1.
Cardiff
–
Cardiff is the capital and largest city in Wales and the eleventh-largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is the chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media. The unitary authority areas mid-2011 population was estimated to be 346,100, the Cardiff metropolitan area makes up over a third of the total population of Wales, with a mid-2011 population estimate of about 1,100,000 people. Cardiff is a significant tourist centre and the most popular destination in Wales with 18.3 million visitors in 2010. In 2011, Cardiff was ranked sixth in the world in National Geographics alternative tourist destinations, the city of Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan. Cardiff is part of the Eurocities network of the largest European cities, the Cardiff Urban Area covers a slightly larger area outside the county boundary, and includes the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for the transport of coal following the arrival of industry in the region contributed to its rise as a major city. Cardiff was made a city in 1905, and proclaimed the capital of Wales in 1955, since the 1980s, Cardiff has seen significant development. A new waterfront area at Cardiff Bay contains the Senedd building, home to the Welsh Assembly, sporting venues in the city include the Millennium Stadium, SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff International Sports Stadium and Cardiff Arms Park. The city was awarded the title of European City of Sport twice, due to its role in hosting major sporting events, first in 2009. The Millennium Stadium hosted 11 football matches as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics, including the opening event. Caerdydd derives from the earlier Welsh form Caerdyf, the change from -dyf to -dydd shows the colloquial alteration of Welsh f and dd, and was perhaps also driven by folk etymology. This sound change had probably first occurred in the Middle Ages, Caerdyf has its origins in post-Roman Brythonic words meaning the fort of the Taff. The fort probably refers to that established by the Romans, the anglicised form Cardiff is derived from Caerdyf, with the Welsh f borrowed as ff /f/, as also happens in Taff and Llandaff. As English does not have the vowel the final vowel has been borrowed as /ɪ/, although some sources repeat this theory, it has been rejected on linguistic grounds by modern scholars such as Professor Gwynedd Pierce. A group of five Bronze Age tumuli is at the summit of The Garth, four Iron Age hill fort and enclosure sites have been identified within Cardiffs present-day county boundaries, including Caerau Hillfort, an enclosed area of 5.1 hectares. The fort was one of a series of military outposts associated with Isca Augusta that acted as border defences, the fort may have been abandoned in the early 2nd century as the area had been subdued. However, by this time a settlement, or vicus, was established
Cardiff
–
Clockwise from top left: The
Senedd,
Millennium Stadium, Norman keep of
Cardiff Castle,
Cardiff Bay,
Cardiff City Centre, clock tower of
City Hall and the
Welsh National War Memorial
Cardiff
–
The coat of arms of Cardiff
Cardiff
–
The front wall of
Cardiff Castle, showing part of the original Roman fort from which the city probably derived its name.
Cardiff
–
Tribes of Wales at the time of the Roman invasion. The modern English-Welsh border is also shown.
2.
Pound sterling
–
It is subdivided into 100 pence. A number of nations that do not use sterling also have called the pound. At various times, the sterling was commodity money or bank notes backed by silver or gold. The pound sterling is the worlds oldest currency still in use, the British Crown dependencies of Guernsey and Jersey produce their own local issues of sterling, the Guernsey pound and the Jersey pound. The pound sterling is also used in the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, the Bank of England is the central bank for the pound sterling, issuing its own coins and banknotes, and regulating issuance of banknotes by private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Sterling is the fourth most-traded currency in the exchange market, after the United States dollar, the euro. Together with those three currencies it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights, Sterling is also the third most-held reserve currency in global reserves. The full, official name, pound sterling, is used mainly in formal contexts, otherwise the term pound is normally used. The abbreviations ster. or stg. are sometimes used, the term British pound is commonly used in less formal contexts, although it is not an official name of the currency. The pound sterling is also referred to as cable amongst forex traders, the origins of this term are attributed to the fact that in the 1800s, the dollar/pound sterling exchange rate was transmitted via transatlantic cable. Forex brokers are sometimes referred to as cable dealers, as another established source notes, the compound expression was then derived, silver coins known as sterlings were issued in the Saxon kingdoms,240 of them being minted from a pound of silver. Hence, large payments came to be reckoned in pounds of sterlings, in 1260, Henry III granted them a charter of protection. And because the Leagues money was not frequently debased like that of England, English traders stipulated to be paid in pounds of the Easterlings, and land for their Kontor, the Steelyard of London, which by the 1340s was also called Easterlings Hall, or Esterlingeshalle. For further discussion of the etymology of sterling, see sterling silver, the currency sign for the pound sign is £, which is usually written with a single cross-bar, though a version with a double cross-bar is also sometimes seen. The ISO4217 currency code is GBP, occasionally, the abbreviation UKP is used but this is non-standard because the ISO3166 country code for the United Kingdom is GB. The Crown dependencies use their own codes, GGP, JEP, stocks are often traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX, when listing stock prices. A common slang term for the pound sterling or pound is quid, since decimalisation in 1971, the pound has been divided into 100 pence. The symbol for the penny is p, hence an amount such as 50p properly pronounced fifty pence is more colloquially, quite often, pronounced fifty pee /fɪfti, pi and this also helped to distinguish between new and old pence amounts during the changeover to the decimal system
Pound sterling
–
The Hatter 's hat shows an example of the old pre-decimal system: the hat costs half a guinea (10 shillings and 6 pence)
Pound sterling
–
All frequently used coins. The coins shown are those after the extensive
2008 redesign.
