Major cities of Great Britain (London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool).

London, the capital and largest city of the United Kingdom, is located in southeastern England on the Thames River. With a population of about 8 million, this vast metropolis is the largest city in Britain and one of the largest cities in the world. London is also one of the world’s major financial and cultural capitals.

The territory of London is divided into 33 political units—32 boroughs and the City of London. The Cityis the historical centre of London. It is where the invading Romans crossed the River Thames. They built a city a square mile in size, surrounded it with a wall and called it Londinium. Today the City is one of the world’s leading financial centers. In the City you can see the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and the Stock Exchange. The permanent residential population of the City is now less than 5000, but about half a million people commute here daily to work. The most prominent landmarks are Saint Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London.

At the heart of Westminster is Westminster Abbey, virtually across the street are the Houses of Parliament, farther west is the monarch’s permanent residence in London, Buckingham Palace. Trafalgar Square links the political and religious section of Westminster to the rest of west London.

To the west and north of Trafalgar Square is the West End, which is usually regarded as London’s shopping and entertainment hub. The busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, where such large department stores as Selfridges, John Lewis, and Marks and Spencer are located. Other well-known shopping areas include Knightsbridge and Piccadilly. The Royal Opera House and most of London’s 40 or so major theaters are in the West End, as are the large movie houses, and hundreds of restaurants, cafés, and bars. This area has a series of Royal Parks, areas once owned by the Crown, including Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and Regent’s Park.

The East End, beyond the City of London and the Tower, has long been the home of London’s docks and immigrants. It has frequently been characterized by slums, poverty, and crime. Much of the old dockyard area has been abandoned and is being redeveloped as the Docklands, an ambitious project designed to lure London’s financial activities away from the City.

London itself is a living museum, with more than 2000 years of history and culture. But it also boasts one of the greatest concentrations of significant museums (more than 240) of any city in the world.

Edinburgh,the capital of Scotland, is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. For its picturesque views it is often called “The Athens of the North”. Numerous historical monuments of great interest make Edinburgh the outstanding centre of tourism in Scotland. Located on seven hills, Edinburgh goes down to the bay Firth of Forth. The highest hill called “King Arthur’s Chair” is 300 metres above sea level.

The dominating feature of the city is the Castle, standing high on a steep rock. This famous fortress is one thousand years old. Located here is the 12^th-century Chapel of Saint Margaret, the city’s oldest structure. Castle Rock was occupied by the Picts about the 6^th century AD. In the 12^th century Malcolm III, king of Scotland, had his castle here, and his wife, St.Margaret, built a small church. In 1437 the town became the national capital. The Castle Rock is connected to the 16th-century royal Scottish residence of Holyrood Palace by a road known as the Royal Mile, the main thoroughfare of the Old Town district of the city. Other notable buildings in Old Town include Saint Giles, the National Church of Scotland; the Parliament House, seat of the Scottish Parliament from its completion in 1639 until 1707; and the house of the 16th-century Protestant reformer John Knox. To the north of this district is New Town, which was developed in the late 18th century and contains many fine buildings designed by the Scottish architect Robert Adam.

The finest street in Edinburgh and the main shopping area is Princes Street. In the gardens on its south side stands the monument to Walter Scott, the famous writer of historical novels. Beyond the Scott monument, at the foot of the Castle, is the National Gallery of Scotland, one of the leading museums of Edinburgh. The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, it boasts the largest collection of rhododendrons in the UK.

Glasgow is Scotland’s most populous city and third largest in the British Isles. It stands at the lowest bridging point on the river Clyde and has thus become the outstanding market centre for western Scotland.

In Glasgow one can see a nice cathedral, the part of which was built in the 12th century. The Art Gallery and the Museum of Glasgow contain a big collection of British and European painting. Queen’s Park is called so because Mary Stuart was defeated near it in 1568. Glasgow’s chief engineer invented the steam engine in 1769 providing the “spark” for the Industrial Revolution. The world’s first seaworthy steamer was launched there in 1812.

Glasgow is also the home of two well-known football clubs - Glasgow Rangers and Celtic.

The 20th century witnessed both decline and renewal in the city. The city had lost its industrial heart with the decline of shipbuilding but in the New Towns which emerged in the 1960s to the east of Glasgow new engineering industries developed, especially electronics.

