Ireland

Wales.

Wales is the largest of the peninsulas on the westernside of Britain. It consistsof a complex of worn down mountain ranges, representing high plateaux. They are called the Cambrian mountains. The highest and most glaciated area occurs in the north, especially around Snowdon (1,085 m), and often the mountains approach close to the sea.

The Cambrians largely comprise the upland areas, generally and collectively described as the Welsh Massif. In the south the massif includes an important coal-field, on whichan industrial area has grown. It is the most densely populated part of Wales with some two-thirds of the total population of 2.8 million inhabiting about one-eighth of the area. Two relief divisions may be distinguished in South Wales: a coastal plain whichinthe south-eastern part around Cardiff becomes up to 16 km wide, and the upland areas of the coalfield proper, which rise between 245 and 380 metres. In recent years the region has experienced very acute problems with the decline in the coal industry and high unemployment rates.

Much of the remainder of Wales consits of bare rock, barren moorland and rough pasture, with only a few people to the square kilometre. But this region constitutes the heartland of Wales, for centered upon the massif is the Welsh culture where the traditions and language of a Celtic people are best preserv­ed.

In the upland areas sheep are the basis of the rural economy, and in the low-lying parts near the coast andin the valley bottoms dairy farming predominates.

Scotland..

Scotland may be divided into three major physical regions: the Highlands, the Southern Uplands and the Central Lowlands.

The Scottish Highlands lie west of a line from Aberdeen to the mouth of the Clyde. They form the most extensive and the most sparsely populated of the three regions. The mountains are separated into two parts by Glen More, or the Great Glen, a long crack in the earth's crust, running from north-east to south-west. To the south are the Grampians, which are generally higher than the North-west highlands, and contain the loftiest summits, including Ben Nevis (1,347 m), the highest peak in the British lsles, and Ben Macdhui (1,309 m). They have also been more deeply cut by the action of glaciers and rivers. Glen More contains three lakes: Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy, and the first is said to be the home of a "monster". In the early nineteenth century the lochs were joined to form the Caledo­nian Canal which was equipped with 29 lochs and was almost 100 km in total length. Along the west coast the highlandsrise quite abruptly from sea level, so that westward-flowing rivers are short and swift. Rivers which flow generally east, such as the Tay and the Dee, have a relatively long course.

Climatically the region has some of the most severe weather experienced in Britain. The highly dissected nature of the landscape means that there are considerable local variations in climate over quite small distances and these variations are important.

The Highlands comprise forty-seven per cent of the land area of Scotland. At the same time, they house less than fifteen per cent of the Scottish population. The population is largely concentrated on the periphery of the massif, and nowhere else in Britain are the problems of depopulation and economic decline seen so clearly.

The economy of the region has traditionally been that of crofting, subsistent farming, in which the farmer (crofter) and his family consume all the produce. The crofter grows crops on a patch of land near his cottage, the main crops being potatoes, oats and hay. His sheep graze on the nearby hill slopes, and be may have one or two cows, to keep the family supplied with milk and some poultry.

The Southern Uplands extend from the Central Valleyof Scotland in the north to the Pennine Hills and Lake District in the South. Although for the most part an upland area, the boundaries of the region are not clear-cut in physical terms. The Cheviot Hills, composed largely of volcanic rocks, mark the central part of the boundary between England and Scotland. Upland areas extend into the Central Valley, just as the Cheviots merge into the Pennines and the lowlands on both east and west coasts merge into the lowlands of Northumbria and those that surround the dome of the Lake Distrist.

These uplands form a plateau, which glaciation has eroded into smooth, rounded hills. The general level of this plateau-like surface descends from the higher northern margins in a series of steps. The hills ries to 800-900 m, but for the most part they lie between 450 and 610 metres.

The present-day economy of the region is dominated by agriculture. The region is clearly divided between the sheep pastures of the uplands and the more diversified farming areas of the lowlands. Sheep have been grazed on the uplands for the past six centuries and hard local breeds, such as Cheviot and Black-face have been developed which can withstand the snows of winter and produce excellent mutton as well as wool.

Throughout the uplands population distribution is sparse and limited to isolated farmsteads and occasional villages and towns usually clustered in the valleys on the periphery of the uplands, particularly in Galloway, the name is given to the dales and lowlands of the south-west, and in the Tweed Basin.

The Central Lowlands of Scotland, sometimes known as the Midland Valley, lie between the Highland and the Southern Uplands. For the most part this region is a lower-lying north- east to south-west trendingare some eighty kilometres or so wide.

The Central Lowlands are by far the most densely popula­ted of the three main regions of Scotland: they occupy about 15 per cent of its area, but contain about 80 per cent of its people.

Many of the people who left the highlands during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries settled in the Central Lowlands, particularly in the Glasgow region where industrial development as taking place at a rapid rate. The area was one of the major industrial centres of Britain, with important coal, steel, ship­building and engineering industries. The twentieth century has seen increasing problems in these industries and there has been a movement of population from the area.

On the fertile sandy soils in the south-west the farmers grow early potatoes. They also cultivate oats and in the shelter­ed Clyde Valley many are engaged in fruit growing and market gardening. Throughout the region sheep are reared on the hills.

Ireland is predominantly a rural island, with a generally low density of population and indeed few large towns other than those situated on the coast. The regional geography of the island is simpler than that of Great Britain, and especially than the regional geography of England.

The Central Plain of Ireland stretches west-east across the country from coast to coast. Glacial action has created hollows, enlarged by solution of the underlying limestone by rain water, and many shallow lakes have been forced. A large proportion of Ireland's terrain consists of either bleak and uninhabitable mountain masses, or valleys and lowlands containing large loughs, innumerable smaller sheets of water, and great peat bogs that are useless except as a source of fuel. Lough Derg, on the River Shannon, is narrow, irregular, and nearly forty kilometres in length.

Around the plain is a broken rim of mountains. In the extreme north-east is the Antrim Plateau or Mountains of Antrim, which rise above 400 m and are composed of basalt. Off the north coast is the famous Giant's Causeway, where the basalt solidified in remarkable hexagonal columns. In the north and north-west are the Sperrin Mountains and the Ox Mountains, which with several other uplands reach more than 500 m in height. The loftiest mountains of Ireland are in the south-west - the Macgillycuddy Reeks, which contain Carrantuohill (1,041 m), the highest peak on the island. In the south-east the Wicklow Mountains rise to 926 m in Lugnaquillia. They form one of the most extensive masses of granite in the British Isles. And in the north-east there are the Mourne Mountains which rise steeply from Carlingford Lough to reach a height of 852 m in Slieve Donard.

Being geographically an island and a single unit, Ireland is politically divided into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, comprising six counties of Ulster, which was one of the four provinces of ancient Ireland: Antrim, Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Down.

Дата добавления: 2013-12-13