The United Kingdom
Situation: Great Britain or The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is situated on the north-west part of Europe. In area of Great Britain, there is a lot of islands, the biggest of them is Great Britain and next are for example Irish island with Northern Ireland, isle of Man between Great Britain and Ireland, Shetlands islands, Orkneys and Hebrides or Isle of Wight.
Great Britain is separated from continental Europe by English Channel (Channel la Manche) on the south, western coast is dipped by the Irish sea, eastern cost by the North sea and northern part of Great Britain by the Atlantic ocean. Great Britain is the insular country, so they don’t have any real neighbours and it has nature border lines created by sea or the channel.
Basic facts: Great Britain covers more then 250 000 square kilometers and its population is about 58 millions. Great Britain is divided into four parts- England – the biggest, Scotland, Wales (these are three historical parts) and Northern Ireland, which was connected to Great Britain in 1921 as a result of national referendum. But it was very complicated, because in Northern Ireland live two religion groups: in first group there are the catholics and in the second are protestants. Catholic group wanted to separate from Great Britain and situation was not optimal especially in the 70‘s, when there were many terrorist attacks in Belfast.
Northern Ireland has own representatives in British Senate. Great Britain is country of one nation, more then 90 percent of people are British origin. But by this time many immigrants from anothers countries live there. England has difficult political rules for immigrants.
History: First mention about Great Britain can be found in The Old Ages, when ancient Roma occupied this area, Julius Caesar led invasion about 55 years BC. From this time comes first mention about village named Londonium, which became capital city. Later, England became a leading state in Europe and in the world. It was always mighty monarchy with strong king. In 17th and 18th century Great Britain was state number one of the world due to its colonies. In 20th century GB had lost this position and many of those colonies became an independent states. Great Britain is nowadays a leader state of British Commonwealth Countries (group of states).
Political system: Great Britain is constitutional monarchy. Head of state is queen Elizabeth II, but she doesn’t have the real power. Queen is represented by Prime Minister Tony Blair from Labour party.
The surface: Great Britain has various surface with Central lowlands on the south and with highlands on the north (Scotland). There are for example the Cornish Heights, the Cambrian in Wales, the Pennies in the central Britain, the Cambrick Highlands in Scotland and the Scottish highlands with the highest peak Ben Nevis (1342 m) and the Grampians.
Rivers: Great Britain has a lot of short and long rivers, so river network is quite dense. The most important of them are The River Thames, it flows through London, The River Mersey, it flows through Liverpool and the River Clyde or Dee in Scotland.
The climate: Great Britain lies in temperate climate zone, climate is determinated by the ocean. There are not big differences in temperature between winter and summer and there are many rainy allocations.
Towns: Capital city of Great Britain is London, it is one of the largest city of the world, it has population about 8 mil. people. It is remarkable city, where the old Victorian architecture style is connected with modern and progressive style.
Liverpool is famous as a cradle of music stars called the Beatles, it is old industry town with many factories and air pollution. Similar describing is used for Manchester, a center of textile industry. Capital city of Wales is Cardiff, old historical town, center of industry. Capital city of Scotland is Edinburgh, traditional Scottish town and seat of kings, bigger than Edinburgh is Glasgow, industry town, center of commercion and services.
Industry: Great Britain is one of the richest country of the world and has very developed economy. During 20th century we can notice that British industry changed from heavy industry with traditional branches as shipbuilding, car and train building, engineering. In this dominate chemical industry and production of consumable electronics (televisions, radios, house equipment).
Natural resources: Thanks to long intensive mine activities there are just a little raw materials. Important are coal, petrol, natural gas, gold, zinc, steel, oil, metals etc.
Agriculture: Only 2 percent of British people work in agriculture. There is an important production of wheat, corn, vegetables and strawberries on south-west part. Ground is not too fertile, so for Great Britain is very important cattle breeding and production of meat.
Major partners for Great Britain are Germany, France, Netherlands and the others countries of European Union.
Sports: British love sport. Sports matches are important social events. The most popular are football, the highest football competition is called Premier League, next popular sports are tennis (Wimbledon), cricket, polo.