Great Britain

To the North-West of the continent of Europe there are tow large and over 5, 000 small islands. The largest islands are called Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England, Wales and Scotland are parts of Great Britain. Together with Northern Ireland they constitute the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The capital of the country is London. The total area of the United Kingdom is about 120,000 square miles. The population is over 58 million people. Most of them live in towns and cities.

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean influence the climate of Great Britain very much. It is mild and wet on the whole territory. Rains and fogs are usual things here. The surface of the country varies greatly. The western and northern part is covered with mountains but the mountains are not very high. There are also a lot of beautiful lakes in this area.  The rest of the territory is a vast plain with rivers but the rivers are neither deep nor long. The most important of them are Severn and the Thames.

The United Kingdom was originally an agricultural and sheep-farming country. At present it is a highly developed  industrial power. It is known as a world's largest producer and exporter of iron and steel products, machinery and electronics, textile and chemicals, aircraft and navigation equipment. The largest industrial cities of the country are Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Coventry, Manchester etc. Liverpool is the largest port on the west coast of England. Glasgo is also a large sea port and a centre of ship-building industry.

But the greatest town and port of the United Kingdom is London with the population of more than 8 million. London is political, economic, commercial and cultural centre of the country. It is situated on the river Thames. The City of London is the oldest part of the capital, its financial and business centre where numerous banks, offices and  firms are concentrated. Few people live in the City but over a million come to work here. There are a lot of places of interest in the British capital such as the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben and St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square with the tall Nelson's column and Picadilly Circus, Buckingham palace where the Queen lives etc. There are also a number of museum and picture galleries in London which are famous  for their rich collections of masterpieces of fine arts.

To my mind, almost every town and city in Great Britain can be considered as a place of interest. Most of them are very old and visitors can find there a lot of cultural and architectural monuments such as castles, churches, abbeys, houses where outstanding people were born, lived and created their works. It proves that  Great Britain is a country with  old cultural traditions and customs. The most famous places of education are Oxford and Cambridge  which are considered to be  the intellectual centres of  Europe.

The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy and the Queen is the head of the state. It is known than the Queen reigns but doesn't rule. In practice the country is rules 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 large and small political parties in the United Kingdom. The main of them are the Conservative, the Labour  and the Liberal Parties. The party which wins the elections and gets the majority of seat of the House of Commons becomes the ruling party. The leader of this party traditionally becomes the Prime Minister. The current Prime Minister, David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, was appointed by the Queen on 11 May 2010.