|
|
The United Kingdom is a political union made up of four constituent countries, commonly termed the home nations: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The UK lies between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, and comes within 35 km (22 miles) of the northwest coast of France, from which it is separated by the English Channel. Northern Ireland shares a 360 km international land boundary with the Republic of Ireland. The Channel Tunnel ("Chunnel"), bored beneath the English Channel, now links the UK with France.
The physical geography of the UK varies greatly. It includes the chalk cliffs of Kent and Dorset, the rolling hills and fields of southeast England, the granite cliffs of Cornwall, the mountains of Wales, the uplands of the Peak District and the Pennines, the lakes and mountains of Cumbria, the Scottish lowlands, highlands and islands, and the fields, lakes and mountains of Northern Ireland. The country can be roughly divided into highland and lowland along the Tees-Exe line.
Considering the temperate nature of the British climate , it's amazing how much mileage the locals get out of the subject: a two-day cold snap is discussed as if it were the onset of a new Ice Age, and a week in the upper 70s starts rumours of a heatwave. The fact is that summers rarely get hot and the winters don't get very cold, except in the north of Scotland and on the highest points of the Welsh and Scottish uplands. Rainfall is fairly even, though again mountainous areas get higher quantities throughout the year (the west coast of Scotland is especially damp, and Llanberis, at the foot of Snowdon, gets more than twice as much rainfall as Caernarfon, seven miles away). In general, the south gets more hours of sunshine than the north.
The bottom line is that it's impossible to say with any degree of certainty what the weather will be like. May might be wet and grey one year and gloriously sunny the next; November stands an equal chance of being crisp and clear or foggy and grim. If you're planning to lie on a beach, or camp in the dry, you'll want to visit between June and September - a period when you shouldn't go anywhere without booking your accommodation in advance. Elsewhere, if you're balancing the clemency of the weather against the density of the crowds, the best months to explore are April, May, September and October
There are many different statistics and debates on what are the UK's largest cities, as well as differing opinions on which cities are considered regional capitals. This debate chiefly arises due to the erratic and inconsistent way political and administrative boundaries have been applied historically to British cities. Amongst the cities listed below are regional capitals and conurbations with a significant metropolitan influence . The four 'traditional' capitals of the United Kingdom's constituent countries are London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. However, London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are considered to be the largest urban areas.
| |
|
