The Geography of the United Kingdom

England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom

The terms used loosely to mean England are various. One may find England
being referred to as Britain or Great Britain. Some may call it the United
Kingdom. People sometimes confuse Great Britain with the British Isles.

The British Isles is actually a geographical term used to mean a group of Islands
of the northwest coast of mainland Europe. The largest island in the British Isles
is Great Britain, which comprises England, Scotland and Wales. The second
largest island is Ireland. It is made up of the Irish Republic and Northern
Ireland. The United Kingdom is a short name for the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland. It consists of four countries: England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland.

Plains, Mountains, Rivers and Lakes

In the United Kingdom, Scotland is the most mountainous region with the
highest peak, Don Nevis (1,343 metres) in the Grampian Mountains. There are
also substantial uplands in Wales and Northern Ireland. England has the
Pennine Range, which extends about 224 kilometres and is thus called the
backbone of England. The flattest area in England is East Anglia, which is the
largest agricultural plain.
Rivers in the United Kingdom are quite short. Among the longest are the Severn
and the Thames in England. The largest freshwater lake is Lough Neagh in
Northern Ireland. It covers an area of 392 km and is the largest freshwater lake
in the British Isles. The lake is the private property of the Earl of Shaftesbury.

Task 1: Match the words with correct definitions

1. The British Isles
2. Great Britain
3. The United Kingdom
4. Ben Nevis
5. East Anglia
6. Severn
7. Lough Neagh
8. Pennine Range
A. England, Scotland and Wales.
B. Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
C. Great Britain, Ireland and other small islands.
D. The largest freshwater lake.
E. The highest point in the United Kingdom.
F. One of the longest rivers.
G. The longest plain used for farming.
H. The longest mountain range

Major Cities
In terms of population, the largest city in the United Kingdom is London. It is
the capital city of both England and the United Kingdom. Glasgow is the largest
city in Scotland; however, Scotland s capital city is Edinburgh, its second
largest city. Cardiff is the capital city of Wales, while Belfast is the capital city
of Northern Ireland.

Weather and Climate

The United Kingdom has a generally mild and temperate climate with warm
summers, cool winters and plentiful precipitation throughout the year. The
weather tends to be very changeable within a day or from one day to the next as
a result of the influence of different air masses.

Winter in the United Kingdom is generally cool, wet and windy. Snow falls
mainly in the northern and eastern areas and in particular in the highlands of
Scotland. Spring is a calm, cold and dry season. As the sun is higher in the sky,
the day is longer. Summer is a rather dry season. The northwest and northeast
have cool summers, the southwest has rather warmer summers (average 17°C),
and the south and southeast have the warmest summers. The weather in autumn
is extremely unsettled. It is actually the stormiest time of the year.

Task 2: Answer the following questions

1. What is the largest city in the United Kingdom? London
2. What is the capital of the United Kingdom? London
3. What is the largest city in Scotland?
4. Is it true that the capital city is the largest city in the country?
5. What is precipitation?
6. What causes the weather of the United Kingdom to be changeable?
7. What constituent country in the United Kingdom generally has the coolest
weather in winter?
8. What season causes the people in the United Kingdom most trouble?

Government and Politics

The British Royal Family

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Direction: Read the following passage and answer the questions.

