How many constituencies is the country divided into for the General Election?

The importance of parties and of the people in the British system of government can best be appreciated by seeing what happens at a General Election.
    At this, which must take place at least every five years, elections are held in every constituency in Britain to decide which individuals shall represent them in the House of Commons. For electoral purposes the country is divided into 635 constituencies, each of which returns one Member of Parliament. Each constituency contains, on the average, about 63,000 electors. Any citizen over the age of 18 can vote in the constituency where he usually resides; only criminals, lunatics, and members of the House of Lords are disqualified from voting. Similarly, any citizen can become a candidate for election to Parliament, though there are two conditions: he or she must get ten electors in the constituency to nominate him as a candidate, and he must put down a deposit of 150 pounds which he forfeits if he gets less than one-eighth of all the votes cast in the constituency.
    On the day appointed for the election, voters go to the polling stations in their constituency and indicate, by marking a ballot form, which of the various candidates listed on the form they would like to have as their representative in the House of Commons. At the end of the day the ballot-boxes, into which the voters have put their marked forms, are sealed and taken to one center in the constituency, unlocked, and the votes counted in the presence of the candidates. The one who has the most votes (even if he has only more than his nearest opponent) is successful, and will go to Westminster as Member of Parliament for that constituency.