Britain

Text 1There is often some confusion, both inside and outside Britain, concerning its name and the names of its various peoples.If we are being purely geographical, then the two large islands with all the outlying little islands are called the British Isles. The largest of the islands is called Great Britain, made up of Scotland, England, and Wales, and the second largest is Ireland, which contains two countries: the Republic of Ireland, an independent sovereign state, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is the correct full name of the country, which is often shortened to the UK, or simply Britain. The short form UK is logical, because it is a United Kingdom. But the designation GB is not really correct, since this cannot include Northern Ireland. Although a similar criticism might be made of the word Britain, it has nevertheless become an accepted form. What is not acceptable is to use England as the name for the whole country. The Queen is often called, wrongly, the Queen of England, when she should be called the Queen of Britain.One reason for the acceptance of Britain as the short name of the United Kingdom is perhaps its closeness to the normal adjective British which is used to describe the inhabitants or anything appertaining to Britain. An individual can be described as a Briton, though this is an archaism rarely used seriously. American used to refer to the British as Britishers but this was not well liked and is rarely used today. As a colloquial short form, however, a Brit, or Brits is acceptable but not in formal prose. One word that should never be used to mean all inhabitants of the UK is the word English. The Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh will usually bristle visibly whenever they are so described. Only those born and bred in England (the vast majority of the inhabitants, it is true) should be called English. A Scot (or a Scotsman), a (Northern) Irishman, or a Welshman will refer to themselves as Scottish or (Northern) Irish or Welsh and will accept being called British, and holding a British passport. An Englishman probably doesn't really care. The word is still Kingdom even when thereis a queen as monarch. And Scotch does not describe a Scotsman, it describes a drink for which Scotland is rightly famous and the rest of us properly grateful.Text 2PopulationThe population of the United Kingdom on Census Day 2001 was 58,789,194 it has been revealed by the Registrars General for England and Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland.The populations of individual countries were: England 49,138,831 (83.6 per cent of the total population); Scotland 5,062,011 (8.6 per cent); Wales 2,903,085 (4.9 per cent); Northern Ireland 1,685,267 (2.9 per cent).GeographyBritain lies off the north-west coast of mainland Europe, and hasan area of 244,000square kilometers, small compared to China's 9,600,000. It is just under 1,000 kilometers from the south coast of England to the extreme north of Scotland, and just under 500 kilometers across the widest part. At no point are you ever more than 100 kilometers from the sea.England is largely a lowland country with no high mountains, though there are upland regions such as the Pennine Chain and the Cumbrian mountains in the north, and high moors with beautiful lakes in Yorkshire. There are moors in the West Country, also, and some of the original forest cover remains in the New Forest. In the south there are low chalk hills called the North and South Downs, and the country is well-watered and fertile.Wales is a country of hills and mountains, the highest being Snowdon at 1,085 meters. The high plateau and mountain ranges are deeply cut by steep-sided rivervalleys, and the lower-lying ground is largely confined to the coastal region and the floors or lower slopes of the river valleys.Physically, Scotland is the most rugged and sparsely populated part of the UK, with mountains and lakes in the North (The Highlands) and in the South (the Southern Uplands). The highest mountain in Britain is Ben Nevis, at 1,343 m, in the central Highlands. The landscape is wild and beautiful, with many wide, empty moors and small woods, and the dramatic lakes include the mysterious Loch Ness, supposedly the home of monsters.Northern Ireland is the smallest of the four nations that make up the United Kingdom. It is mostly rural, with low hills and a beautiful lake district which has Britain's largest freshwater lake, Lough Neagh, with an area of 396 sq km. The land is well-watered and fertile, with an ancient small-field pattern of agriculture. Its rugged coastline includes its most famous landmark, the Giant's Causeway, a rocky promontory made up of black hexagonal columns formed by cooling lava millions of years ago. Legend has it that the giant Finn MaCool built it to cross the sea to Scotland.Text 3 Angles Saxons and JutesBritish history has been a history of invasions. Before the first century AD Britain was made up of many tribal Kingdoms of Celtic people: a powerful culture originating in central Europe. Then in 43 AD Britain was invaded by the Roman empire, and England and Wales (though not Scotland or Ireland) became a part of the Roman empire for nearly 400 years. As the Roman empire came under threat from the east, the Roman armies and Roman protection were withdrawn from Britain, and Britain was again divided into small kingdoms, and again it came under threat from outside, this time from Germanic peoples: the Angles and the Saxons.One of the best-known legends derives from this time. In the fifth century AD itis said that a great leader appeared, United the British, and, with his magical swordExcalibur , drove the Saxons back. This is the story of King Arthur , and has been embellished by singers, poets, novelists, and even filmmakers ever since.Although King Arthur's real existence is in doubt, you van visit places associated with his legend, such as the cliff-edge castle at Tintagel in Cornwall. According to legend, Arthur gathered a company of knights to him, who sat at Arthur's castle at Camelot (possibly the real hilltop fort at Cadbury Hill in Somerset). Conflict between his knights led to Arthur creating the famous "round table"at which all would have equal precedence. Perhaps this could be seen as an indicator of the way in which the English have wished to see their monarch as something other than a remote dictator, and have in fact managed to gradually bind the monarchy into a more democratic system rather than completely rejecting it.Whatever Arthur's success, legend or not, it did not last, for the Anglo-Saxons did succeed in invading Britain, and either absorbed the Celtic people, or pushed them to the western and northern edges of Britain. Despite the fact that contemporary English people think of King Arthur as their hero, really he was fighting against them, for these Anglo-Saxons were the forefathers of the English, the founders of Angle-land or England as it has become known.Text 4The Norman ConquestThe next invaders were the Normans, from northern France, who were the descendants of Vikings but who had forsaken their Scandinavian language for French. Under William