THE GEOGRAPHY OF BRITAIN

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BRITAIN

Britain is an island situated in north of Europe. In this island, we have a changeable climate because of the differences geological. In fact, we can distinguish highland from lowland. In the highlands, which are in the north and in the west, the rocks are harder and older. So these areas are less populated except where coal and iron have been discovered.

While the south and the east is rarely flat, and there are some hills. The soils are deep and rich, and the climate is dry.

POPULATION

Britain is densely populated but there are some areas, which contain fewer than 100 people per square kilometre, for example Northern Ireland. While in industrial areas, like South - East England, are more densely. The five cities bigger are Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, London and Dublin.

THE WEATHER

Climate in Britain is changeable. In North Britain, it is milder because of the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and air across the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. Average temperatures in England and Wales vary from 4° grade to 16° grade in July and August. London is drier than continental cities.

THE UNITED KINGDOM

Great Britain is a geographical expression while The United Kingdom is a political expression.

Great Britain is one of the two isles, the biggest one. The name of the smaller one is Ireland. Together they are called the British Isles.

Today British Isles are shared in two independent states: Republic of Ireland, with its capital in Dublin; and the United Kingdom with its capital in London.

Great Britain contains three "nations": England, Scotland and Wales. Wales had become part of U.K. in the sixteenth century while Scotland in the eighteenth.

The United Kingdom is a name, which was introduced in 1801 when Great Britain became united with Ireland.

Then the Republic of Ireland became independent of London in 1922, so South Ireland shared from North Ireland.

THE CONSTITUTION

British constitution is shared in three parts: Parliament, which makes laws, the Government, which executes laws, and the law courts, which interpret laws. In Britain, there is the Queen who has a little direct power in all three parts. Parliament is shared in two parts: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Members of the House of Commons are elected by the members of Parliament. The prime minister is also a member of parliament. While members of the House of Lords, who name is peers, differ in two parts: hereditary peers, who can pass on their title to their son, and life peers, who cannot.

BILL AND ACTS

A proposal for a new law is called a bill. Bills are proposed by the Government. After being discussed, the bill is sent to the other house to go through the same process. When both houses agree on a text, the bill is sent to the queen for her signature. At which point it becomes an act of parliament. The royal assent is only a formality.

THE GOVERNMENT

The cabinet is responsible to deciding policies, controlling and coordinating government administration. The prime minister has an individual power to introduce and control policies and to change the cabinet.

THE SOVEREIGN

The queen is the official head of state. In all British history, the continuity of the sovereign was broken only after the civil war, in seventeenth century. The crown's power is hereditary. The queen has a central role in state affairs; in fact, she meets every week the prime minister.

POLITICS

Every British citizen who is 18 years old has the vote. Any number of candidates can stand for election and the winner is the candidate who gets more votes than any other. The leader of the party, which received more votes, becomes Prime minister who forms the government and usually he remains in power for five years. He forms also the shadow cabinet. The second biggest party becomes the official opposition.

THE ELECTION TIMETABLE

The prime minister chooses the date of the general election. The date is announced one month before the elections and it is announced by the prime minister to the cabinet. In general, the election is on Thursday that is called the polling day. The results are known the next morning and the winner is invited by the sovereign to form a government.

THE LAW

British law comes from two main sources: laws made in parliament and common law, which is based on previous judgements and customs. The laws made in parliament are interpreted by the courts. The most common type of law court is the magistrates' court. Criminal cases go to the crown court while civil cases go to the county courts. The highest court of appeal is the house of the lords.

PEOPLE IN LAW CASES

The main people in law cases are solicitors, barristers, judges, jury, magistrates, coroners, clerks of the court.

Usually solicitors work with barristers but the first prepare legal documents while the second are specialised in representing clients in court.

Judges did not have before one training but they were barristers.

Jury decides if the defendant is guilty or innocent.

Magistrates judge cases in the lower courts

Coroners investigate in violent or unnatural death.

Clerks of the court look after legal matters.

BRITAIN AND THE WORLD

In 1920, British Empire controlled a fifth of the world's lands. Today the empire is into a voluntary association of fifty independent states called commonwealth.  It is born when Britain's older colonies became independent.

Today Britain has fourteen dependant territories and they are all tiny. The queen is the head of the commonwealth.

MULTICULTURAL BRITAIN

After the Second World War, Britain was a prosperous country for immigrants' workers.

Citizens of commonwealth were free to enter in the country and look for work. After that, the government has introduced regulations to restrict the number of the immigrants. Therefore, the percentage of non-whites increased rapidly.

