PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF BRITAIN

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СТРАНОВЕДЕНИЕ

Сергей Михайлович Коновалов

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8 лекций, 5 семинаров по Великобритании

12 лекций, 5 семинаров по Америке

В 210

34 вопроса ( по 17)

How do you do Britain (2011), American studies

GREAT BRITAIN

1. Geographical position of Great Britain, its advantages and disadvantages.

2. The term “continental shelf” and its importance for the economy of Britain.

Great Britain

British Isles

England

By the British Isles we mean an archipelago of approximately 5000 islands, big and small, located in north-western Europe.

The UK is a political term which means one of the two independent states located on the British Isles.

Great Britain is geographically the largest island of the British Isles but also historically GB is a union of England, Scotland and Wales.

England is a part of the United Kingdom.

The British Isles can be divided in 2 possible ways:

1. Geographically they are divided in 5000 islands, the largest one is Great Britain, the second largest island is Ireland and a number of other islands and their groups. Some of the most important ones: Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland Islands. People in the Hebrides are occupied in farming and herring fishing. The Orkneys specialize in oil transportation and refining. The Shetlands are famous for their ponies. If we move to the south, we’ve got Isle of Man. This island is famous historically for the first parliament in the world which was established in the year 1007. It still administers the island. Moreover, it has its own money (currency) (Manx pounds). If we move to the south we’ve got the Isle of Wight. It's a famous sea holiday resort. The Channel Islands (Нормандские острова) are located much closer to France than to Britain, 2 languages are spoken there: English and French. Jersey.

2. Politically they are divided 2 independent states: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The UK traditionally consists of 4 countries: England with the capital in London, Scotland with the capital in Edinburgh, Wales with the capital in Cardiff, Northern Island with the capital in Belfast. Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland.

The territory of the UK is 243 thousand square kilometers. The population is 65 million people. The UK is washed by the North Sea in the east, the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the English Channel in the south.

The advantages of the UK’s location:

1. The UK is located on the continental shelf. It's a zone of shallow waters that surrounds the continent and separates it from the deep waters of the ocean. Historically, such a location gave a good opportunity for fishing and building ports but the real advantage became obvious in 1970s when huge deposits of oil and natural gas were found in the shelf, which made Britain almost self-sufficient in these resources.

2. Britain's coastline. The main characteristic is indentity (изрезанность) which in the history helped a lot in founding the fleet and building ports.

3. The climate of Britain. Its climate is mild and warm due to the Gulf Stream. Winters are never too cold, and summers are never too hot.

4. The relative isolation of Britain from the rest of the continent.

Disadvantages:

1. The south and south-east of England are located below sea level and that's why are regularly flooded.

2. The problem of overpopulation, especially in England in such areas as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF BRITAIN

Main mountain ranges and picks, rivers and lakes, mineral resources

Mountains

In England there are 3 main mountain ranges: the Pennines are considered to be “the backbone of England” splitting the northern parts into the northern east and the northern west. Cheviot hills are situated on the border between England and Scotland. The highest pick of England is called Scafell (978 m), located in the Cumbrian mountains.

80% of Wales is covered with mountains. The Cambrian mountains. The highest pick is Snowdon (1085 m). Around this pick there is the famous National Park of Snowdonia visited by several millions people every year.

Geographically Scotland is divided into 3 parts: the Highlands in the north, Central Lowland in the center, Sothern Uplands in the south. In the Highlands we’ve got 2 picks: North-west Highlands and the Grampian mountains. The highest pick of Scotland and the whole British Isles is Ben Nevis (1347 m).

Northern Ireland: Antrim mountains, the Sperrin mountains and the Mourne mountains. The highest pick of Northern Ireland is Slieve Donard (852 m).

Rivers

All the rivers in Britain can be roughly divided into 2 groups: those that flow to the North Sea, to the east from England: the Themes, Trent, Tyne, Tees, Ouse, Humber, Spey. From Scotland: Tweed, Forth, Dee.

The second group is the rivers that flow to Atlantic ocean: Mersey, Eden (England), Clyde (Scotland).

The longest river in Great Britain is Severn which starts in Wales and flows into the Bristol Channel (350 km).

The longest river in the British Isles in general is Shannon (384 km).

Lakes

The largest lake in Great Britain is Loch Lomond in Scotland; the largest lake in the British Isles is Loch Ney in Northern Ireland.

The longest lake in GB is Loch Ness which is also famous for its monster.

Lake District in England. This district attracts millions of tourists not only because it's very beautiful but also due to the history of literature.

Mineral resources

From the 14th till the middle of the 20th centuries coal had been the main source of energy in Britain. But with the discovery of oil and natural gas in the continental shelf the role of coal is diminished.

The main deposits of coal in Britain are in Yorkshire and Lancashire, also Central Scotland, the Midlands and South Wales. The main deposits of oil and natural gas are of shore in North Sea in the continental shelf. The main deposits of iron ore are in the same regions where coal is found. Britain has no precious metals. But it's extremely rich in such materials as sand, clay, gravels, granites, chalk used in building industry as well as in different types of salts used in chemical industry.

III. THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Celtic legacy ( наследие )

The Celtic influence in language is naturally mostly felt in Scottish, Welsh and Irish.

· Scottish prefix MC in surnames is Scottish by origin and means “a son of”:

· The word “clan” in Scottish meant a big, very united and friendly family.

Even in English there are many words that have Celtic origin.

Severn comes from the name of the Celtic goddess Sabrina.

Avon means water.

The name Britain is also Celtic and comes from the name of the second group of Celts (Brithonic).

Even the name London is Celtic. It is believed that the Celts built a small village in the estuary [ˈ ɛ stjʊ (ə )ri] (устье) of the river Themes and called it Lindin (lin=lake, din=fort).

Linguistic influence

The Celts were pagans [ˈ peɪ ɡ (ə )nz] (язычники) and believed in different gods mainly connected with nature. The most sacred tree for the Celts was an oak tree. They also had a tradition to decorate their homes with branches of mistletoe (омела белая) and believed that it would protect them from evil spirits. This tradition came to our days in the form in Christmas trees.

The Celts were pretty advanced for their times. They already knew how to produce corn (зерно) in good amounts and also knew how to use tin (олово).

The Roman invasions

There were 3 main reasons why the Romans wanted to conquer Britain:

1. The Romans were interested in the corn and tin that the Celts produced.

2. Rome was a slave owning society while the Celts were not, so the Romans wanted to get fresh supplies of slaves there.

3. In that time (the 1st century B.C.) Rome was in war with Gaul, and the Celts in Britain supported Gaul in that war, so the Romans wanted to punish them for this help.

The process of the conquest took about a century. At first in 55 B.C. Caesar attacked Britain but the Celtic opposition was very strong and he failed. In 54 B.C. he came back with a large army of 25 thousand people and conquered a small area near present-day London. His aim however was not to stay in Britain. He took everything he needed (corn, tin, slaves), imposed high taxes on the Celts and left. Only 90 years later in 43 A.D. Emperor Claudius finally conquered the present-day territory of England and pushed the Celts who lived there to the mountainous areas of Scotland and England.

The Romans brought reading and writing to Britain.

The Romans built a large network of military roads, some of them exist even today (the road that connects London with Chester). The Romans lived in military camps (военный лагерь, лат. castrum - castra), later these camps developed into a big number of towns. If today the name of an English town ends in -chester, -caster or simply –ster, it means that the town was founded by the Romans ( Manchester, Lancaster, Chesterwood ).

To protect themselves from the Celts, the Romans built a number of defensive walls, at least one of them exists even today, for example, Hadrian's wall on the border between England and Scotland, built in the 2^dcentury A.D.

The Romans brought the tradition of baths to Britain. They found hot mineral springs and established the first SPA area in Britain, it is the town of Bath.

In language the Romans had the following influence:

· words connected with building: street, wall, road;

· words connected with food and drinks: wine, cheese, peas.

· words connected with clothing: shirt, belt.

· words connected with Christianity: monk, monastery, bishop, Mass and some others.

In the 4th century A.D. the Roman Empire started to be attacked by the Germanic tribes and all the Romans were withdrawn from distant areas to protect Rome.

In the year 476 the Western Roman Empire collapsed, which marked the beginning of the new period in the history of Europe - Middle Ages.

ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST

In the middle of the 5th century three Germanic tribes arrived in England: Angles, Saxons, Juts. The Angles and the Juts came from the Jutland peninsula (Denmark) and established the following small kingdoms: Northumbria, Murcia, East-Anglia and Kent. The Saxons came from Northern Germany, to be more precise, the territory between the two rivers: the Rhine and the Elbe and established the following small kingdoms: Essex, Wessex, Sussex.

Innovations:

They introduced the 1st administrative system in Britain. The smallest element in this division was a village which consisted of 20-30 families, and the local problems in a village were solved at a special meeting Moot. Villages were united into hundreds, and the main person in a hundred had a title of Alderman. Hundreds were united into shires, and the leader of a shire was a sheriff. And finally, shires created one kingdom. The king was often assisted by a special council of nobles called Witan which is considered to be the predecessor of English parliament.

The Anglo-Saxon rejected slavery and introduced a new system of relations between land-owners and land-users. In this system the users of land had to pay to the owners for the right to use it. They founded feudal relations.

In the year 664 Christianity was officially adopted in England at the Synod of Whitby (прочитать про постепенное распространение христианства в Британии до его официального принятия).

Before the adoption of Christianity the Anglo-Saxons were pagans and this is reflected in modern English in some of the names of week-days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

· Tuesday: Tue was the god of war.

· Wednesday: Waden-Weden-Wedn was the god of kings and power.

· Thursday: Thur/Thor was the god of storm and thunder.

· Friday: Frigga was the goddess of love and beauty.

The first written examples of literary works appeared in England in that time: ‘ The poem of Beowulf’. A bit later –‘ King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table’.

By 829 the Kingdom of Wessex had become the strongest one and it united all the other small kingdoms into one country - England. The first king of England was Egbert. The reason for the unification was the threat of the next invasion, this time from Denmark.