Hello. I'm Gill at engVid. And today's lesson is about the UK as a place
geographically; "UK" standing for "United Kingdom". So, the UK is made up
of four separate, but united countries. Okay. So, England, which is where I am;
Scotland, which is to the north; Wales, which is to the west; and Northern
Ireland, which is across the sea and it's the top part of the island of
Ireland — the top part; the Northern Ireland part. And there is a border
between it; and the southern part of the island, which is the Republic of
Ireland, which is independent of the UK. So that's a republic... Although it's...
it's all one island, there is a border, so it's all a bit complicated,
geographically and politically, but that's the way it's developed. So, okay.
So, you may have seen my interview with a Scottish poet. If you haven't seen
that, you... if you want to know a bit more about Scotland, do watch that
interview with Hugh McMillan, which has a lot of interesting information about
Scotland in the present day, as well as some history; very interesting history.
So, in this lesson, I'm going to be focusing mostly on England, so just to
talk about the country and how it sort of is divided up into cities, and then
going through into the countryside. The variety that there is, like in most
countries. So, the big cities — "London" is the capital, and the population is
currently in 2021, as with filming this, the population is over nine million
people in London. Then another big city is "Birmingham", in the Midlands. It's —
oh — about maybe 100 miles north of London; that has over two million
population. And another big city, "Manchester", which is up in the
northwest, which also has over two million population. Okay. So, the word
that you would use for a city or a town — "towns" are a little bit smaller than
"cities" — is "urban". It's an urban area, if it's a city, because it has a
lot more buildings. It's built up. It may be office buildings more than any
other type of building. Okay. So, coming down from cities, then, if you're going
out... out of the city as a short way where people tend to live, that's called
the "suburbs". You've got the word "urbs" that comes from "urban"; and it's
the "suburbs", meaning it's slightly away from the urban centre. So, the
"suburbs", and the adjective from that is "suburban". And that tends to be
where people live; you get more houses, more residential buildings in the
suburbs. Okay. Right. And then coming further out again, you get the
"countryside". It's a bit confusing, but the word "country" comes here, as well
as being a country — England. The countryside or the country. It's nice to
spend time in the country — can actually mean out in the countryside, where it's
more fields and farming, agriculture, farm animals, and so on. Not so many
buildings, but lots of fields and trees. So, that's called "rural". So, we've
got: "urban", "suburban", and "rural", referring to the countryside with
farming, agriculture. Okay. And, confusingly, in the country. Okay. So,
you can only tell you usually from the context of what people are saying
whether the... the word "country" refers to a country like these, or this rural
countryside. Usually if you say: "The countryside", that makes it much clearer
what you're referring to. Okay.
And then the whole of England, also Scotland, and Wales, and Northern
Ireland also have smaller areas called "counties" — okay — which are quite big
geographical areas with their own name. Often they end in the word: "shire". So,
examples are: "Yorkshire" and "Derbyshire". So, if you say the word
"shire" on its own, because it is a word on its own, meaning any county is a
shire — it's pronounced "shire". But when it's added on the end of an actual
county name, it's pronounced: "sha", "sha", because the first part has more
emphasis than the second, so it's: "Yorkshire", "Derbyshire", like that.
And if you want any more information on that, two other engVid tutors, Benjamin
and Jade, have done videos on the pronunciation of place names; not just
the shire names, but also places ending "ham". So, this is "Birmingham". "am",
"am", "am". Birmingham; not "Birming-ham", but "Birmingam". So, have
a look at Jade and Benjamin to see if you'd like to do a bit more on
pronunciation of UK place names. Okay. So, the shires — "Yorkshire",
"Derbyshire" — but some counties, they don't have the word "shire" at the end;
you get all sorts of different names. For example: "Somerset", "Kent",
"Devon", "Cornwall". Okay. And then these three, which are just to the
northeast of London, going upwards... the neck... the first one you come to
from London is "Essex". The next one, north of Essex is called "Suffolk". And
the one to the north of Suffolk is called "Norfolk". And they, as three
counties together, can be referred to as "East Anglia". Okay. So, "East Anglia"
refers to these three counties; they are separate counties, but they have this
extra name collectively as well. Okay. Right, so that's the counties.
And then in each area of the country, we have councils, which are the local
authorities. So, they look after all the local services, like refuse collection,
education, looking after the street maintenance, street lighting, local
libraries, all that kind of thing. Education. Did I mention that? So, all
sorts of things that are looked after on a local level; looking after local
parks, you know... cutting the grass, all that sort of thing. So, in the
London area, being such a big city, there are 33 councils in total for the
whole of the London area, so that's a lot. Okay. And then within the council
areas, the councils are broken down into smaller areas called "wards". And those
are represented by councillors, who are political; they belong usually to a
political party, and people vote for them every four years. We have council
elections, and you can only vote within your own ward for maybe two or three.
Each ward has two or three councillors representing it and acting as a contact
person for local people. If they have any issues, they can see their local
councillor. Okay. Right. So, I hope that's been a useful summary of just an
overview, really, of how the UK is made up of four countries; and then how
England in particular has these big cities and the... the different county
names, and so on, and 33 councils in London. So, if you'd like to do a quiz
on this subject, just go to the website www.engvid.com and do the quiz. And
thank you for watching. Hope to see you again soon. Okay, bye for now.