Now it is considered to be one of the world’s top 10 tourist cities. Two million tourists per year visit Glasgow. It looks good, there is a lot to do and see, and there is a positive buzz about the place. This is all very different from the atmosphere 30-40 years ago.

Liverpool is the fifth largest city of England. Its former prosperity was built on the docks and international trade: initially, that was the triangular trade of slaves to America, sugar and cotton to England, and manufactured goods to Africa. Later, it was the leading British port for goods and people to and from America, but fell victim to the change in direction of British trade: ports facing Europe, like Dover, expanded, and Liverpool lost business. The city has never fully recovered. Unemployment is very high. Liverpool receives regional funds from the EU as one of the poorest parts of Europe. All the evidence of past glory is there: St George’s Hall, one of the finest neo-classical buildings in England, was constructed in 1840 with not only central heating but also an air-conditioning system - the air cooled by fountains and circulated by steam fans!

Liverpool is home to the Beatles and one of the world’s great football teams.

Liverpool is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city won the status in 2004 because of its impressive waterfront which, according to UNESCO, represents a ‘supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain’s greatest global significance’.

Manchester is the industrial capital of the north of England and the fifth largest port in Great Britain. Manchester was founded in the Roman times. During the nineteenth century, Manchester became a very important centre for the production of cotton. It was even known as “Cottonopolis”. Manchester was the site of the world’s first railway station and the first city in England to build its own airport in 1919. Today the city is busy and hard-working again. It produces electronic machinery, plastic materials, different foods, clothes, soap and perfumes.

Manchester United is one of the richest football clubs in the world. The university is the biggest in Europe, and students are an important part of the city’s life. One result of this is that there is a big club and dance scene, and a lot of rock musicians have started life in Manchester: members of Oasis and Simply Red are Mancunians.

Students are also important customers for the many hundreds of restaurants in the city - mostly Indian and Chinese. There is the third biggest Chinatown in Europe, with not only dozens of restaurants but also Chinese supermarkets; there is a Chinese food factory which makes two tons of noodles per hour; and every year the city has a Dragon-Boat Festival on the Manchester Ship Canal.

Oxford is famous as the seat of the University of Oxford, one of the oldest and best-known universities in the world. Oxford is also an industrial center with printing operations; other manufactures include motor vehicles and steel products.

Oxford is known as the “City of Dreaming Spires” because of its beautiful skyline of Gothic towers and steeples.

The heart of the city is Carfax, from which the main streets run to the four points of the compass; this was the center of the walled medieval city. Among the city’s many notable structures are the churches of Saint Michael and Saint Mary the Virgin; the Bodleian Library; and the Sheldonian Theatre, designed by the architect Christopher Wren. Also here are the Museum of Modern Art and the Ashmolean Museum, containing the university’s outstanding collections of art and archaeology.

An early Saxon trading settlement was located near the fords in the rivers here. During the 10th and 11th centuries the town was attacked by Danes. By the 13th century, with the establishment of the university, it had become a major educational center of Europe. Charles I had Oxford as his capital from 1642 to 1645, during the English Revolution.

Lying on the river Cam, the city of Cambridge takes its name from the river. The first Cambridge college, Peterhouse, was founded in 1284, but there was a centre of learning in the town long before that. Today, the centre is a fascinating collection of beautiful old college buildings; you can take a boat down the River Cam and see some of the most impressive – Queens’, King’s, Trinity and St John’s. King’s College Chapel (begun in 1446) is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe. The city has numerous parks and gardens and many museums and galleries, including the noteworthy Fitzwilliam Museum.

Until 30 years ago, the university was the only big employer, and the economy of the town was depressed. But since then, there has been rapid growth in high-tech industry - computing, communications, biotechnology and so on. It started with a science park, a dense group of small research and development companies, which became the most successful of its kind in Europe. In a way, Cambridge is the victim of its own success: the old town is just not big enough to accommodate all the new activity; there is too much traffic and not enough housing. To solve the problems, there is now a talk of creating, a new town nearby, a sort of Cambridge number two out in the green fields.

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Four geographic and historical parts of Great Britain. Brief descriptions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.	\|	The geographical position and the territory of the USA. The national capital. The US national symbols (the national anthem, the national flag, the national bird).

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