The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy--that is, the head of state is a
monarch with limited powers. Britain's democratic government is based on a
constitution composed of various historical documents, laws, and formal
customs adopted over the years. Parliament, the legislature, consists of:
(1) The House of Lords today that has around 1,200 members is more a place of
discussion and debate than one of power, and it normally passes legislation
already approved by the House of Commons (Crowther (Ed.), 1995:D3). Its
members are not elected. The House of Lords comprises the lords temporal, the
lords spiritual, and the law lords. The lords temporal are either hereditary peers
or life peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch for the duration of the
person's lifetime. These appointments are usually made in recognition of
outstanding careers or contributions to society.
(2) The House of Commons which has 650 Members of Parliament is the source
of real political power in the United Kingdom (Crowther (Ed.), 1995:D3). Its
members are democratically elected by universal suffrage of citizens over the
age of 18. Certain groups that are denied the right to vote, however, include
members of the House of Lords, some detained mental health patients,
sentenced prisoners, and those convicted of corrupt or illegal election practices
in the previous five years. In addition, certain persons are excluded from
standing for election to the House of Commons. They include peers, clergy
from the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Church of Ireland, or
the Roman Catholic Church, people sentenced to more than a year in prison and
those with unpaid bankruptcy bills.
(3) The monarch or the Crown who theoretically has enormous powers, but in
reality those powers are limited and the Crown follows the dictates and advice
of the ministers in Parliament. Primogeniture, the passing of the throne to the
eldest son when a monarch dies, has been the rule of succession, and when there
are no sons, the eldest daughter ascends the throne.
The chief executive of the government is the prime minister. He or she is the
leader of the party that holds the most seats in the House of Commons. The
monarch goes through the ceremony of selecting as prime minister the person
from the House of Commons who is head of the majority party. The prime
minister presides over the Cabinet and selects the other Cabinet members, who
join him or her to form the government that is part of the functioning executive.
Acting through the Cabinet and in the name of the monarch, the prime minister
exercises all of the theoretical powers of the Crown, including making
appointments. In the past, prime ministers also came from the House of Lords.
Today, in the unlikely circumstance that a peer (a member of the House of
Lords) is sought as a prime minister by one of the parties, he or she must first
resign from the House of Lords and gain election to the House of Commons.
The Cabinet has about 20 members, or ministers, all of whom must be members
of Parliament (MPs). Members of the Cabinet are leaders of the majority party
in the House of Commons or, more rarely, members of the House of Lords.
Cabinet ministers who head a particular government department, such as the
Ministry of Defense, are known as secretaries of state. The prime minister
serves as the first lord of the treasury and as minister for the civil service. Two
key doctrines of Cabinet government are collective responsibility and
ministerial responsibility. Collective responsibility means that the Cabinet acts
unanimously, even when Cabinet ministers do not all agree upon a subject. If an
important decision is unacceptable to a particular Cabinet member, it is
expected that he or she will resign to signify dissent. Ministerial responsibility
means that ministers are responsible for the work of their departments and
answer to Parliament for the activities of their departments. The policy of
departmental ministers must be consistent with that of the government as a
whole. The ministers bear the responsibility for any failure of their department
in terms of administration or policy.
The Privy Council comprises all current and former Cabinet members, as well
as important public figures in Britain and the Commonwealth. The council
advises the monarch and arranges for the formal handling of documents. It has a
large number of committees, each with a specific task, such as dealing with
outlying islands, universities, or legal matters. The most important committee is
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the highest court of
appeal for certain nations in the Commonwealth, some church-related appeals,
and for disciplinary committees of some professions. (Passage adapted from
Weisser and Mark, 2001)

Task 3: Answer the questions.

1. What is UK Parliament comprised of?
2. At what age can UK citizens vote?
3. Who can ascend the throne? And How?
4. Who can be the Prime minister of the UK according to political system?
And How?
5. How is The House of Commons important?

Task 4: Complete in the blank with an appropriate word in the box.

Parliament seat Crown royal supplement

Granting burgesses separately advice representatives

Parliament comprises three parts: the Monarch (Crown), the House of

Lords, and the House of Commons. Over the course of centuries, the.................
of power has passed from the.........................to the Lords to its final resting
place in the House of Commons. .............................. originated in the great
councils called by the Crown during the Middle Ages. Through these meetings,
medieval monarchs sought the.. .......... of their subjects, exchanged information
about the realm, and gathered petitions. In other words, Parliament originated
with the.......................wish to gain the approval and sanction of the realm for
acts of state. Later, Parliament served to ..............................royal revenues by
making grants of taxation—that is, by ..............................the monarch's request
for extra subsidies to pay for wars. The Crown invited all great nobles and
church leaders to attend these councils. By the end of the 13th century .........
from the counties, called knights of the shire, and representatives of the towns,
called.......... .........., were also being summoned to attend regularly. The knights
and the burgesses eventually came to sit........ ............. from the nobles and
church leaders, in what eventually became the House of Commons. The nobles
and church leaders sat in what came to be called the House of Lords. (Passage
adapted from Weisser and Mark, 2001)

United Kingdom Society

ACTIVITY: Read the passage and then answer the questions.

