Capital: London

Area: nearly245,000
square km
Population: 60 million
inhabitants
 BASIC FACTS
 Situated in the north-west of Europe,
 on the Island of Great Britain, the northern part of
Ireland and more than 5,000 smaller islands
 Surrounded by the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean,
English Channel and the Irish Sea
 The U.K. consists of four areas:
England (London)
Wales (Cardiff)
Scotland (Edinburgh)
Northern Ireland (Belfast)
 MOUNTAINS
 Great Britain can be divided into two main regions:
1. Lowland Britain:
 In the East there is a plain with hills only about 200m high
(Cotswolds, Chilterns, North and South Downs)
 In the western part the hills are a little higher (Exmoor, Dartmoor)

2. Highland Britain:
 The most important range in England is that of Pennines which is
mostly about 600m high
 The highest mountains in England are the Cumbrian Mountains (in
the Lake District) with the highest peak of Scafell Pike – 978m)
 But the highest mountains at all are the Grampian Mountains in
Scotland (the highest peak is Ben Nevis – 1343m above the sea level)
Scenery from Cleeve Hill in
Cotswolds
Exmoor scenery
Location
of the
Pennines
Typical Pennines scenery
Scafell Pike in Cumbrian
Mountains
Ben Nevis
 RIVERS AND LAKES
 The longest rivers in England are: Severn (354km)
Thames (336km)

 The longest river in Scotland is: Tay (193km)

(famous salmon river)
 The longest river at all is the Shannon river in Ireland
(386km)

 Most lakes can be found in:

Lake District (e.g. Windermere Lake)
Northern Scotland (Loch Lomond and Loch Ness)
 The largest lakes are in Northern Ireland:
Lough Neagh
Lough Erne
Lake Windermere (England)
Loch Ness
 CLIMATE

 Winters are not very cold and summers are not very hot
 Winters are mild thanks to the warm Gulf Stream that
flows from the Gulf of Mexico to western Europe
 During the year there is a high rainfall
 Britain is known for its fogs that usually develop in winter
 INDUSTRY
 The U.K. is concentrated on heavy industries such as:
shipbuilding
coal mining
steel production
textiles
 The service sector of the U.K. is dominated by financial
services (especially banking and insurance)

London is the world‘s largest financial centre

 The U.K. is the fifth largest economy in the world,

and the second largest in Europe after Germany
 Political system
 The U.K. is a constitutional monarchy
 The formal head of the state is „Her Majesty“
Queen Elizabeth II
 In fact the country is governed - in her name – by the
Government which is responsible to Parliament
 The UK‘s head of government is Prime Minister
(since May 2010 - David William Donald Cameron, the leader
of the Conservative Party, and the First Lord of the Treasury)
 The UK‘s three major political parties are:
the Labour Party
the Conservative Party
the Liberal Democrats
 Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each has its
own government or Executive (=výkonný výbor)
Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh
The National Assembly for
Wales in Cardiff)
 THE LARGEST CITIES
By population the largest The most important ports are:
cities are:

 Felixstowe /fi:lıkstəuv/ (on

 London the East coast)
 Birmingham  Tilbury /tılbrı/ (near London)
 Liverpool  Southampton
 Leeds  Aberdeen (Scotland)
 Belfast
 Sheffield
 Cardiff
 Bristol  Dover ( the world‘s busiest
 Manchester passenger port)
Birmingham
Liverpool
Port of Dover
 HISTORY
 Originally there were tribes of Celts on the British Isles

 Then the Roman period followed (43 – 410AD)

 To prevent attacks from the North the Romans built Hadrian´s Wall
(in 122 AD)

 Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes conquered the area and
the Anglo-Saxon period started (410-1066AD)
 The Anglo-Saxons divided the area into kingdoms
 In the 9th century the Danes and the Norsemen (Vikings) attacked
England, they succeeded in the North and East but in the South
(Wessex) the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great stopped their
invasion
 When another king – Edward the Confessor - died in 1066
William the Conqueror landed on the South coast and won the
battle of Hastings – he was crowned at Christmas 1066
= Norman conquest

 The Wars of the Roses took place in the 15th century

 They were the wars between the House of York and the House of
Lancaster – the battles lasted nearly 85 years

 In 1485 the Tudor Age started (and lasted till 1603) when Henry
Tudor won the battle of Bosworth and so ended the Wars of the
Roses; he became King Henry VII

 Another famous king of that age was Henry VIII (1509-1547)

who had six wives and established the Church of England
http://tudorhistory.org/wives/
 His daughter Elizabeth I (the Virgin Queen, 1558-1603))
started the age called the Elizabethan Age

 Then a Stuart King James I (1603-1625) united England and

Scotland under Personal Union in 1603

 During the Charles I‘s reign (1625-1649) there were fights

between the King and the Parliament – the civil war was
won by the Parliament and Charles I was executed

 1649 the republic was established – the Commonwealth of

England
 1653 Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Parliament and became
the Lord Protector
 1659 the Monarchy established again (Charles II )
 In 1689 the Bill of Rights definitely put the power
into the hands of the Parliament

 In 1707 the formal union of England and Scotland was

established

 At the end of the 18th century England became the richest

country in the world

 In 1801 Ireland joined to form the UK of Great Britain

and Ireland

 From 1803 to 1815 there was the Napoleonic War

between Britain and France
 Admiral Nelson defeated the French at Trafalgar in 1805
 In 1815 the French were definitely defeated by Wellington
at the Battle of Waterloo

 In the 19th century Britain took part in the Crimean War

 In the 20th century Britain was involved into both world

wars

 In 1922 the Republic of Ireland became independent but

Ulster (Northern Ireland) remained within UK

 In 1927 the name was changed into „The UK of GB and

Northern Ireland“
The last war which Britain had to fight was in 1982 when
Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands - but Britain won the
conflict

Since 1997 we can talk about Post-devolution Britain because

the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly in Wales were
established