The United Kingdom is a beautiful country with a lot of culture and traditions and at Hello Online School we’ve gathered some information that we thought interesting to learn about.
The UK is a country in northwestern Europe, located in the Atlantic Ocean, that includes four separate countries on the British Isles: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is the name for three nations on the main isle: England, Scotland and Wales. The only land border to a non-UK country is in Northern Ireland which borders with Ireland. The United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy and the monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the world’s longest-serving current head of state!
The UK has been described as a «cultural superpower», and London has been described as a world cultural capital. The British culture has been spread overseas and given the world a lot of positive contributions, like the neat literature of Shakespeare, to the world breaking records of the Beatles and the excellent education form centuries-old universities at Cambridge and Oxford.
Every country has its traditions and the United Kingdom doesn’t fall behind, for example, the well-known tea time! The British love tea and don’t need an excuse to put the kettle on, they usually drink it with a cloud of milk and biscuits to dunk them in the tea! Ever heard of the famous “English breakfast”? Countries abroad try their best to copy it, but they never get it right. It has quality sausages, proper bacon, couple of eggs, tomatoes, beans, mushrooms and a fried slice of toast, if you ever travel to England and go to a hotel or the popular bed and breakfasts, make sure not to miss it!
Fun facts
A lot of the greatest writers come from England such as, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens many scientists like Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking among many others and the music like The Beatles, Elton John, Queen, Led Zeppelin…
No location in the UK is further away from the sea than 125 km, that’s only 1 hour and a half by car!
London has one of the oldest transport systems in the world – and also one of the largest. And the largest library with over 170 million items in its catalog, in the towering British Library in King’s Cross.
The UK’s most famous tourist attractions – Stonehenge was believed to be created in around 3000BC, meaning it’s older than Egypt’s pyramids!!
The Loch Ness Monster supposedly dwells in Loch Ness, in Scotland – the largest lake in the UK. While this creature is of course mythological, many people have claimed to have seen it.
Ancient languages are still spoken, not widely but the UK has four surviving Celtic languages that are still officially recognised in the modern day. These are Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton.
