Most popular UK news stories of 2011 revealed

Facebook has revealed the 20 most popular news stories in the UK this year, with a BBC report on the world's population hitting seven billion proving the biggest hit.

In second place was a story from The Sun about a woman who's jealous ex-boyfriend tattoo'd a big poo on her back, and in third was a piece from The Guardian on police violence at the Occupy Wall Street protest.

Fourth was the BBC reporting on tributes to Amy Winehouse, and fifth was another article from the Beeb about a man who was allowed to wear a colander on his noggin for his driving-license.

Check out the full list for yourself, which covers news subjects from the Japanese tsunami to the death of Osama Bin Laden, and a drunken elk that got stuck in a tree.

The BBC has by far the most hits in the list.

Facebook deduced which stories were most popular by examining "select media outlets". It figured out which articles from those sites received the most clicks from Facebook having been Liked, shared or posted to people's profiles. In other words, the stories that were generating the biggest ruckus on Zuckerberg's social network.

What was your biggest news story of the year? Was there anything in the list you were surprised to see, or an absent story that should have made the grade? Tell us in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.