Pound sterling
–
A pound = 20
shillings = 240
silver pennies (formerly)
Pound sterling
–
£1 coin (Welsh design, 2000)
3.
Gross domestic product
–
Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
Gross domestic product
–
Selection of GDP PPP data (top 10 countries and blocks) in no particular order
4.
Poverty threshold
–
The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is higher in developed countries than in developing countries. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity, the new IPL replaces the $1.25 per day figure, which used 2005 data. Most scholars agree that it better reflects todays reality, particularly new price levels in developing countries, the common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. At present the percentage of the population living under extreme poverty is likely to fall below 10% according to the World Bank projections released in 2015. Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. Individual factors are used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually, charles Booth, a pioneering investigator of poverty in London at the turn of the 20th century, popularised the idea of a poverty line, a concept originally conceived by the London School Board. Booth set the line at 10 to 20 shillings per week, to secure the necessaries of a healthy life, which included fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, and household and personal items. Based on data from leading nutritionists of the period, he calculated the cheapest price for the minimum calorific intake and nutritional balance necessary and he considered this amount to set his poverty line and concluded that 27. 84% of the total population of York lived below this poverty line. Rowntree distinguished between primary poverty, those lacking in income and secondary poverty, those who had enough income, Absolute poverty is the level of poverty as defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, such an absolute measure should look only at the individuals power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. Notice that if real income in an economy increases. Measuring poverty by a threshold has the advantage of applying the same standard across different locations and time periods. For example, a living in far northern Scandinavia requires a source of heat during colder months. The term absolute poverty is sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of resources to secure basic life necessities. It depends not only on income but also on access to services, safe drinking water, Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby
Poverty threshold
–
Percentage of population living on less than
$ 1.25 per day.
UN estimates 2000–2007.
5.
United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
United Kingdom
–
Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
–
Flag
United Kingdom
–
The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
–
The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
6.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
–
Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
–
Flag
United States
–
The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
–
The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
7.
United Arab Emirates
–
In 2013, the UAEs population was 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates. The country is a federation of seven emirates, and was established on 2 December 1971, the constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a monarch, together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the monarchs is selected as the President of the United Arab Emirates, Islam is the official religion of the UAE and Arabic is the official language. The UAEs oil reserves are the seventh-largest in the world while its natural gas reserves are the worlds seventeenth-largest, Sheikh Zayed, ruler of Abu Dhabi and the first President of the UAE, oversaw the development of the Emirates and steered oil revenues into healthcare, education and infrastructure. The UAEs economy is the most diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, while its most populous city of Dubai is an important global city, nevertheless, the country remains principally reliant on its export of petroleum and natural gas. The UAE is criticised for its rights record, including the specific interpretations of Sharia used in its legal system. The UAEs rising international profile has led analysts to identify it as a regional. It appears the land of the Emirates has been occupied for thousands of years, there is no proof of contact with the outside world at that stage, although in time it developed with civilisations in Mesopotamia and Iran. This contact persisted and became wide-ranging, probably motivated by trade in copper from the Hajar Mountains, in ancient times, Al Hasa was part of Al Bahreyn and adjoined Greater Oman. Sassanid groups were present on the Batinah coast, in 637, Julfar was an important port that was used as a staging post for the Islamic invasion of the Sassanian Empire. The area of the Al Ain/Buraimi Oasis was known as Tuam and was an important trading post for camel routes between the coast and the Arabian interior. The earliest Christian site in the UAE was first discovered in the 1990s, a monastic complex on what is now known as Sir Bani Yas Island. Thought to be Nestorian and built in 600 AD, the church appears to have been abandoned peacefully in 750 AD and it forms a rare physical link to a legacy of Christianity which is thought to have spread across the peninsula from 50 to 350 AD following trade routes. Certainly, by the 5th century, Oman had a bishop named John – the last bishop of Oman being Etienne, in 676 AD. This led to a group of travelling to Medina, converting to Islam and subsequently driving a successful uprising against the unpopular Sassanids. Following the death of Prophet Muhammad, the new Islamic communities south of the Persian Gulf threatened to disintegrate, with insurrections against the Muslim leaders. The Caliph Abu Bakr sent an army from the capital Medina which completed its reconquest of the territory with the battle of Dibba in which 10,000 lives are thought to have been lost
United Arab Emirates
–
Dubai in 1950; the area in this photo shows
Bur Dubai in the foreground (centered on Al-Fahidi Fort);
Deira in middle-right on the other side of the creek; and
Al Shindagha (left) and
Al Ras (right) in the background across the creek again from Deira
United Arab Emirates
–
Flag
United Arab Emirates
–
Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the first President of UAE.
