2. Regions of the United Kingdom and their characteristics (features of climate, location, industries, major centres).

OFFICIALLY THERE ARE 11 REGIONS IN THE

UNITED KINGDOM:

1) Yorkshire and Hampshire;

2) Greater London and the

South-East Region;

3) Northern England;

4) South-West England;

5) Scotland;

6) East Anglia;

7) Northern Ireland.

8) West Midlands;

9) East Midlands;

10) North-West England

11) Wales

East Anglia is a region in the east of England. Includes six ceremonial counties, as well as several unitary and municipal districts. The administrative center is Cambridge. The largest city is Luton. Scotland is a country in the north of the island of Great Britain, which is part of the state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain

and Northern Ireland.Features of climate Scotland has a humid temperate The climate of East Anglia is generally dry and mild. Thisregion is the driest in the United

Kingdom, with many areas receiving less than 600 mm of precipitation per year. oceanic climate. It is much colder here than in more southern

regions. Precipitation here is most

intense in summer and autumn

and is also unevenly distributed.

Southwest winds often cause

severe storms.

6.

Location

EAST ANGLIA

SCOTLAND

The East of England region is

washed by the North Sea from

the east, bordered in the

southwest by the regions of

South-East England and Greater

London, and in the northwest it

borders the East Midlands

region.

Scotland is a country in the north of

the island of Great Britain, which is

part of the state of the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland. It borders on land

with England and is washed by the

seas of the Atlantic Ocean: the

North (in the east) and the Irish (in

the west).

7.

Industries

East Anglia

Scotland

Fishing;

Metalworking industry;

Agriculture;

Mechanical engineering;

Shipbuilding;

Chemical and textile enterprises;

Oil industry.

Coal mining;

Fishing;

Cattle breeding.

8.

Major centres

East Anglia

Administrative

center: Cambridge;

Major cities: Luton, Ipswich,

Southend-on-Sea

Scotland

Capital: Edinburgh;

Major cities: Aberdeen, Dundee,

Glasgow.

9.

Cambridge

10.

Luton

11.

Ipswich

12.

Southend-on-Sea

13.

Edinburgh

14.

Aberdeen

15.

Dundee

16.

Glasgow

3. The seas. The English Channel. The Channel tunnel.

The seas. The Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the Strait of Dover (Pas de Calais), the English Channel (La Manche).

the Strait of Dover (Pas de Calais) – some facts: The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait, historically known as the Dover Narrows, is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, and separating Great Britain from continental Europe. The shortest distance across the strait, at approximately 20 miles (32 kilometres), is from the South Foreland, northeast of Dover in the English county of Kent, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais. Between these points lies the most popular route for cross-channel swimmers.The entire strait is within the territorial waters of France and the United Kingdom, but a right of transit passage under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows vessels of other nations to move freely through the strait.

On a clear day, it is possible to see the opposite coastline of England from France and vice versa with the naked eye, with the most famous and obvious sight being the White Cliffs of Dover from the French coastline and shoreline buildings on both coastlines, as well as lights on either coastline at night, as in Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach". The depth of the strait varies between 68 m (223 ft) at the Lobourg strait and 20 m (66 ft) at the highest banks. The seabed forms successions of three habitats:

rocky zones relatively deserted by ships wanting to spare their nets

sandy flats

sub-aqueous dunes.

The strong tidal currents of the strait at depth slow around its rocky masses as these stimulate countercurrents and deep, calm pockets where many species can find shelter. In these calmer lee zones, the water is clearer than in the rest of the strait; thus algae can grow despite the 46 m (151 ft) average depth. They help increase diversity in the local species – some of which are endemic to the strait. Moreover, this is a transition zone for the species of the Atlantic Ocean and those of the southern part of the North Sea.[13]

This mix of various environments promotes a wide variety of wildlife.

The Ridens de Boulogne, a 10–20 m (33–66 ft) deep[14] rocky shoal, partially sand-capped,15 nmi (28 km; 17 mi) west of Boulogne, boasts the highest profusion of maerl in the strait.Thus some 682 km2 (263 sq mi) of the strait is classified as a Natura 2000 protection zone named Ridens et dunes hydrauliques du Pas de Calais (Ridens and sub-aqueous dunes of the Dover Strait). This includes the sub-aqueous dunes of Varne, Colbart, Vergoyer and Bassurelle, the Ridens de Boulogne, and the Lobourg channel which provides calmer and clearer waters due to its depth reaching 68 m (223 ft).

