How the UK is Divided: Countries, Cities, Counties, Councils, Wards

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.