Tomorrow, September 18, the people of Scotland will go to the polls to decide whether or not to become independent.
Campaigners and commentators have made much of the implications for people north of the border - but how would an independent Scotland impact on the rest of the United Kingdom, Europe and indeed the rest of the world?
If the Yes campaigners succeed in their quest for Scottish independence, then the UK is heading for its most significant constitutional crisis since the Great Reform Bill clashes of 1830-32. In 1955, the Conservatives were the biggest party in Scotland but after that, their support dipped.
According to Professor Venon Bogdan of the King’s College in London, in the 1964 and 1974 polls, the Labour Party could not have won without Scottish votes and at the last election in 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron would have gained an overall majority if Scotland's votes had been excluded.
Would Wales move towards independence too?
"At the moment, we find that in all surveys, no matter how exactly you ask the question, support for Welsh independence is around 10 per cent and has not increased at all in the last decade and a half.
The Labour Party has dominated the political scene in Wales since the 1920s, and has also been the largest party in the Welsh National Assembly. The First Minister of Wales; Mr Carwyn Jones told the Daily Graphic that "a strong Scotland in a strong UK is a positive choice".
Some other politicians in Wales are of the view that the referendum could be a turning point with others holding the belief that should Scotland leave the union, Wales would eventually follow suit.
Scotland and Eurozone
There has already been discussion on how Scotland would be admitted to the European Union (EU). Analysts say Scotland would have to reapply for EU membership - a wish that would almost certainly be granted but the terms of accession would be stiff to deter other regions such as Catalonia in Spain, according to the BBC
It has been pointed out that new countries joining the EU are formally required to adopt the euro as soon as the relevant criteria have been met. Mr Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), thinks the country will be able to join the EU, while sidestepping that requirement, though he sees the creation of a "sterling-zone" in which Scotland will share the pound with the UK.
"It is almost certain that there will be a currency agreement, and people will use the pound," Stuart McDonald of the Yes Scotland campaign, the group championing the bid for independence, was quoted as saying.
Alistair Darling, who heads the Better Together campaign, has expressed doubts about that possibility, but said the arrangement would not make sense if the countries were pulling apart politically.
There is a view that if Scotland left the UK, it would weaken the union and make a united Ireland more attractive.
How would The UK fare without Scotland?
Although only residents of Scotland can decide the results of the referendum, a "Yes" vote will mean changes for the whole of the UK - and one of the greatest will be to do with the physical size of the country itself.
The UK will lose 32 per cent of its land since the country is roughly comparable to the size of Romania and New Zealand and without Scotland, it will have the size comparable to Greece and Tunisia.
Scotland contributes about £106.3 billion of goods and services in Gross Value Added (GVA), the key measure by which the Office for National Statistics records regional economic output in The UK.
The effect of Scotland and its population, coupled with leaving The UK would be a small increase in GDP per head of about £117.
The Scottish government's oil and gas analytical bulletin of March 2013 estimated that there was £1.5 trillion in wholesale value left in North Sea oil and gas.
Looking at the headline figures, public expenditure per capita in Scotland is higher than the UK average. In 2013, Scotland's public spending per head stood at £12,300 and for the UK it was £11,000.
It is very difficult to say what Scotland's debt would be but it has been estimated that Scotland's share of debt would be around £92 billion, which is 62 per cent of estimated GDP.
Politics and defence
Scotland’s 59 seats in Westminster (the British Parliament) would disappear if the country votes "Yes" and this could have a drastic impact on future governments.
Britain is one of a handful of nations which has the ability to fight a nuclear war, and Trident is the name of its nuclear weapons programme.
The logic is to deter a nuclear attack on the UK because, even if the nation's conventional defence capabilities were destroyed, the silent submarine would still be able to launch a catastrophic retaliatory strike on the aggressor, a concept known as “mutually assured destruction.”
Each of the four submarines carries a sealed "letter of last resort" in the prime minister's hand, containing instructions to follow if The UK has been devastated by a nuclear strike and the government annihilated.
James Cook of the BBC reports that Trident has a potential destructive power eight times that of the first atomic bomb, which is estimated to have killed 140,000 people, and to have maimed many more, when it was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in Japan on August 6, 1945.
However, the SNP-run Scottish government in Edinburgh has vowed that an independent Scotland would get rid of nuclear weapons, meaning a "Yes" vote would cast doubt on the future of the Scotland-based weapons programme.
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