Презентация на тему: "Interesting facts about Scotland"

Scotland

Prepared by

Rogoza Nadezhda

Location

• Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the south-west. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

• Edinburgh, the country's capital and second-largest city, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual, and industrial powerhouses of Europe.

Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union.

Manufacture

Scotland's heavy industry began to develop in the second half of the 18th century. The heavy industries based around shipbuilding and locomotives went into severe decline after World War II. Manufacturing in Scotland has shifted its focus in recent years with heavy industries such as shipbuilding and iron and steel declining in their importance and contribution to the economy.

Population

• The population of Scotland at the 2011 Census was 5,295,400. In the 2011 Census, 62% of Scotland's population stated their national identity as 'Scottish only', 18% as 'Scottish and British', 8% as 'British only', and 4% chose other national identities.

Weather

• The climate of Scotland is temperate and oceanic, and tends to be very changeable. As it is warmed by the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic, it has much milder winters (but cooler, wetter summers) than areas on similar latitudes, such as Labrador, or the Moscow region in Russia.

Scotland’s landscape

• Scotland’s landscape can be split into three very different areas. The Southern Uplands, the Central Lowlands and the Northern Highlands and Islands.

The Southern Uplands

• These are located on the hills that run along the South of Scotland and border England. In this area there is magnificent scenery with rolling hills but these are relatively small hills compared to the mountains in the Highlands.

The Central Lowlands

• These stretch from the Firth of Forth in the east to the Firth of Clyde in the west. This area contains the country’s largest cities, Glasgow in the west and Edinburgh (the capital) in the east.

The Highlands and Islands

• The Highlands have dramatic mountain ranges, which are made of sandstone and granite. This region is more than half of the total area of Scotland but actually has a very small population.

• There are only three cities Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee. The rest of the population is located in smaller towns, villages and homes scattered through the countryside.

Sport

• The most popular spectator sport in Scotland is soccer, always referred to as football. The teams of the highest league division, the Scottish Premier League, are said to enjoy the greatest support per head of population of any country in the world.

Sport

• Rugby union is also popular but not to nearly the same extent as football. In these sports, the constituent countries of the UK usually compete as separate nations, i.e. Scotland fields its own national teams.

Sport

As befits the nation that gave birth to it, golf is also popular, with a very large number of golf courses. Public golf courses are widespread, inexpensive and typically of high quality. Tennis has recently been increasing in popularity since Scottish tennis player Andy Murray has been enjoying success in major championships

Culture

• The country has a great tradition of festivals (e.g. the Edinburgh Festivals), literature and achievement in the arts. Since the Scottish Enlightenment that followed the Act of Union, it has produced some of the greatest literary personalities, thinkers and writers of the world.

Music and dance

• Scottish folk music is also flourishing, with traditional and modern folk music sung in both English, Scottish Gaelic (and sometimes Scots). Folk music often features instruments such as fiddle/violin, acoustic guitar, harp, accordion, piano, various sorts of bagpipes, and other traditional instruments as well as voice. You may also encounter Scottish forms of dance which are also popular. This may range from simple, as at a ceilidh (pronounced "kay-lee", a mix of dances performed to traditional music and descended from ballroom and country dancing), to more complex Scottish Country Dancing which is a form of social dancing descended from renaissance dance styles, to solo Highland Dancing

Culture

• More recently, scientists in Aberdeen developed the MRI scanner and those in Edinburgh created Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned animal.

Language

• Currently in the UK there is not official state language, however in Scotland there are three languages — English (de facto principal), Scottish Gaelic and Anglo-Scottish (Scotts). Scottish Gaelic and English and Scottish languages have been officially recognized in 1992 by the European Charter for regional or minority languages, which in 2001 had ratified the British government.

Religion

• The majority are adherents of the national Church of Scotland, organized by the Presbyterian type. About 16% of the Scottish population are adherents of the Roman Catholic Church. Approximately 28 % of inhabitants are atheists.

TOURISM

• It is estimated that tourism accounts for 3% of Scotland's economic output. Scotland is a well-developed tourist destination with attractions ranging from unspoilt countryside, mountains and abundant history. United States news channel CNN has named Scotland as the number one destination for tourists to visit in 2013

TOURISM

• Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, tourism is one of Scotland's fastest growing economic sectors