GEOGRAPHY

LESSON OVERVIEW
The least
1. Climate you should
know?
2. Land & settlement
3. The environment & pollution

5. Southern 7. Northern
6. The midlands
4. London England England

8. Scotland 9. Wales 10. Northern Ireland

1. CLIMATE
 The land and climate in Britain have
a notable lack of extremes.
• None of the mountains are very high.
• Britain has no really big river.
• It doesn’t usually get very cold in the winter or
very hot in the summer.
• Britain has no active volcanoes and hardly ever
has earth tremors.
 Climate
• - The further west you go, the more rain you get.
• - The winters are a bit colder in the east of the
country than they are in the west.
• - In summer the south is warmer and sunnier than
the north.
• - Snow is a regular feature of the higher areas only.
 Disadvs of the lack of extremes?
• - When it gets genuinely hot or freezing cold,
the country seems to be unprepared for it.
• - A bit of snow and a few days of frost  the
trains stop working and the roads are blocked
• - If the thermometer goes above 27◦C, people
behave as if they were in the Sahara desert
and the temperature makes front-page
headlines.
 2. LAND &
SETTLEMENT
 Land and settlement: variety
- The south and east of the country is The Holbeck Hotel
low-lying, consisting of either flat
plains or gently rolling hills.

- Mountainous areas are found only in

the north and west, although these
regions also have flat areas.

- Under constant attack from the

surrounding sea: every year little bits
of the east coast vanish into the
North Sea.
 Human influence has been extensive

• The forests largely disappeared.

• Greater proportion of grassland than any
other country in Europe except the Republic
of Ireland
• The enclosure of fields with hedgerows (esp.
common in southern England)
Grassland Hedgerows
 Much of the land is used for human habitation
• densely populated; desire of privacy and their love of the
countryside
• the English and Welsh don’t like living in blocks of flats
in city centres
• the proportion of people who live in blocks of flats is
lower than in other European countries
• cities in England and Wales built outwards rather than
upwards (NOT the case in Scottish cities)
• Greater London has about 3 times the population of
Athens but occupies 10 times the area of land.
 3. THE
ENVIRONMENT
& POLLUTION
 The environment and pollution
• - The world’s first industrialized country  smoke
• - 19th cen., London “pea-soupers” (thick smog) became famous (works of
Charles Dickens and in Sherlock Holmes stories)
• - Smog reached its worst point in 1952.
• - At the end of 1952, bad smog, which lasted for several days, estimated to
have caused between 4,000 and 8,000 deaths.
• - Water pollution was also a problem.
• - The 1960s and 1970s, laws passed forbade the heating of homes with open
coal fires in city areas and stopped much of the pollution from factories.
• - End of 1970s, possible to catch fish in the Thames outside Parliament
4. LONDON
 London (largest city in Europe)
• - dominates Britain
• - home for the headquarters of all government
departments, Parliament, the major legal institutions and
the monarch
• - the country’s business and banking centre and the centre
of its transport network
• - the headquarters of the national TV networks and of all
the national newspapers
• - about 7 times larger than any other city in the country
• - about 1/5 of the total population of the UK lives in the
Greater London area
 Walled city of London:
The West End and
colloquially known as “the
square mile” the East End
• - The original walled city of London was quite small (colloquially
known today as “the square mile”).
• - 2 other well-known areas of London are the West End (many
theatres, cinemas, expensive shops) and the East End (poorer
residential area of central London, home of the Cockney and
large numbers of immigrants).
• - The population in the central area has decreased in the second
half of the 20th cen. The majority of Londoners live in the
suburbs.
• - cosmopolitan (137 languages spoken in the homes of 1 district
– survey carried out in the 1980s)
• - London in decline in recent years: losing its place as one of the
world’s biggest financial centres and looks rather dirty and
neglected.
 5.
SOUTHERN
ENGLAND
 Southern England
• - most densely populated area in the UK
• - does not include a large city
• - millions of inhabitants travel into London to work every day
• - the county of Kent: “the garden of England” (many fruits and
vegetables grown there)
• - The Downs, a series of hills in a horseshoe shape to the south of
London, are used for sheep farming.
• - the southern side of the Downs reaches the sea in many places and
forms the white cliffs of the south coast (many retired people live here)
• - employment mainly in trade, services and light manufacturing (little
heavy industry) -> NOT suffered the slow economic decline of many
other parts of England
• - “The West Country” has an attractive image of rural
beauty in British people’s minds.
• - East Anglia, to the north-east of London, is
comparatively rural. It’s the only region in Britain where
there are large expanses of uniformly flat land.
• - The flatness and comparatively dry climate have made it
the main area in the country for the growing of wheat and
other arable crops.
• - Part of this region, the area known as the Fens, has been
reclaimed from the sea, and much of it still has a very
watery, misty feel to it.
 6. THE
MIDLANDS
 The Midlands
• - Birmingham: Britain’s second
largest city
• - Birmingham and the
surrounding area of the West
Midlands (sometimes known as
the Black Country) developed
into the country’s major
engineering centre.
• - Factories convert iron and steel
into a vast variety of goods
 The Midlands
• - Other industrial areas , notably the towns between the Black
Country and Manchester known as The Potteries (producing china)
• - Grimsby: one of Britain’s most important fishing ports
• - tourism flourished in Shakespeare country and the legend of
Robin Hood (Nottingham)
 7.
NORTHERN
ENGLAND
 Northern England
• - The Pennines mountains run up the
middle of northern England like a
spine.
• - On either side, the large deposits of
coal (used to provide power) and iron
ore (used to make machinery) enabled
these areas to lead the Industrial
Revolution in the 18th cen.
• - The Manchester area (western side)
became the world’s leading producer
of cotton goods (19 cen.)
• - Towns such as Bradford and Leeds
(eastern side) became the world’s
leading producers of woolen goods.
 Northern England

