The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - Курс лекций

THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND Lecture 1. Geography of the UK Many foreigners say England and English when they mean Britain, or the UK, and the British. This is very annoying for the 5mil people who live in Scotland, the 2,8mil in Wales, and l,5 mil in N. Ireland who are certainly not English. However, the people from Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland and England are all British. 1. Territory and its structure The UK of GB and NI is the political name of the country which is made of England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland (Ulster). Several islands off the Br.coast are also part of the UK (the Isle of Wight, the Orkneys, Hebrides and Shetlands, and the Isle of Scilly). GB is the name of the island which is made up of England, Scotland and Wales and it doesnt include N. Ireland. The southern part of the isle of Ireland is the Republic of Eire. Britain is one of the worlds smaller countries with an area of some 244 100 square km, with some 58 mil people. It stretches for 1000 km from the south to the extreme north, and for 500 km in the widest part. About half the people live in a large belt stretching north-westwards from London across England. Other large concentrations of population are in the central lowlands of Scotland, south-east Wales and the Bristol area, parts of north-east England and along much of the English Channel coast. Wales is located on a peninsula in central-west Britain. Its area, the size of Wales, is about 20,779 km² (8,023 square miles - about the same size as Massachusetts, Slovenia or El Salvador). Within a few miles of Manchester and Sheffield you can be in glorious heather-covered moors. Once the British Isles were part of the mainland of Europe - the nearest point is across the Strait of Dover, where the chalk cliffs of Britain are only 22 miles from those of France. The seas round the British Isles are shallow. The North Sea is nowhere more than 600 feet deep, so that if St. Pauls cathedral where put down in any part of it some of the cathedral would still be above water. This shallowness is in some ways an advantage. Shallow water is warmer than deep water and helps to keep shores from extreme cold. It is, too, the home of millions of fish. The coastline is very indented. This indentation gives a good supply of splendid harbours for ships. On the north-west the coasts are broken by high rocky cliffs. This is especially noticeable in north-west Scotland where you have long winding inlets and a great many slands. 3. Relief In Scotland you have 3 distinct regions. There is the Highlands, then the central plain of Lowlands, finally there are the southern uplands with their gently rounded hills where the ship wander. In England and Wales all the high land is in the west and north-west. The south-eastern plain reaches the west coast only at one or two places - at the Bristol Channel and by the mouths of the rivers Dee and Mersey. In the north you find the Cheviots (a wool producing country in Britain), separating England from Scotland, the Pennines going down England like a backbone and the Cumbrian mountains of the Lake District, one of the loveliest and wettest parts of England. In the West are Cambrian mountains which occupy the greater part of Wales. The south-eastern part of England is a low-lying land with gentle hills and coast which is regular in outline, sandy or muddy, with occasional chalk cliffs, and inland a lovely pattern of green and gold - for most of Englands wheat is grown here - and brown plough land with pleasant farms and cottages in their midst. Its rich brown soil is deeply cultivated - much of it is under wheat; fruit-growing is extensively carried on. A quarter of the sugar used in the country comes from sugar beet grown there, but the most important crop is potatoes. The position of the mountains naturally determined the direction and length of the rivers, except the Severn and Clyde, flow into the North Sea. The rivers of Britain are of no great value as waterways - the longest, the Thames, is a little over 200 miles - and few of them are navigable except near the mouth for anything but the smaller vessels. In the estuaries of the Thames, Mersey, Tyne, Clyde, Tay, Forth, and Bristol Avon are some of the greatest ports. 4. Climate The climate of the United Kingdom is classified as a mid-latitude oceanic climate, with warm summers, cool winters and plentiful precipitation throughout the year. The principal factors that influence the countrys climate include its northerly latitude, the close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, and the warming of the surrounding waters by the Gulf Stream. The weather can be notoriously changeable from one day to the next but temperature variations throughout the year are relatively small. The average total annual sunshine in the United Kingdom is 1339.7 hours, which is just under 30% of the maximum possible. The south coast of England often has the clearest skies because cumulus cloud formation generally take