The majority of the people of the United Kingdom are descended from the
many peoples who invaded the islands in the two millennia before 1066.
However, people of many other ethnic backgrounds have settled in the United
Kingdom over the centuries, including Jews, Chinese, central, eastern, and
southern Europeans; and, particularly since the 1950s, people from the
Caribbean and South Asia.
Britain's social structure developed much like the social structure in other
European nations. In the past, most people inherited their class because there
was limited social mobility until modern times. Those with incomes from rents
and property payments were considered in the upper class; those who dealt with
paper, either in business or in a profession, were middle class; and those who
did manual labor, such as carpentry and factory work, were in the working
class.
Upper, landed classes that controlled most of the agricultural land and wealth
emerged during the Middle Ages. Families from these upper classes became the
nobility, or aristocracy, and played key political roles on the monarch's councils,
in the House of Lords in Parliament, and in local government. Often members
of the House of Lords from the nobility had politically conservative views.
England's upper-class structure differed from that of the rest of Europe in three
important ways. In addition to a landowning nobility with the right to sit in the
House of Lords, a lower upper class developed that, while still landed, didn't
have the same privileges as the nobility. Secondly, the aristocracy did not lose
its status during Britain's revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries as the
Continental aristocracy did during revolutions in Europe in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Lastly, inheritance arrangements based on primogeniture, a system in
which the first-born son is the prime inheritor, encouraged a degree of social
mobility.
The lower upper class has been called knights, squires, gentry, or country
gentlemen. Members of this class were elected to the House of Commons and
played a major role in asserting control over monarchs through their positions in
Parliament during the revolutions of the 17th century. Many present-day
members of the House of Commons are still drawn from this class, and they
continue to play significant roles in local politics and as leaders in society.
The principle of primogeniture has had significant consequences for social
structure in Britain. In noble families the first-born son, as the prime inheritor,
gains the title while his siblings have only courtesy titles. These siblings were
likely to do something off of the estate, such as governing a colony, serving as a
general in the army, or playing a part in politics. The younger sons could not sit
in the House of Lords, but they could have political careers in the House of
Commons. Many younger sons of aristocrats also followed religious careers,
becoming bishops and archbishops. For the gentry, or lower upper classes,
primogeniture usually meant the first-born son inherited the estate and the
younger sons sought other occupations, perhaps as doctors, lawyers, or writers.
Many went into professions in which they studied and worked with members of
the middle class. This made for an element of social mobility in the class
structure, although for the gentry it could mean downward social mobility.
Marriages were extremely important to the nobility, as they could provide
alliances with other families to increase a family's prestige or influence.
Families usually took a strong hand in arranging marriages. Women were
expected to marry within their rank, but a woman with a large dowry could
often marry someone with a higher social status an eligible young nobleman or
a gentleman-whose income fell far short of his expenditures.
At present some class distinctions have become blurred in Britain. Today only a
small number of people are considered upper class, and their former influence
in conservative politics has been largely taken over by wealthy people in the
middle class. Liberal and left-wing politics have middle-class leadership as
well. Because the British economy has created many semiprofessional and
technical jobs, it is no longer easy to tell which jobs are middle class and which
are working class. Moreover, growing national affluence has brought greater
social mobility between the working class and the middle class. As
technological advances have expanded the ranks of affluent professionals,
managers, administrators, and technical experts, a proportion of the working
population has shifted into these positions and now identify themselves as
middle class. Although prosperity may move working-class people into the
middle class, no amount of wealth will guarantee upper-class status, which is
determined by land and family. sol tuntes than aslo in ons la statomie
The increasingly widespread distribution of capital has also blurred class lines,
as more money in the form of stocks, bonds, property, and bank accounts is in
more hands. Many middle-class employees and workers have become owners of
capital, particularly in the form of pension plans. There is less inequality in
wealth than earlier in the 20th century, due in part to the spread of home
ownership, and government programs have been created to help equalize access
to health services and education.
Family structure has changed as well with the advent of the nuclear family.
Married couples have an average of two children, a figure that has not changed
since World War II. However, marriage rates fell in the 1980s, and there has
been a significant shift from formal marriage to stable cohabitation. By 1993
one-third of births were to parents who were not formally married. The number
of divorced, separated, or never-married single mothers has also increased.
(Passage adapted from Weisser and Mark, 2001)

Task 5: Answer these questions.

1. How many classes are there in UK society? And what are they?
2. The people from which class take the major role in the House of Commons?
3. What is a nuclear family? Explain.
4. “At present some class distinctions have become blurred in Britain” What
factors contribute to this? Explain.
5. What does the term "single mother" mean?

Educational System of United Kingdom

Cambridge University, England

Directions: Read the passage and then answer the questions

Education is a vital concern throughout Britain because a highly developed

nation depends upon educated professionals and a skilled workforce. The
literacy rate in Britain is one of the highest in the world at over 99 percent.

Compared to the United States, fewer people go on to higher education in

Britain, and there is more emphasis on segregating pupils at the lower levels on
the basis of ability. Most British schools are funded by the central government,
with local governments providing supplemental funding. England and Wales have a
national curriculum of core courses for students 5 to 16 years old, and schools are
inspected by the Office for Standards in Education. National tests at the ages of 7,
11, and 14 assess students' progress. Schools must provide religious education and
daily collective worship for all pupils, although parents can withdraw their children
from these. Fulltime or compulsory education begins at age 5 in Great Britain and at
age 4 in Northern Ireland. In addition, about half of 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled
in specialized nursery schools or in nursery classes at primary schools.

