Check your comprehension.
1. What is the most populated part of Great Britain? 2. What is the population of England? 3. What separates England from Scotland? 4. What seas is England washed by? 5. What water separates England from France? 6. Which upland regions are there in England? 7. What are the main rivers in this part of the country? 8. What are the largest industrial cities and ports in England?
SCOTLAND
1. Read the following proper nouns correctly.
Caledonia – Каледония
Edinburgh – Эдинбург
the Border – граница, пограничный район
Lowlands – низменность, низина
Highlands – нагорье, плоскогорье
Glasgow – Глазго
Grampian Mountains – Грампианские горы
2. Read the text and say what interesting you've got to know about Scotland.
Scotland is the most northern of the four countries constituting Great Britain. It occupies the territory of about 80 thousand square kilometres and is not as densely populated as England. The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh, situated in the eastern part of the Central Lowlands.
Scotland is the land of mountains lost in clouds, wild moorlands, narrow valleys and plains, famous lakes, called lochs, and no end of large and small islands off the coast. In its climate and vegetation, its mountain and valley structure, Scotland resembles other regions of north-west Europe that look out towards the Atlantic. The country can be roughly divided into three main regions: the Border (i. e the frontier with England), the central Lowlands, and the Highlands.
The Border's most typical landmarks are the ancient peel-single towers that kept watch over the safety of the Borders. They lie mostly in ruins now. In the middle ages the Border was the scene of many bloody conflicts between the feudal lords of the two nations. Nowadays the Border is undefined because since 1707 England and Scotland have been united under one government.
The Lowlands are the cradle of the Scottish nation. It was the people of the Lowlands with their great leaders who in the 13th and 14th centuries won the struggle for Scotland's independence, against the attempts of England's Kings to make Scotland a province of England. The Lowlands contain three-quarters of the whole population and all the towns of considerable size are situated in it. The largest of them are Glasgow and Edinburgh. Three very famous rivers, the Tay, the Forth and the Tweed flow peacefully through broad valleys into the sea on the east; a fourth, the Clyde runs into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Highlands of Scotland are among the oldest mountains in the world. Here the Grampian Mountains, extending from north-east to south-west across Scotland, form a boundary between Highlands and Lowlands. They reach their highest point in Ben Nevis – 4406 feet. Many of the deep valleys between the hills are filled with lakes, called by their Gaelic names of lochs. The beautiful Loch Lomond with its 30 islands is the largest. Out of a total Scottish population of over five million, only about one tenth part of it lives beyond the Highland Line.
Scotland is probably best-known to the world through its national costume, the kilt, its colourful cloth called tartan, its special musical instrument, the bagpipe, and its national beverage, whisky.