© Н. А. Овсянникова, 2016

© Д. С. Ведунова, 2016

© Роман Алексеевич Голобоков, cover design, 2016

Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero

Geographical location and characteristics of the country

Features of the geographical location and the United Kingdom, located in the British Isles in the north-western coast of continental Europe, traditionally called (by the name of the largest island), the United Kingdom, and the name of its main part of England. Officially it is called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In fact the UK has three historical and geographical areas: England, Wales and Scotland. The structure of the United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland, which occupies the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland. This is the fourth region of the country. British Isles is the most extensive archipelago in Europe. It consists of two large islands – Great Britain and Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, and another 5 thousand small islands, among which highlights the three island groups in the North: Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland and the Isle of Man, England and others. The UK is an archipelago of an irregular shape with a very diverse landscape and nature. The last one is due to the fact that the British Isles were once part of Europe, but were cut off from the mainland after the flooding of low-lying land, and now is the bottom of the North Sea and the English Channel. Northern Ireland, which is politically complements the United Kingdom, located on the second largest island of Ireland, and is the western extension of the Scottish mountains. These mountain areas are separated by a narrow channel of the North. The western coast of the island of Great Britain is rocky and steep, east is more gentle. The area of the UK is about 240842 km² Most of it is the land, and the rest are rivers and lakes. England area is 129,634 km², Wales is 20637 km², Scotland is 77179 km² and Northern Ireland is 13438 km². Thus, England is bigger than the other countries of the United Kingdom, and has the largest population. These factors explain the dominance of England in British history. The southern end of the island of Great Britain is Cornwall peninsula – is at 50° NL (North latitude), and the most northern part of the archipelago of Shetland Islands are at 60° N.L. The length of the island of Great Britain from the north to south is 966 km. The British archipelago which is located on the Continental Shelf, is separated by the shallow North Sea from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany and by the narrow English Channel (the British call it the English Channel) and Pas-de-Calais from France. Historically, the UK geographic features have influenced human settlement, migration, armed conquest and political union. They also identified the location and operation of industry, transport systems, agriculture, fishing industry, forests, energy and communications. Today, they continue to determine the life of the British, and in addition, they are closely related to public concern about the environment and wildlife. England (population – 48.2 million people) consists mainly of hilly or flat lowland areas with several mountain zones in the north and south-east. But the low hills stretch across most of the country, interspersed with low-lying lands and plains. The population is concentrated mainly around the city of London and even in the south-east of England, west of Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield, north-western industrial Liverpool and Manchester and the north-east of Newcastle and Sunderland. Wales (population – 2.9 million people) is a mountainous country with a territory stretching across the mountains and hills, often terminates in the deep valleys by riverbeds. These mountains gradually decrease and become the highest hills in the east of England. The highest mountains of Wales, located in the north-west, where Mount Snowdon reaches 1085 m. Lowland lands are limited by narrow coastal zones and river valleys in South Wales, where two-thirds of the Welsh population live. In the past, the Welsh mountain terrain hampered the war, agriculture and human settlement. Scotland (population – 5.1 million people) can be divided into three main parts. The first part is the north-western and central mountains with a lot of islands in the western and northern coasts. These lands are densely populated, and account for half of the whole territory of Scotland. The second part is the central low-lying lands, which make up one-fifth of all the Scottish territory, and three-quarters of the population of Scotland, most of the industrial and commercial centers and arable land. The third part is the southern hills, which include a range of hills stretching to the border with England. The highest mountain in Scotland is Ben Nevis (1342 m), which is also the highest mountain of Great Britain. Northern Ireland (population – 1.6 million people) is separated by only 21 kilometers from the Scottish coast, that was the reason for the migration of peoples in the distant past. Since the partition of Ireland in 1921 to the south and west, it borders with the Republic of Ireland. To the north there is a mountainous coast, in the center, close to the south there is fertile valley, and there are the mountains to the west, north-east and south-east.

