Hello, I'm Leonie Dodd and welcome to Window on Britain. What do you know about Britain? How many people live here? What's the capital city? What are the names of other famous cities? The answers are in this programme.
This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That means England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The population of Britain is over fifty-eight million. Forty-nine million people live in England. Five million live in Scotland. About three million in Wales and one and a half million in Northern Ireland. Seven million people live in London the capital city. The Prime Minister lives here at 10 Downing Street near the Houses of Parliament. The Head of State is the Queen. The Queen's head is on banknotes, stamps and coins. In London she lives here in Buckingham Palace a very popular place for tourists. Other famous towns and cities in Britain are Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland with its old castle. York - with its beautiful cathedral, called York Minster and its narrow streets. Stratford-upon-Avon, the birth place of William Shakespeare. Liverpool once a very important port and the home of The Beatles. Cambridge and Oxford - both famous for their universities. And famous for their bicycles! In both cities a lot of people travel around by bike. Towns and cities are important but the countryside's important, too. Over seventy-five percent of the land in Britain is farmland. But not many people are farmers... in fact, only two percent of the working population. Britain also has ten National Parks. They cover nine percent of the land. All these parks have wonderful countryside. This is the Lake District in the north-west of England. It has beautiful hills and lakes. A lot of British people come here on holiday. And foreign tourists. Over twenty-four million foreign tourists come to Britain every year. They visit lots of places. For example, the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. This is Stonehenge. What is it?  Well, nobody really knows. Perhaps it's a temple; or a clock... or is it a calendar? In Wales the Snowdon National Park is very popular. And look - Welsh people don't just speak English about twenty percent of the population speak Welsh, too. Britain is an island. But it isn't only one island. In fact there are over eight hundred. These ones are on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. I'm at Waterloo Station in London. From here, trains go through the Channel Tunnel to Paris, in France and to Brussels in Belgium. Is Britain really an island now?