The British Isles consist of two large islands, Great Britain (comprising England, Wales and Scotland), and Ireland (comprising the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland) and more than 5 000 smaller islands (the Isle of Wight, the Channel Islands in the south, the Hebrides in the north, the Isle of the Man in the west).
The British Isles are politically divided into two independent states:
1) the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
2) the Republic of Ireland (the Irish Republic).
English is the language, which is predominantly spoken on British Isles. Besides English, there are Welsh (spoken by the population of the Wales), Gaelic (spoken in Scotland), and Irish (it’s the first official language in the Republic of Ireland). These three languages are forms (varieties) of old Celtic language.
Great Britain can be roughly divided into two main regions: lowland Britain in the south-east and highland Britain in the north-west of the country.
Highland Britain comprises all the mountainous parts of Great Britain and extensive uplands lying above 300 metres. This high ground is not continuous but is interspersed with valleys and plains.
The highest peak in the Highlands is Ben Nevis in the Grampian Mountains (the Highlands of Scotland) with the height of 1342 m. It’s the highest mountain in the British Isles.
Lowland Britain is mainly a rich plain, more often rolling than flat, broken by two limestone or chalk hills, hardly ever reaching 300 m above sea level.
British rivers are not very long, and not navigable very far inland. Only the largest like the Thames, the Severn and the Trent are navigable for small steamers and barge traffic.
Britain has a temperate, humid climate. It’s characteristic features are mild winters (Britain has warmer winters than any other country in the same latitude), not very hot summers, no extremes of temperature, abundant rain all the year round, frequent changes of the weather.
The total population of the United Kingdom is nearly 57 million. The capital city is London with the population of over 8 million.
London is the seat of the Government, Britain’s largest port, a national and international commercial and financial center and a major industrial area. It has two international airports.
Industry plays the leading role in the national economy.