Questions on the basis of the material studied:

1. What is the total population of the UK?

2. What is the full official name of the UK?

England

England is the most major historical and administrative part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England’s population is 84% of the total UK population. The capital of England is London, the largest city in the UK and the European Union. England is the place of origin of the English language and the Church of England, and English law forms the basis of the legal systems of many countries. In addition, London was the center of the British Empire, and the country was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Britain was the first industrialized country in the world, and a country with parliamentary democracy, constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that have been adopted by other nations and countries. The Kingdom of England, including the Principality of Wales, was a separate state until 1 May 1707, when united with Scotland in the United Kingdom. England received its name in honor of the Angles, Germanic tribe settled in Britain in the V and VI centuries BC. Some historians believe that this tribe was descended from immigrants who lived on the Angeln peninsula, part of the Jutland peninsula, which is today part of northern Germany. The first mention of England was in the work entitled “Germany”, written in 98 BC. by Roman historian Tacitus. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest known mention of the term “England” in relation to the southern part of the island of Great Britain refers to the year 897.

England occupies two thirds of the island of Great Britain. It has borders with Scotland and Wales. The landscape of England consists mainly of gentle hills to the north where it becomes more mountainous. Mining and flat land conditionally divided by a line drawn between the mouth of the River Tees (Teesside) to the north-east and the mouth of the river Ex (Devon) in the southwest. To the east there is a low-lying marshland, which was mainly drained for agricultural use.

The six largest cities of England: London, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester.

The territory of modern England at the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar 55 BC., as a century later, at the time of capture of the Emperor Claudius, it was inhabited by Celtic tribes, called the Britons. As a result, capturing the entire southern part of the island (modern England and Wales) became part of the Roman Empire until its collapse in the V century BC.

Without the help of the Roman legions Roman Britain could not long resist the barbarians-Germans, appeared in V – VI centuries, as evidenced by the chronicles, at the invitation of the Britons themselves, who hoped to use them to protect themselves from the Celtic tribes from the north – the Picts and the Scots. There were three groups of invaders – the Jutes, Saxons and the Angles. Having mastered the territory of the Britons, the Germans began to press them on the territory of Wales and Cornwall. Over time, some of the kingdom, which formed, in particular, “the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy” (alliance of the seven kingdoms). From time to time one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kings, called “Britvalda”, which can be loosely translated as “Ruler of Britain” gained control over most of England – so it is hard to tell the time when England was finally united. According to some descriptions, the association has come together with the invasion of Danish Vikings, captured the eastern part of England. Egbert, king of Wessex (died 839), often referred to as the first king of all England, although the title “King of England” came just two generations later – during the reign of Alfred the Great (871—899).

William I the Conqueror

Some historians are beginning to count the rulers with the Norman Conquest in 1066, numbering of English monarchs also use the event as a reference point (eg, Edward I, crowned in the XIII century, it was not the first king of the same name, but he was first to Edward since 1066). But William the Conqueror didn’t established and didn’t unite the country, but only took existing England by a Franco-Norman control.

At the end of the XIII century the neighboring principality of Wales was finally conquered by England and became the part of the English kingdom. History of England as an independent state goes through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the reign of Elizabeth I, the last queen of the Tudor dynasty, which reigned after James I, the former King of Scotland under the name of James VI. England Union and Scotland has been added a century later the Act of Union (1707), which finally united England and Scotland in the United Kingdom. After the reforms of the 1990s in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, England remained the only one of the components of the UK, not having its own parliament and government. Parliament functions of England are performed by the UK Parliament, the functions of government by the government of the United Kingdom. Executive power is in charge of the territory of England and is headed by the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

The idea of an independent parliament is supported by many leaders of the Conservative Party, while the Labour Party believes that the creation of independent authorities in the largest part of the kingdom will lead to a sharp decrease in the role of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is fraught with the collapse of the state. Historically, the largest administrative education in England was the county. These formations have arisen from older, pre-existing associations of England: kingdoms (as Sussex and Essex), duchies (like Yorkshire, Cornwall and Lancashire), or simply land parcels, which were awarded the nobility, such as Berkshire. Until 1867, they were divided into smaller formations, called hundreds. Municipality within the county after the political unification virtually absent, so the county boundaries have not been clearly defined and played a little or no role at all. After the industrial revolution the metropolitan counties were formed as a result of major industrial centers, which became the centers of major cities. Currently, Britain has 9 regions and 48 counties. Agriculture, manufacturing, high-tech industry and the sports industry play an important role in the British economy.

Questions on the basis of the material studied:

1. When were England and Scotland united into one kingdom?

2. What plays an important role in the British economy?