The English Channel. English Channel, narrow arm of the Atlantic Ocean separating the southern coast of England from the northern coast of France and tapering eastward to its junction with the North Sea at the Strait of Dover (French: Pas de Calais). With an area of some 29,000 square miles (75,000 square km), it is the smallest of the shallow seas covering the continental shelf of Europe. From its mouth in the North Atlantic Ocean—an arbitrary limit marked by a line between the Scilly Isles and the Isle of Ushant—its width gradually narrows from 112 miles (180 km) to a minimum of 21 miles, while its average depth decreases from 400 to 150 feet (120 to 45 metres). Although the English Channel is a feature of notable scientific interest, especially in regard to tidal movements, its location has given it immense significance over the centuries, as both a route and a barrier during the peopling of Britain and the emergence of the nation-states of modern Europe. The current English name (in general use since the early 18th century) probably derives from the designation “canal” in Dutch sea atlases of the late 16th century. Earlier names had included Oceanus Britannicus and the British Sea, and the French have regularly used La Manche (in reference to the sleevelike coastal outline) since the early 17th century. Geology-The contemporary English Channel probably is the result of a complex structural downfolding dating from about 40 million years ago, although signs of a downwarp tendency occur as early as 270 million years ago. The direct ancestor of the channel may well have been a sea occupying the downfold one to two million years ago, with a sea level 600 to 700 feet higher than the present level.The withdrawal of water by the glaciers of the late Pleistocene Epoch (about 25,000 years ago), produced a sea level at least 300 feet lower than the present. Later the melting of the ice raised the sea level to its present mark, and the ecologically important land bridge across the Strait of Dover finally was submerged about 8,000 years ago.

Physiography

The seafloor dips fairly steeply near the coasts but is generally flat and remarkably shallow (especially in relation to nearby land elevations); its greatest depth, 565 feet (172 metres) in the Hurd Deep, is one of a group of anomalous deep, enclosed troughs in the bed of the western channel. The channel has been shaped by the effect upon its rock strata (with their varying degrees of hardness) of such forces as weathering and erosion (when much of the area was dry land), sea-level changes, and contemporary erosion and deposition by marine currents.

The floor of the western channel generally is 200 to 400 feet deep and is relatively flat and featureless, reflecting fairly uniform rock types, mostly limestone. Harder igneous rocks cause shoals to emerge—as in the case of the Scilly Isles and Channel Islands—and submerged cliffs and narrow depressions provide some additional variety.In the central channel (150 to 200 feet deep), depths are fairly uniform over chalk outcrops, but alternations of clays and limestones give rise to an undulating terrain, with deeps reaching almost twice the average. A continuation of the Seine River valley system north of the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy complicates the relief forms. Farther east again, the seafloor is smoother and the geology simpler. Depths range from 6 to 160 feet, with such elongated banks as the Varne and the Ridge greatly constricting shipping lanes.

Connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, the respective waters of which are rich in warm- and cold-water plankton, the English Channel is favoured from the latter with cod, herring, and whiting and from the former with hake, pilchard, and mullet. The traditional fishing industry declined in the 20th century with the development of deep-sea fishing, the exhaustion of resources, and the advent of pollution problems, but coastal fishing remains important in Brittany. A good climate, sandy beaches, and an attractive coast have encouraged the growth of tourism on both sides of the channel, starting with the fashionable resorts of the late 18th century. The English ports of Portsmouth and Plymouth have declined from their former levels of naval and commercial activity. Cherbourg on the Contentin Peninsula has changed little in character, but Southampton and Le Havre have lost passenger traffic while gaining tremendous container and oil-refining capacity and also experiencing a general commercial growth. Both England and France use channel waters for cooling nuclear-powered generating stations, while the tidal-power generating station on the Rance River (in Brittany), utilizing a tidal range of 35 feet and more, is a unique feature.

From earliest times, depending on historical factors, the English Channel served as a route for, and a barrier to, invaders of Britain from the Continent. Early Stone Age people crossed the Strait of Dover; later invaders crossed the western end of the channel, trading the copper, tin, and lead they found in Devon and Cornwall, and successive Bronze and Iron Age invaders followed the same route. Julius Caesar’s invasion of 55 bce again favoured the Dover route in the east, while William the Conqueror in 1066 crossed from Normandy to Hastings. With Britain’s later loss of Normandy, the channel again became a defensive line. In the 20th century its strategic role was critical during the two world wars, particularly during the Allied invasion of France in 1944.

Scholars adduced reasons for the English Channel’s existence as early as the 17th century, but detailed scientific study awaited the first official hydrographic surveys (French coast, 1829; English coast, 1847). The geologic map of the seabed based on borings made in 1866 was the world’s first of its kind. Further studies were associated with early plans for a channel tunnel, and modern surveys done since World War II have made the channel seabed one of the most intensively studied seafloors in the world.