RELIGION IN A MULTI- ETHINIC SOCIETY

The most important religion in UK is Anglican religion that is about a third of the population. The second religion more following is catholic and nearly half the population is atheist.

BRITAIN AND EUROPE

Britain joined the European Union in 1973 under a conservative government. Two years later, a referendum assured the entering of the Britain in the European Union. Now Britain is the mayor contributor in the union's fund. Nearly half of Britain's trade is with the rest of the European Union.

ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

In the middle of the twentieth century, Britain was much polluted. So many people decided to keep parts of the green belt. It is a voluntary association for assuring environment protection.

With this method, Britain is a less polluted country than it was thirty years ago.

There are many threats of environment like acid rain, the pollutions of the sea, and the destruction of old buildings.

BRITAIN'S ENERGY

The mayor sources of energy in Britain are oil, natural gas and coal. Other primary sources of energy are waterpower and nuclear power. The 20 per cent of Britain's electricity is produced by nuclear power. Britain has fourteen nuclear power stations in operation. Many studies show that all-radioactive wastes can be managed and only in this way, they are not dangerous for the man. However, all proposals for new nuclear stations met public opposition and this has increased since the disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986. Besides many people affirm that nuclear power is unsafe and an accident like that of Chernobyl could happen at any time.

EDUCATION

THE SCHOOL SYSTEM

School system is divided in three parts: Pre-school, that is voluntary, is attended by pupils from 3 to 5 years old. Then we have primary school, attended by children from 5 to 11 years old. After there is secondary school attended by students from 11 to 16. Primary and secondary school are compulsory while the sixth form is voluntary level and it is attended by students from 16 to 18.

AFTER SIXTEEN

After sixteen pupils have to support, an examination and they have to take "A" in two or three subjects. If they pass it, they will be able to go to higher school or they will be able to choose professional training.

HIGHER EDUCATION

There are over 100 universities in Britain. In 1980s, students paid their university with the parental contributions and the maintenance grant. Now this was changed. Universities accept only the students because of their "A" level results.

BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY

The three main sectors of activity in economy are Primary sector, manufacturing sector and service sector. Primary sector concerned agriculture while manufacturing sector-concerned industries. At first, these two sectors were very developed; today are employing fewer people. Nowadays only service sector is the biggest one.

Britain economy is based mainly on private enterprise that includes 74% of the goods end service produced in Britain.

PRIVATISATION

Britain's energy and transport industries were originally run by companies in the private sector. However, in the late 1940s these services were nationalised. From 1979, however, it was conservative government policy to return nationalised industries to the private sector.

THE CITY OF LONDON

London is an important centre for finance. In the centre of London there is a square occupied by the financial district, called the "city". Here, every morning, hundreds of thousands of people work in its offices but in the night  the city is almost deserted, in contrast to the entertainment district in the west end of London. The city has the greatest concentration of banks in the world and it is responsible for about a quarter of international bank lending.

London has dad a Stock exchange for dealing in stocks and shares for over 200 years. In 1986, it became possible dealing thought telephone computers and this caused the Big Bang in the city.

EMPLOYEMENT

In Britain almost of 50% of population work. The employment is divided in full-time, part-time and self-employed job. People are employed in three sectors: primary, manufacturing and service. These categories include professional, manual and non- manual. In the middle of twentieth century, 96% of British employed had full-time jobs and the majorities were men. Now a great number of women have a part-time job. Although there are variations between men and woman, because sometimes in a full time job women earn only 80% of the male wage, even if it is the same job. However, at the end of 1990s unemployment had fallen to 5 %. Old industries continued to decline because of new technology is increasing.

FAMILY

The Britain nuclear family, made up of parents and perhaps two children, has replaced the extended family. Today people marry later: the woman about 27 years old while man is about 30 years old. Britain is one of the countries where divorce's rates are higher than the others. In fact in Britain, one in three marriages ends in divorce. Approximately 50 % of married women in Britain are in employment. Before having the first child, they work in a full-time job; then they chose to work in a part-time job. Britain has a high percentage of working mothers ed to other countries.

Young people leave home early for being independent but they think it isn't necessary marrying in young age.

THE COST OF LIVING

With the risen of prize, the cost of living is changed in Britain. Family expenditure patterns changed during the 1980s and 1990s. The number of people, who used technological consumer goods, rose up. Inflation fell to below 3% but the strong pound caused problems for business, so the difference between the rich and the poor continued to become wider during the 1990s.