United Arab Emirates
–
View of
Sharjah city
8.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
Germany
–
The
Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.
Germany
–
Flag
Germany
–
Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the
Protestant Reformation.
Germany
–
Foundation of the
German Empire in
Versailles, 1871.
Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.
9.
Republic of Ireland
–
Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
Republic of Ireland
–
The
Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891).
Republic of Ireland
–
Flag
Republic of Ireland
–
In 1922 a new parliament called the
Oireachtas was established, of which
Dáil Éireann became the
lower house.
Republic of Ireland
–
Éamon de Valera (1882–1975)
10.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
France
–
One of the
Lascaux paintings: a horse –
Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC
France
–
Flag
France
–
The
Maison Carrée was a temple of the
Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day
Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the
Roman Empire.
France
–
With
Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the
Frankish monarchy,
elective and
secular until then, became
hereditary and of
divine right.
11.
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands in 5500 BC
Netherlands
–
Flag
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands in 500 BC
Netherlands
–
An oak figurine found in
Willemstad, North Brabant (4500 BC).
12.
Belgium
–
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
Belgium
–
Charlemagne and
Charles V
Belgium
–
Flaga
Belgium
Belgium
–
Episode of the
Belgian Revolution of 1830 (1834), by
Egide Charles Gustave Wappers
13.
Singapore
–
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, sometimes referred to as the Lion City or the Little Red Dot, is a sovereign city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the tip of peninsular Malaysia. Singapores territory consists of one island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its size by 23%. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan, after early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce. Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub, the country has also been identified as a tax haven. Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index and it is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied, 38% of Singapores 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four languages on the island, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil. English is its language, most Singaporeans are bilingual. Singapore is a multiparty parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The Peoples Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959, however, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island, Sang Nila Utama, the Srivijayan prince said to have founded and named the island Singapura, perhaps saw a Malayan tiger. There are however other suggestions for the origin of the name, the central island has also been called Pulau Ujong as far back as the third century CE, literally island at the end in Malay. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama and these Indianized Kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès were characterized by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was part of the Johor Sultanate. The wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control for the following period, in 1824 the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, prior to Raffles arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860 the population had swelled to over 80,000, many of these early immigrants came to work on the pepper and gambier plantations
Singapore
–
Raffles Square around 1900.
Singapore
–
Flag
Singapore
–
Victorious Japanese troops marching through Singapore City after the British capitulation at the
Battle of Singapore in 1942.
Singapore
–
A cheering crowd welcome the return of British forces, 1945
14.
Qatar
–
Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a sovereign country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its surrounded by the Arabian Gulf. A strait in the Arabian Gulf separates Qatar from the island country of Bahrain, as well as sharing maritime borders with the United Arab Emirates. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971, Qatar has been ruled by the House of Thani since the early 19th century. Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani was the founder of the State of Qatar, Qatar is a hereditary monarchy and its head of state is Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Whether it should be regarded as a constitutional or a monarchy is a matter of opinion. In 2003, the constitution was approved in a referendum. In early 2017, Qatars total population was 2.6 million,313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates, Qatar is a high income economy, backed by the worlds third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world, Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development. Qatar is a significant power in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network. For its size, Qatar wields disproportionate influence in the world, Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so. A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, the map also referenced a town named Cadara to the east of the peninsula. The term Catara was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which Katara emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling, eventually, the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the countrys name. In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced, while in the local dialect it is, Human habitation of Qatar dates back to 50,000 years ago. Settlements and tools dating back to the Stone Age have been unearthed in the peninsula, Mesopotamian artefacts originating from the Ubaid period have been discovered in abandoned coastal settlements. Al Daasa, a settlement located on the western coast of Qatar, is the most important Ubaid site in the country and is believed to have accommodated a small seasonal encampment. Kassite Babylonian material dating back to the second millennium BC found in Al Khor Islands attests to trade relations between the inhabitants of Qatar and the Kassites in modern-day Bahrain, among the findings were 3,000,000 crushed snail shells and Kassite potsherds. It has been suggested that Qatar is the earliest known site of shellfish dye production, in 224 AD, the Sasanian Empire gained control over the territories surrounding the Persian Gulf
Qatar
–
Dot carvings at
Jebel Jassassiyeh, dating to c. 4000 BC.