The Channel Tunnel. (French: Tunnel sous la Manche, sometimes referred to as the Chunnel) is a 50.46-kilometre (31.35-mile) railway tunnel beneath the English Channel that connects Folkestone in the United Kingdom with Coquelles in northern France. Opened in 1994, it remains the only fixed link between Great Britain and the European mainland.The tunnel has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world, at 37.9 km (23.5 miles), and reaches a depth of 75 m (246 ft) below the sea bed and 115 m (377 ft) below sea level. It is the third-longest railway tunnel in the world. Although the tunnel was designed for speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph), trains are limited to a maximum speed of 160 km/h (99 mph) for safety reasons. It connects to high-speed railway lines on either end: the LGV Nord in France and High Speed 1 in the United Kingdom. In 1802, Albert Mathieu-Favier, a French mining engineer, proposed a tunnel under the English Channel, with illumination from oil lamps, horse-drawn coaches, and an artificial island positioned mid-Channel for changing horses. His design illustrated a bored two-level tunnel, with the upper tunnel to be used for transport, while the lower tunnel for groundwater flows.In 1839, Aimé Thomé de Gamond, a Frenchman, performed the first geological and hydrographical surveys on the Channel between Calais and Dover. He explored several schemes and, in 1856, presented a proposal to Napoleon III for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to East Wear Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank at a cost of 170 million francs, or less than £7 million. In 1865, a deputation led by George Ward Hunt proposed the idea of a tunnel to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, William Ewart Gladstone.In 1866, Henry Marc Brunel surveyed the sea floor of the Strait of Dover. The results of his survey proved that the sea floor was composed of chalk, like the adjoining cliffs; therefore, the construction of a tunnel would be technically feasible.[32] For this survey, he invented the gravity corer, which is still used in geology.Around 1866, William Low and Sir John Hawkshaw promoted tunnel ideas,[33] but apart from preliminary geological studies, none were implemented.An official Anglo-French protocol was established in 1876 for the construction of a cross-Channel railway tunnel.American cartoon (c. 1885) depicting fears of the Channel Tunnel: One of the strongest opponents of the Channel Tunnel, General Wolseley riding on the fleeing lion.

In 1881, British railway entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkin and Alexandre Lavalley, a contractor of the French Suez Canal Company, participated in the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company, which conducted exploratory work on both sides of the Channel. From June 1882 to March 1883, the British tunnel boring machine tunnelled, through chalk, a total of 1,840 metres (6,037 ft), while Lavalley used a similar machine to drill 1,669 m (5,476 ft) from Sangatte on the French side.[38] However, the cross-Channel tunnel project was abandoned in 1883, despite this success, after fears raised by the British military that an underwater tunnel might be used as an invasion route.[37][39] Nevertheless, in 1883, this TBM was used to bore a railway ventilation tunnel—7 ft (2.1 m) in diameter and 6,750 ft (2,060 m) long—between Birkenhead and Liverpool, England, through sandstone under the River Mersey.[40] These early works were encountered more than a century later during the TransManche Link (TML) project.A 1907 film, Tunnelling the English Channel by pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès,depicts King Edward VII and President Armand Fallières dreaming of building a tunnel under the English Channel.In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, British prime minister David Lloyd George repeatedly promoted the idea of a Channel tunnel as a means of reassuring France that Great Britain was ready to defend the French people against a possible German attack. The French did not take the idea seriously, and nothing came of the proposal. In the 1920s, Winston Churchill advocated for the Channel Tunnel, using that exact name in his essay "Should Strategists Veto The Tunnel?" It was published on 27 July 1924 in the Weekly Dispatch, and argued vehemently against the idea that the tunnel could be used by a Continental enemy in an invasion of Britain. Churchill expressed his enthusiasm for the project again in an article for the Daily Mail on 12 February 1936, "Why Not A Channel Tunnel?"There was another proposal in 1929, but it did not materialize, and the idea was abandoned. Proponents estimated the construction cost at US$150 million. The engineers had addressed the concerns of both nations' military leaders by designing two sumps – one near the coast of each country – that could be flooded at will to block the tunnel, but this did not appease the military or dispel concerns about hordes of tourists who would disrupt English life.A British film from Gaumont Studios, The Tunnel (also known as TransAtlantic Tunnel), was released in 1935 as a science fiction project concerning the creation of a transatlantic tunnel. It briefly referred to its protagonist, a Mr. McAllan, as having completed a British Channel tunnel in 1940, five years after the film's release.Military fears continued during World War II. After the surrender of France, as Britain prepared for an expected German invasion, a Royal Navy officer in the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development calculated that Hitler could use slave labour to build two Channel tunnels in 18 months. The estimate caused rumours that Germany had already begun digging.By 1955, defence arguments had become less relevant due to the dominance of air power, and both the British and French governments supported technical and geological surveys. In 1958, the 1881 workings were cleared in preparation for a £100,000 geological survey by the Channel Tunnel Study Group. 30 percent of the funding came from Channel Tunnel Co Ltd, the largest shareholder of which was the British Transport Commission, as successor to the South Eastern Railway.[46] A detailed geological survey was carried out in 1964 and 1965.Although the two countries agreed to build a tunnel in 1964, the initial studies in Phase 1 and the signing of a second agreement covering Phase 2 did not materialize until 1973.[48] The plan described a government-funded project to create two tunnels to accommodate car shuttle wagons on either side of a service tunnel. Construction started on both sides of the Channel in 1974.On 20 January 1975, to the dismay of their French partners, the then-governing Labour Party in Britain cancelled the project due to uncertainty about the UK's membership in the European Economic Community, doubling cost estimates amid the general economic crisis of the time.[citation needed] By this time, the British tunnel boring machine was ready, and the Ministry of Transport had performed a 300 m (980 ft) experimental drive.[15] (This short tunnel, named Adit A1, was eventually reused as the starting and access point for tunnelling operations from the British side, and remains an access point to the service tunnel.) The cancellation costs were estimated at £17 million.[48] On the French side, a tunnel-boring machine had been installed underground in a stub tunnel. It lay there for 14 years until 1988, when it was sold, dismantled, refurbished, and shipped to Turkey, where it was used to drive the Moda tunnel for the Istanbul Sewerage Scheme.