• - Many other towns sprang up

on both sides of the Pennines.
• - Further south, Sheffield
became a centre for the
production of steel goods.
• - Further north, around
Newcastle, shipbuilding was the
major industry.
• - The decline in heavy industry in Europe in the second half of
the 20th cen. has hit the industrial north of England hard.
• - For a long time, the region as a whole has had a level of
unemployment significantly above the national average.
• - town on either side of the Pennines flanked by steep slopes ->
difficult to build and surrounded by land unsuitable for any
agriculture other than sheep farming
• --> the pattern of settlement in the north of England is different
from that in the south.
• – Further away from the main industrial areas, the north of
England is sparsely populated.
• - In the north-western corner of the country is the Lake District.
 8.
SCOTLAND
Scotland
 Scotland
• - North of the border with England
are the southern uplands, an area of
small towns, quite far apart from
each other, whose economy depends
to a large extent on sheep farming.
• - Further north, there is a central
plain.
• - There are the highlands, consisting of
mountains and deep valleys and
numerous small islands off the west
coast
• - Scotland’s 2 major cities: Glasgow
and Edinburgh
 Glasgow Edinburgh (capital)
- third largest city in Britain - half the size of Glasgow
- heavy industry - middle-class image
- some of the worst housing - scholarship, the law,
conditions in Britain administration
- strong artistic heritage - many fine historic buildings
- received many immigrants from - topography (there is a rock in
Ireland the middle of the city on which
stands the castle): called “the
Athens of the north”
9. WALES
 Wales
• - most people live in one small part of
Wales (as in Scotland)
• - south east of the country: most heavily
populated
• - no really large cities
• - only part of Britain with a high proportion
of industrial villages
• - most of the rest of Wales is mountainous
• -> communication between south and
north is very difficult
• -> each part of Wales has closer contact
with its neighboring part of England than it
does with other parts of Wales: the north
with Liverpool; mid-Wales with the English
west midlands
 10.
NORTHERN
IRELAND
 Northern Ireland

The Giant’s Causeway

- largely agricultural (except Belfast:
famous for the manufacture of linen
and a shipbuilding city)

- The Giant’s Causeway on the north

coast: the rocks form what look like
enormous stepping stones