HOUSING

70% of people in Britain live in their own homes; others chose to live in property rented and the rest live in privately rented accommodation. After 1945, the number of houses being built has increased. In the 1980s the conservative government gave the opportunity of buying much locals where lived family who rented them. Now the cost of buying a new house varies according to the area. For example in south east is impossible buying a new house, especially for young people. The majority buy their homes with a mortgage loan from building society or bank. In spite of this, there are others accommodations known as sheltered housing that are for old and disabled people and sometimes there is also assistance. Moreover, in Britain, there are many slum areas even polluted, but at the end of 1990s these areas begins to being cleaned.

There are many different of housing in Britain that are described by the period in which they were built and if they are terraced, semi-detached or detached (distaccate). The need of housing in the south of England has produced new alterations. For example in London's docklands, which were the heart of a busy international port, new roads and new houses have been built there. However, the number of homeless people in Britain is doubled because of houses price have been increased in 1980s. Many local authorities have been forced to put homeless people in hotels or bed and breakfast accommodations. The number of homeless estimated in London is about 10,000.

TRANSPORT

In recent years in Britain the use of private cars has increased to the detriment of ( a discapito di ) railway that now is declining ed to the other European countries: for example Italians people travel on train much more than the British.  Britain has the most expensive system of rail in the European Union because it is privatised. In spite of this, the number of people who travel by bus is increasing again. However, the increase of cars has caused problems like more traffic and delays (ritardi) for commuters (pendolari). Now in fact, an average British family has two cars. For resolving traffic problems, a new road, called M25 long 192 kilometres, is been built. It was completed in 1986 and it was designed to reduce traffic problems in London area but it became immediately overcrowded. The average daily traffic rose up in all British roads especially on motorways. In Britain, unlike of others European countries, you must drive on the left and you can take drive permission at the age of seventeen.

THE HEALTH

The British National Health Service was set up in 1948 and it was designed to provide (OFFRIRE) equal basic health care for everybody in the country. Before this time, health care had to be paid. Nowadays the National Health Service is administered by local health authorities. However, in Britain, the health of people improved considerably thanks of the better conditions of housing and education, but poverty and bad diet are still mayor contributors to poor health. Nowadays, in fact, people eat more convenience food and fast food. However, there are other healths problems like smoking related diseases, alcoholism and drug abuse, and more people die of heart disease.

(In 1980s, charges of dental treatment rose up).

LEISURE

British people have more free time and holidays now. All full time workers have at least (almeno) four weeks' holiday or more including Easter and Christmas. Typical popular free time in UK is spent in shopping, listening pop music, going to pubs or playing sport. The number of people who play sport has risen. The most popular sports activities are walking and swimming; fishing is the most popular country sport. another hobby followed by British is gambling. The 80% of adults play the lottery every week; horse and dog racing are two of the biggest attractions. Other forms of gambling include pub games or casino. It has been estimated that over 50 % of adults gamble sometime while the rest 40 % gamble regularly.   

THE MEDIA

In Britain, there are twelve national daily newspaper and most of them concentrate on the scandalous aspects of life. They have an important affect on public opinion. (London's Fleet Street was the centre of the newspaper printing). The most important newspaper in Britain is the independent. Trade of newspaper is an expensive and competitive business but in recent years, the number of people who read newspaper has declined. While over 120 million people listen radio. (BBC is British broadcasting ( programmi ) corporations.) Instead the most attractive is internet, in fact it is estimated that internet is becoming almost essential, especially for information. However, television is always the most important. The first television broadcasts began in 1936. Average people watch TV about 28 hours' par week,  especially old people in winter. British TV has an international reputation for producing programmes of high quality such as documentaries, nature programmes, comedies and drama series, but the mass appeals are soap opera, quiz shows and situations comedies. Minority programmes might disappear.

VIEWS OF BRITAIN

Britain is the fourth largest trading nation in the world, it is the largest energy resource of any country in the European Union, and is an important world producer of oil, natural gas and coal. Instead, Britain won 68 Nobel prizes for science, a number exceeded only by the United States. It is estimated that British people are freer and richer than 1990s. But it is also estimated that most of the people are unhappier than before. In their opinion, the problems could be found in the pollution or in the violence. In fact, they think that Britain had become a more violent society. However, Britain always remains the fifth country most developed in tourism thanks to its varied cultural heritage. London has an international reputation for its historic sites and museum. For example, royal ceremonies attract millions of visitors each year.