Officially name: The Falkland Islands
Capital: Stanley
Largest city: Stanley
Official language: English
Government: British Overseas Territory (constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democratic dependency)
The Falkland Islands are a homogeneous society, with the majority of inhabitants descended from Scottish and Welsh immigrants who settled the territory in 1833. The 2006 census listed some Falklands residents as descendants of French, Gibraltarians and Scandinavians.
The Falkland Islands are located in the South Atlantic Ocean on a projection of the Patagonian continental shelf about 250 nautical miles (288 mi; 463 km) from the Patagonia coastline and slightly to the north of the southerly tip of Cape Horn and of its undersea extension, the Scotia Arc. In ancient geological time this shelf was part of Gondwana, which around 400 million years ago broke from what is now Africa and drifted westwards relative to Africa.