Located in the North Atlantic,Ireland is the third-largest island in Europe (after Great Britain and Iceland), separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Politically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (with Dublin as capital city), which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland (with Belfast as capital city), which is part of the United Kingdom. In 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.6 million (under 4.8 million in the Republic of Ireland and over 1.8 million in Northern Ireland).
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