4. Rivers and lakes in the UK.

5. Highland Britain (mountains and hills). Lowland Britain (plains in the UK).

6. Weather and climate of the British Isles. Compare the south and east of Britain with the north and west.

7. Natural resources and their sites in the UK (where are they located?).

Mining in the UK has a long history particularly of non-ferrous minerals like tin and copper which has been mined from the era of the Bronze Age. Copper mining in the UK was carried out in Wales in about 2200-850 BCE. Some of the minerals that later attracted the Romans to Britain include gold, copper, and lead and it was the Romans who first introduced the use of iron tools. They used slave labor to extract galena, which is the main lead ore mineral. The Galena mineral was later processed and refined to get silver, tin, and lead. These refined metals were transported the different parts of the Roman Empire, and some were used locally. Most of the mines where they got the galena were in deep pits, particularly in Wales and Scotland. Iron ore and coal were the most important minerals particularly during the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. However, less iron ore and coal are mined in the UK today. To this day the UK has numerous minerals, but few are currently mined in the country because of factors such as globalization which has made it cheaper to import minerals from other countries. For instance, the country has deposits of copper and iron ore, but they are imported from other countries like the United States, Chile, China, Brazil, and Australia. In 2014, the UK produced about 1.42 million Barrels of Oil Equivalents (BOE) every day, which is the unit of energy derived from the average energy released from 1 barrel of crude oil, and out of this 59% were oil or liquids. The United Kingdom consumed about 1.508 million barrels of oil per day in 2013 and about 2.735 trillion cubic feet of gas. Currently, the country is importing hydrocarbons, although it has been exporting the commodity from the 1980s to 1990s. For a long time, gas was produced in the Southern North Sea in the Morecambe Bay, but presently there has been a decline. In the recent past, there have been discoveries in regions with the most challenge especially in the west of Shetland. By 2012, there were approximately 9,774 miles of pipeline that connected about 113 oil installations and about 189 different gas installations. Most of the oil produced is onshore, and the major offshore field is located in Dorset in Wytch Farm. There has been the significant potential of shale in Bowland shale and Wealand, but only a few have been drilled so far.

The main commercial minerals: sand, gravel, limestone, gypsum. (used in the construction and building industries). In 2013, there were over 2,000 active mines, quarries, and offshore drilling sites on the continental land mass of the United Kingdom producing £34bn of minerals and employing 36,000 people.

