The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England and Scotland and was administered by the War Office from London. Since 1963, it has been managed by the Ministry of Defence.

The British Army consists of 109,740 regular soldiers (with 98,560 trained), plus 3,640 Gurkhas and 34,000 Territorial Army soldiers, giving it a total of around 147,000 soldiers in October 2008[1]. The full-time element of the British Army has also been referred to as the Regular Army since the creation of the reservist Territorial Army in 1908. The British Army is deployed in many of the world's war zones as part of both Expeditionary Forces and in United Nations Peacekeeping forces. The British Army is currently deployed in Kosovo, Cyprus, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places.

In contrast to the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force, the British Army does not include "Royal" in its title. Primarily this is because historically the British Army is the Army of Parliament and not the Crown. This position was confirmed by the Bill of Rights 1689 requiring Parliamentary Authority to maintain a standing army in peacetime. Nevertheless, many of its constituent Regiments and Corps are styled Royal and have members of the Royal Family occupying senior positions within some regiments.[2]

The professional head of the British Army is the Chief of the General Staff, currently Sir Richard Dannatt