The geographical position and the environment of great Britain

The British Isles are situated on the continental shelf of the north-west coast of Europe and comprise a group of islands. The United Kingdom comprises the mainland of England, Wales and Scotland (GB) and the northern part of Ireland (Northern Ireland). The combined population of the British Isles – about 60 mln people. The high density of population – a problem!

The BIs are of the continental origin. From the European continent the BIs are separated by the English Channel and the North Sea. There is a tunnel under the English Channel that connects the coasts of England and France. In the west the BIs are washed by the Atlantic Ocean, in the east – by the North Sea. Great Britain and Ireland are separated from each other by the Irish Sea. Apart from Britain the territories of six European countries look into the coasts of the North Sea – France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Norway. The most important sea routes pass through the English Channel and the North Sea linking Europe with the Americas and other continents. The advantageous geographical position of GB created favorable conditions for the development of shipping, trade and the economy as a whole. A place on the continental shelf has been of great advantage to the British fishing industry.

Britain has a generally mild and temperate climate. Because of the cold and warm currents (the North Atlantic Current and the Gulf Stream) the seasonal fall of air temperature is slow and slight. But the weather of the BIs is notoriously variable.

As for the relief, Britain contains rocks of nearly all the main geological periods. There is a wide network of rivers in the BIs, though generally short in length and navigable. Mild maritime climate keeps them free of ice throughout the winter months. The largest river of GB is the Severn.

The rise of Britain as an industrial country in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries was partly due to the presence of mineral resources, which provided raw materials as sources of power (coal, iron ore). But the absence in GB of manganese, chrome, nickel and many other rare metals makes British economy dependent on imported raw materials.

GB is one of the world powers. It is a member of EU, but hasn’t accepted Euro as currency.

 

 

There is a contrast between generally high relief of western and northern Britain and the lowland areas of the south and east Þ there are two topological zones in GB: Highland Britain and Lowland Britain. Highland Britain - the highest point is Ben N e vis [ei] (1,343 m).Highland Britain consists of: England - though it can’t be considered as a very hilly country, it’s still far from being flat everywhere. The most important range of mountains is the Pennine [`penain] range regarded as the backbone of England. Rainfall in the Pennines is abundant and their swiftly flowing streams used to provide power for woollen mills. Today the area is used for water storage: reservoirs in the uplands supply water to the industrial towns on each side of the Pennines. The South-West region is essentially an agricultural area; Wales – consists of a complex of worn down mountain ranges, they are called the Cambrian Mountains; Scotland – may be divided into 3 major physical regions: the highlands, the Southern Uplands and the Central Lowlands. The Scottish Highlands are the most scarcely populated of the 3 regions. The Highlands comprise 47% of the land area of Scotland. The Southern Uplands – agriculture: the region is divided between the sheep pastures of the uplands and the more diversified farming areas of the lowlands. The Central Lowlands of Scotland are the most densely populated of the 3 main regions: they occupy 15% of its area, but contain about 80% of its people. In the fertile sandy soils in the south-west the farmers grow early potatoes. They also cultivate oats; many are engaged in fruit growing and market gardening. Throughout the region sheep are reared on the hills. Ireland – predominately a rural island, with a generally low density of population. Lowland Britain, with very little land over 300 metres. Parts of this area lie under sea level. Soils are relatively fertile and population dense, with few isolated communities.The most extensive plains – the Midland Plain, the London Basin.

The largest river of GB – the S e vern (390 km), the Trent (274 km), the upper Thames (332 km). Scotland – the Tweed, Forth, Dee. Ireland – the River Shannon (384 km).

Most of the British lakes are in part the result of glacial erosion and in part due to chemical solution of the underlying limestone. The largest lake – Loch Lomond (70 square km), the longest – Loch Ness (56 square km). In England the largest lake-Lake Windermere (15square km).

Another geological factor that has had a bearing on human activity and human settlement has been the presence of minerals, in particular coal and iron. The areas in which these were mined became growth centres when Britain became the world's first industrialized nation, in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. Cities such as Glasgow, Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester grew at enormous speed. Coal was once vital to the nation's economy, and the industry employed over one million workers before the First World War. Since that time it has gone into decline, partly because of competition from other fuels, and now only few workers are employed in the industry. Other carbon energy resources - North Sea gas and oil - are now of greater economic importance. The most significant basic geographical fact is that GB is an island and that no part of it is more than 75 miles from the sea. How has this fact influenced history and people's lives? It is clear that a nation surrounded by water has the strategic advantage of being relatively easy to defend. It has been argued that this fact of geography enabled stable political institutions to develop. Even though there is an unresolved territorial dispute over the status of Northern Ireland, Britain has been spared the terrible ethnic and national conflicts that European nations with land borders (e.g. France, Germany, Poland, the Balkan region) have experienced in the not-too-distant past. The English subjugation (покорение) of the Welsh and the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland,although not eradicating (вырывать с корнем) the separate cultural identities of these three parts of the island of Great Britain, did bring about a political stability that might have been more difficult to achieve if the island were part of the European land mass. The development of navies, both merchant and military, expanded British influence and power.

The climate of the United Kingdom is generally mild and temperate (умеренный). Britain’s climate is dominated by the influence of the sea. This moderating effect of the sea is in fact, the cause of the relatively small seasonal contrasts experienced in Britain. The prevailing winds in the British Isles are westerlies. They are extremely moist, as a result of their long passage over warm waters of the North Atlantic. North and north-west winds often bring heavy falls of snow to north Britain during late October and November, but they are usually short-lived. Continental winds from the east sometimes reach the British Isles in summer as a warm, dry air-stream, but they are more frequently experienced in winter when they cross the north sea and bring cold, continental-type weather to eastern and inland districts of Great Britain.

Average annual rainfall in Britain is about 1,100 mm. But the geographical distribution of rainfall is largely determined by topography. The mountainous areas of the west and north have more rainfall than the lowlands of the south and east. Rainfall is fairly well distributed throughout the year; although March to June are the driest months and October to January are the wettest.

Because of the North Atlantic Drift and predominantly maritime air masses that reach the British Isles from the west, the range in temperature throughout the year is never very great. The annual mean temperature in England and Wales is about 10^oC, in Scotland and Northern Ireland about 9^oC. July and August are the warmest months of the year, and January and February the coldest.

The mean winter temperature in the north is 3^OC, the mean summer temperature 12^oC. The corresponding figures for the south are 5^oC and 16^oC. The mean January temperature for London is 4^oC, and the mean July temperature 17^oC.

During a normal summer the temperature may occasionally rise above 30^oC in the south. Minimum temperatures of –10^oC may occur on a still clear winter’s night in inland areas.

The original natural vegetation consisted of forest, fen and marsh in the wet lowlands; heath (пустошь) and moorland (местность поросшая вереском). Today forest and woodland occupy only 9% of the surface of the country. Most of GB is agricultural: one-third is arable and the rest pasture and meadow. Moorlands are found in the upland areas of north and west England, where soils are thin, drainage [`dreinidʒ] is poor and rainfall heavy. Large areas are commonly covered with peat and contain numerous bogs (болото). The hilly moorlands provide several types of wild vegetation, such as heather (вереск), fern (папоротник), other hill grasses.

The soils of the British Isles vary from the thin poor ones of highland regions to the rich fertile brown forest soils of low-lying areas.