In Britain, the term form is used to designate grade; old boys and old girls refer to
people who have graduated from a school. Private schools or independent schools
are called public schools, a term that means just the opposite in the United States.
What are called public schools in the United States are called state schools in Britain.
When a person is sent down from school, it means he or she has been thrown out.
Grammar schools are university preparatory schools, most of which have been
replaced by comprehensive schools catering to students of all academic abilities.
Secondary modern schools provide vocational education rather preparation for
university entrance.

The responsibility for schools in England is held by the Department of Education,

headed by the Secretary of State for Education, while in Northern Ireland the
responsibility is held by the Department of Education for Northern Ireland, headed
by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In Wales and Scotland education is
now part of the remit for the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, both of
which were elected in May 1999. The majority of funding for state education is
provided from central government revenues; the remainder is met from local
government income from rates on property and local taxes.

Education after 16 is voluntary. After taking at age 16 the examinations for the
General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE; England, Wales, and Northern
Ireland) or the Scottish Certificate of Education, students can choose to stay on in
school or attend colleges of further education. They study either for vocational
qualifications or, in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, for the General Certificate
of Education (GCE) Advanced Level examinations, commonly known as A Levels,
which are the usual requirement for entry to university, teacher-training college, and
other establishments of higher education. Other qualifications such as Advanced
Subsidiary (AS) Level examinations were introduced in 2000, allowing students to
study more than the number of A-levels. General National Vocational Qualifications
(GNVQ-renamed vocational A levels—have been introduced that provide vocational
alternatives to A levels. In Scotland, the equivalent of the A Level is the Scottish
Certificate of Higher Education.

British universities are completely self-governing and are guaranteed academic

independence. Funding for education and research is provided by funding councils
set up by Parliament; many of the older universities also have significant
endowments. The number of universities increased dramatically in 1992 when
polytechnics and some other higher education establishments were given the right
to become universities. (Passage adapted from Weisser and Mark, 2001)

Task 6: Fill in the blank with an appropriate word from the passage you have
read.

1. United Kingdom children begin their compulsory education at

age............ in Northern Ireland and at age................in Great Britain.

2. Compulsory education in United Kingdom takes..................years.

3. Education after 16 of age is not.....

4. In Scotland when the student are in the last step of compulsory education,

they have to take the exam for......

5. The schools which develop all academic abilities of student in order to

prepare them for university are called...

Tourist Attractions
The prominent tourist attractions in the United Kingdom can be found mostly in
its capital city, London. Among them are The British Museum, Westminster,
Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the Tower Bridge.

The British Museum

The British Museum in London is one of the world's largest and most important
museums of human history and culture. The museum was established in 1753
and was based largely on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans
Sloane.

The British Museum has over seven million objects. Many of them are stored
underneath the museum because there is not enough space for display.
Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the British monarch. The
palace was originally known as Buckingham House, built for the Duke of
Buckingham in 1703.

It was later acquired by King George III in 1762. The palace finally became the
official royal residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen
Victoria in 1837.

The Palace of Westminster

The Palace of Westminster, known also as The Houses of Parliament, is the

place where the members of The House of Lords and The House of Commons
conduct their sittings. The Palace lies on the north bank of the River Thames in
the heart of London.
Big Ben

Big Ben is the colloquial name of the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster.
It is a tower built with a large clock face on its four sides. The clock marks the
hour by sounding large bells or chimes. It sometimes plays simple musical
phrases or tunes.

The Tower of London

The Tower of London is officially Her Majesty’s Palace and Fortress. The
tower has been used for many purposes: fortress, palace, place of execution and
prison, mostly for upper class prisoners James I (1566-1625) was the last ruler
who used it as a palace. Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoner The Tower during
the reign of Mary, her sister."
Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames. The bridge can be lifted up to
allow tall ships, quise ships, naval vessels and other large craft to pass under. It
is close to The Tower of London, so it is called Tower Bridge.

Task 7: Mach the words with correct decryptions

1. Westminster A. A clock tower
2. Buckingham B. Where the British Parliament sits
3. Big Ben C. A Jail for upper-class prisoners
4. Tower of London D. The place where the present
5. The British Museum British monarch lives
E. The place that displays a collection
of objects from around the world
 References
Khamkhong, S. (2006) Introduction to English and American Cultural Backgrounds.
MSUPublising: Mahasarakham University
Panawas, S. (2008). Socio-Cultural Backgrounds of English-Speaking Countires. Suan Dusit
RaJabhat University Book Center: Bangkok.