краткий пересказ текста The land and people of great britain
The United

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Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the UK) occupies
most of the territory of the British Isles. It consists of four
main parts: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
London is the capital of England, Edinburgh is the capital of
Scotland, Cardiff— of Wales and Belfast — of Northern Ireland.
The UK is a small country with an area of some 244,100 square
kilometres. It occupies only 0.2 per cent of the world’s land
surface. It is washed by the Atlantic
Ocean in the north-west, north and south-west and separated from
Europe by the North Sea in the east and by the English Channel
in the south. The Strait of Dover or Pas de Calais is the
narrowest part of the Channel. The North Sea and the English
Channel are often called "the narrow seas"; they are not deep
but are frequently rough.
In the west the
Irish Sea and the North Channel separate the UK from Ireland.
The seas around Britain provide exceptionally good fishing
grounds. The country has many bays favourable for shipping. In
their shelter are Britain’s main ports such as London,
Liverpool, Glasgow, Hull and others.
One will not find
very high mountains or large plains in Great Britain. Everything
occupies very little place. Nature, it seems, has carefully
adapted things to the size of the island itself. The highest
mountain is Ben Nevis in Scotland, 4,406 feet high. The longest
river is the Severn in England.
The population of
the United Kingdom is over 57 million people. Foreigners often
call British people "English", but the Scots, the Irish and the
Welsh do not consider themselves to be English. The English are
Anglo-Saxon in origin, but the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish
are Celts, descendants of the ancient people, who crossed over
from Europe centuries before the Norman Invasion. It was this
people, whom the Germanic Angles and Saxons conquered in the 5th
and 6th centuries AD. These Germanic conquerors gave England its
name — "Angle" land. They were
conquered in their turn by the Norman French, when William the
Conqueror of Normandy landed near Hastings in 1066. It was from
the union of Norman conquerors and the defeated Anglo-Saxons
that the English people and the English language were born.
The official
language of the United Kingdom is English. But in western
Scotland some people still speak Gaelic and in northern and
central parts of Wales people often speak Welsh.
The UK is a
highly developed industrial country. It is known as one of the
worlds largest producers and exporters of machinery,
electronics» textile» aircraft, and navigation equipment. One of
the chief industries of the country is shipbuilding.
The UK is a
constitutional monarchy. In law, Head of the State is Queen. In
practice, the country is ruled by the elected government with
the Prime Minister at the head. The British Parliament consists
of two chambers: the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
There are three
main political parties in Great Britain: the Labour, the
Conservative and the Liberal parties.
The flag of the
United Kingdom, known as the Union Jack, is made up of three
crosses. The big red cross is the cross of Saint George, the
patron saint of England. The white cross is the cross of Saint
Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.
The red diagonal cross is the cross of Saint Patrick, the patron
saint of Ireland.