of Normandy (known as William the Conqueror) they crossed the English Channel in 1066 and in the Battle of Hastings defeated an English army under King Harold. This marks the last time that an army from outside the British Isles succeeded in invading. William took the English throne, and became William the First of England. The Tower of London , a castle in the centre of London which he built, still stands today.The Normans did not settle England to any great extent: rather they imported aruling class. The next three hundred years may be thought of as a Norman (and French-speaking) aristocracy ruling a largely Anglo-Saxon and English-speaking population. This is often used to explain such double vocabularies as pork-pig, mutton-sheep, veal-calf, beef-cow: the word for the meat when cooked is French, while in the fields it is English, revealing who ate the meat and who looked after it. This is the situation which produced another of England's heroic legends. This is the legend of Robin Hood , the Saxon nobleman oppressed by the Normans, who became an outlaw and with his band of "merry men" hid in the forest of Sherwood in the north midlands of England. From this secret place, armed with their longbows, they then went out to rob from the rich to give to the poor. This early English socialist (!) has featured in many television series, both British and American. Some writers have seen in the popularity of this legend of a rebellion hidden in a greenwood a clue to the English character: a richly unconventional interior life hidden by an external conformity. But like all stereotypes, this one has its weaknesses, as many English people, especially young people, like to display their unconventionality externally - for example English punk rockers with their vividly dyed spiky hair. But it is certainly true that the lifeless fronts of many English houses conceal beautiful back gardens. Gardening is one of the most popular pastimes in England, and the back garden provides a place where people's outdoor life at home can go on out of the public gaze. This may contrast with people from other countries whose outdoor life might be more social - sitting on the front porch watching passers-by.Text 5WalesThe capital of Wales is Cardiff, a small city of about 300,000 people on the south coast. This southern area was an important element in Britain's industrial revolution, as it had rich coal deposits. Coal mining became a key industry for the Welsh, employing tens of thousands at its height. So its recent disappearance has been a major economic and cultural blow. But South Wales has been very successful in attracting investment from abroad - particularly Japan and the United States, whichhas helped to create new industries to replace coal and steel.Wales is the smallest among the three nations on the British mainland, though larger than Northern Ireland. It is very close to the most densely populated parts of central England. Though it is hillier and more rugged than adjacent parts of England, there is no natural boundary. So Wales has been dominated by England for longer than the other nations of the union. Nevertheless, what is remarkable is that despite this nearness and long-standing political integration, Wales retains a powerful sense of its difference from England. It also retains its own language, Welsh. This is a Celtic tongue, completely different from English, spoken by about 20% of the population, a much higher proportion than speak Gaelic in Scotland or Irish Gaelic in Northern Ireland. As with Gaelic-speakers, all Welsh-speakers also speak fluent English but with a charming lilting accent. Music is in the Celtic soul, and the Welsh are famous for their singing and their poetry.Like the rest of Britain before the arrival of the Roman Empire, Wales was a land of Celtic peoples, living in a number of small tribal kingdoms. Wales was conquered by the Romans eventually, though with difficulty. The Welsh chieftain Caradoc fought a long guerrilla campaign from the Welsh hills against the invader. When the Romans left Britain, Wales was once again a Celtic land, though again divided into separate kingdoms, but unlike England, it did not fall to the Anglo-Saxon invaders of the fifth century.But Wales was always under pressure from its English neighbours, particularly after the Norman Conquest, when the Norman barons set up castles and estates in Wales under the authority of the English crown. Thus there was a need to unify Wales in order to successfully resist the English. This did not happen until Llewelyn ap Gruffud brought a large portion of Wales under his rule, and by a military campaign forced the English to acknowledge him as Prince of Wales in 1267. But when he died, the English king, Edward the First, set about conquering Wales, building a series of great stone castles there from which to control the population. These castles stand today as one of Wales' greatest tourist attractions along with its beaches, cliffs, and mountains, and tourism is now an important industry.Edward the First named his son the Prince of Wales, and the first son of the monarch has held that title ever since (including the present day Prince Charles) to try to bring the Wales into the British nation. The last real attempt to resist that process was in the early 15th century when Owain Glyndwr led an unsuccessful rising against the English. Today, Glyndwr and Llewelyn are more than simple historical figures for the Welsh, they are the almost legendary heroes of Welsh nationalism. Their brief campaigns are the only times in history when Wales has existed as a unified independent nation.A hundred years after Glyndwr, in 1536, Wales was brought legally, administratively, and politically into the UK by an act of the British parliament. This close, long-standing relationship means that modern Wales lacks some of the outwards signs of difference which Scotland possesses - its legal system and its education system are exactly the same as in England. Often official statistics are given for "England and Wales". However, Wales is different, and one of the key markers of that difference is the Welsh language - the old British Celtic tongue which is still in daily use. But as a source of Welsh identity this is sometimes divisive, because 80% of the Welsh don't speak the language, and yet feel Welsh. Since most of the Welsh speakers are in the north, this deepens a cultural division between the more populated, industrial south, and the rural north of Wales.The sense of national identity has been consolidated in recent years by deliberate acts of Government. Under the Labour Government of Tony Blair, Wales, like Scotland and Northern Ireland gained its own National Assembly in 1999, headed by a first Minister and eight cabinet ministers with powers to make secondary legislation specifically for the needs of the Welsh people. Primary legislation for national and international policies are still made in Parliament in Westminster to which Wales continues to elect its own representatives. Wales, like Scotland, is being allowed to be proud of itself once again, while still remaining a part of the United Kingdom.Text 6Wales。