UK Prime Minister David Cameron is visiting Scotland today, for discussions about the details of a referendum on independence that is likely to take place in the autumn of 2014.
The Scottish National Party (SNP), led by Alex Salmond, which is in power in the devolved Parliament in Edinburgh, will campaign for independence in the referendum. The vote may also include a third option, for greater devolution.
If it is successful, Scotland will become an independent country for the first time in nearly 300 years as soon as 2015. It would become a country with just over 5 million people, and a per capita GDP of roughly $27,000. English would remain the official language.
Precedents for such a split are few and far between. In Europe, the most recent example was the so-called velvet divorce when Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Slovakia. More recently, in Africa, South Sudan...