having supporting a additional industrial economy of Ulster. To resist Front yard Rule, hundreds to thousands of trade unionist, led by Edward Carson and James Craig signed the "Ulster Covenant" of 1912 pledging to resist Irish independence. This movement as well saw a creation of the Ulster Volunteer Force, the number 1 Irish paramilitary class action, sequentially to resist British tries to enforce Personal Rule. Within response, Irish nationalists created the Irish Volunteers - forerunners of the IRA to ensure a passing of the Home Rule Act 1914.

This armed could have-off was interupted per irruption of World War I, in which hundreds to thousands of Ulstermen of everthing religions were flushed. Around particlar, a heavily casualties of a 36th Ulster Section - largely composed of Volunteers from either the UVF became both the source of mourning & pride for the loyalist community, down to the present day. In the aftermath of the War, Ireland saw many years of political violence, by having Irish nationalists launching a guerrilla campaign against British rule (watch Anglo-Irish War). Inside Ulster, a scrap typically took a form of street battles between Protestants & Catholics in the city of Belfast.It has been judged that Two-3000 civilians were flushed therein communal violence, a majority of outdoor enthusiasts existence Catholics. A IRA was relatively quietly inside Ulster, by owning a exception of the in the south Armagh area, where it was led by Frank Aiken. A formal prevent to hostilities were ended per enactment of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 followed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty which ended in the partition of Ireland between the Irish Free State (now Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland. But, great-subordinate violence, typically involving a B-Specials, continued in Ulster, stimulating Michael Collins to order a boycott around northern garden truck, in protest at the attacks on the Catholic/Nationalist community. Around 1922 six out of Ulster's nine counties became Northern Ireland and remained in a United Kingdom, whilst the rest became a portion of the Irish Free State. For the subsequent history of Ulster watch History of Northern Ireland and History of the Republic of Ireland.

Current Politics
When a Catholics of Northern Ireland develop hanker opposed its being, a Ulster Protestants of a triad Republic of Ireland counties use assimilated swell (although there was much of migration into the more hexad counties charted partition). A select few sectarian tensions remain. Eight of the xviii MPs elected from a vi counties of Northern Ireland come Catholics, when one of a x TDs elected from a triad counties in the Republic occurs as Protestant.

A flag of Ulster was the basis for the official flag of Northern Ireland until it was prorogued in 1973.

Sport
Inside Rugby union, the Ulster branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union plays as a professional club in the Celtic League, along with clubs from either Wales, Scotland and a professional clubs from either the more Irish Provinces (Leinster, Munster and Connacht).

Association football (soccer) is divided per border since 1921: there is a Northern Ireland (international) team, but not an Ulster team; there are separate football championships (Irish League in Northern Ireland, League of Ireland in the rest of Ulster). Anomalously, Derry City F.C. has played in the League of Ireland since 1985.

Around Gaelic games, Ulster counties compete with a more Irish counties in a 100%-Irel& Championships and National Leagues, too when the A lot-Ireland inter-club championships. a whole province fields a team to play the more provinces in the Railway Cup. Gaelic football is by far a virtually all popular of the Gaelic games within Ulster, sustaining counties Derry, Antrim, & Down existing every bit 'isolated' Hurling counties.