History.The United Kingdom has a rich history of mining. Mining of non-ferrous minerals, particularly of copper and tin, has been ongoing since the Bronze Age. For example, copper was mined in Wales during approximately 2200–850 BC including the Great Orme.Metalworking debris found beneath the ramparts at Beeston Castle in Cheshire is evidence of bronze production during the Bronze Age.Later, lead and copper attracted the Romans to Britain. The Romans introduced iron tools and used local slaves to mine galena, an important lead ore mineral, from which they refined lead, tin and silver. These metals were used locally and also transported by ship throughout the Roman Empire. Galena was mined from deep mines located in Scotland and Wales.The widespread availability of coal and iron was a significant factor in Europe's Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Although less coal and iron ore are mined in the United Kingdom today, they were once mined in large quantities and utilized for steel and energy production. With large quantities of important minerals available and easily accessible, the country's economy grew rapidly.In the 20th century, the mineral industry decreased production of coal and metals due to foreign competition. However, the extraction of aggregates and crude oil has increased.

Types of resources: 1)renewable resources – replaced in nature - plants, forests, animals; non-living – hydroelectric power, solar power, blomass (биомасса) fuel, wind power. 2)Non-renewable res-s exist in fixed amounts – fossil fuels (ископаемое топл).

The United Kingdom still has large reserves of available fossil fuels. Natural gas, oil, and coal are all produced in the United Kingdom. Coal is mined from many areas in the United Kingdom from both deep mines and surface mines. In addition to the coal being mined on land, large reserves of oil and natural gas are being tapped in the North Sea.

Natural gas

As of 2008 the United Kingdom was the tenth largest producer of natural gas in the world. Natural gas reserves are concentrated in three areas:

associated fields in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf

non-associated fields in the Southern Gas Basin, adjacent to the Dutch sector of the North Sea

non-associated fields in the Irish Sea.

Oil

The United Kingdom has an estimated 780 million tonnes of proved and probable oil reserves; most of these oil reserves are located on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf in the North Sea off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom. There are also sizable reserves in the North Sea north of the Shetland Islands, with smaller fields in the North Atlantic. Located in Dorset, the Wytch Farm field is the largest onshore oilfield in Europe with estimated recoverable reserves of 480 million barrels of crude oil.[6]

Coal

In 2013, 13 million tonnes of coal were produced in the United Kingdom, employing 4,000 workers across 30 locations.[8] In the United Kingdom coal is mined from 3 deep mines and 26 surface mines.[9][10] The majority of coal produced in England comes from underground mines; in Scotland, most coal is mined from open-pit mines.

UK Coal was the United Kingdom's largest coal mining company, producing approximately 8.7 million tonnes of coal annually from deep mines and surface mines, and possessed estimated reserves in excess of 200 million tonnes of coal.[11] The firm was the successor of British Coal, which was privatised in 1997. Total proved coal reserves in the United Kingdom are estimated at 220 million tonnes, although possible reserves could exceed 1 billion tonnes.[12] UK coal production peaked in 1913 at 287 million tonnes, and has been falling ever since, chiefly due to cleaner energy generation and the loss of heavy industry.[13]

Metals

Metal production in the United Kingdom has decreased over the past century. Although the United Kingdom has a large variety of important metal ores, little metal is currently being mined due to the effects of globalization: it is cheaper to extract in other countries.[14] For example, although large reserves of iron and copper ores exist in the United Kingdom, these ores are now largely imported – copper ore from Chile and North America, and iron ore from China, Brazil and Australia yield higher grades of metals at lower costs.

The metalliferous sector of the mining industry was worth £5 million in 2012, making up a very small part of the sector.It consists mainly of the Galantas Gold Corporation's gold mine in Cavanacaw, Northern Ireland. Currently an open pit mine, permission was granted for it to extend 400 metres underground. Lead and silver are still being mined as a by-product of this mine.

In 2014, the Australian company Wolf Minerals started to re-open Drakelands Mine (previously Hermerdon Mine) in Devon.It is the fourth-largest reserve of tungsten in the world and also expects to produce 1,000 tonnes of tin annually. Wolf Minerals ceased trading operations on 10 October 2018, as the mine never achieved extraction or financial targets.[20] Despite such losses, the site is still thought to have potential[21] as the site retains large ore deposits and valuable infrastructure.

Tarmac is a British building materials company headquartered in Solihull, England. The company was formed as Lafarge Tarmac in March 2013, by the merger of Anglo American's Tarmac UK and Lafarge's operations in the United Kingdom. In July 2014, Anglo American agreed to sell its stake to Lafarge, to assist Lafarge in its merger with Holcim and allay competition concerns. Tarmac is the United Kingdom's largest producer of crushed rock, sand, and gravel.

COAL

The peak of the coal industry occurred in the pre—war period (1914-1918), when there were 3,270 mines operating in the country. Coal production reached its peak in 1913, at 292 million tons per year.

In the 1960s, with the increasing popularity of alternative energy sources (oil, gas, and nuclear power), more and more coal mines were closed.

In 2015, the government closed the last deep mine, Kellingly.