Qatar
–
Flag
Qatar
–
A map of East Arabia in 1794.
Qatar
–
A partially restored section of the ruined town of
Zubarah.
15.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
Japan
–
The
Golden Hall and
five-storey pagoda of
Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world,
National Treasures, and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Japan
Japan
–
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the
Mongol invasions of Japan. The
Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.
Japan
–
Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population.
Edo period, 1798
16.
United States dollar
–
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
United States dollar
–
Series of 1917
$1 United States bill
United States dollar
–
Federal Reserve Notes
United States dollar
–
Spanish silver real or
peso of 1768
United States dollar
–
Obverse of rare 1934 $500 Federal Reserve Note, featuring a portrait of President
William McKinley.
17.
Wales
–
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon. The country lies within the temperate zone and has a changeable. Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudds death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of Englands conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism, Welsh national feeling grew over the century, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, two-thirds of the population live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Now that the countrys traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales economy depends on the sector, light and service industries. Wales 2010 gross value added was £45.5 billion, over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the land of song, Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Celtic Britons in particular, the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, in particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to the Welsh. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of names, Cambrian, Cambric and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh
Wales
–
Bryn Celli Ddu, a late Neolithic chambered tomb on Anglesey
Wales
–
Flag
Wales
–
This article is about the country. For other uses, see
Wales (disambiguation).
Wales
–
Coin of
Magnus Maximus
18.
European Economic Area
–
The EEA was established on 1 January 1994 upon entry into force of the EEA Agreement. The EEA Agreement specifies that membership is open to member states of either the European Union or European Free Trade Association, EFTA states which are party to the EEA Agreement participate in the EUs internal market without being members of the EU. They adopt most EU legislation concerning the single market, however with notable exclusions including laws regarding agriculture, the EEAs decision-shaping processes enable EEA EFTA member states to influence and contribute to new EEA policy and legislation from an early stage. Third country goods are excluded for these states on rules of origin, membership has grown to 31 states as of 2016,28 EU member states, as well as three of the four member states of the EFTA. The Agreement is applied provisionally with respect to Croatia—the remaining and most recent EU member state—pending ratification of its accession by all EEA parties. One EFTA member, Switzerland, has not joined the EEA, in the late 1980s, the EFTA member states, led by Sweden, began looking at options to join the then European Communities. The reasons identified for this are manifold, many authors cite the economic downturn in the beginning of the 1980s, and the subsequent adoption by the European Union of the Europe 1992 agenda as a primary reason. Other authors point to the end of the Cold War, which joining the EU less politically controversial for neutral countries. Delors proposed a European Economic Space in January 1989, which was renamed the European Economic Area. By the time the EEA was established, however, several developments hampered its credibility, first of all, Switzerland rejected the EEA agreement in a national referendum on 6 December 1992 obstructing full EU-EFTA integration within the EEA. Furthermore, Austria had applied for full EEC membership in 1989, and was followed by Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland between 1991 and 1992. The EEA Agreement was signed in Porto on 2 May 1992 by the seven states of the European Free Trade Association. Switzerland is instead linked to the EU by a series of bilateral agreements, liechtensteins participation in the EEA was delayed until 1 May 1995. As of 2014 the contracting parties to the EEA are 3 of the 4 EFTA member states and 27 of the 28 EU member states, after Slovenia, Croatia has recovered best from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and is the second former Yugoslav state to join the EU. According to Eurostat, Croatia has a market economy and its GDP per capita in 2010 was 61 per cent of the EU average. EU accession negotiations were concluded on 30 June 2011, and the Treaty of Accession was signed on 9 December 2011 in Brussels, Accession negotiations were expected to be completed by the autumn of 2013, and on 20 November 2013 it was announced that an enlargement agreement was reached. As of January 2017, the agreement has been ratified by 15 out of 31 EEA member states, the agreement did not fully enter into force until 9 November 2011. On the other hand, the EEA Agreement was applied on a basis to the 10 acceding countries in May 2004 as from the date of their accession to the EU
European Economic Area
19.
Office for National Statistics
–
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Its main office is in Newport near the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office and Tredegar House, but another significant office is in Titchfield in Hampshire, ONS co-ordinates data collection with the respective bodies in Northern Ireland and Scotland, namely NISRA and NRS. The ONS was formed on 1 April 1996 by the merger of the Central Statistical Office, following the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, the United Kingdom Statistics Authority became a non-ministerial department on 1 April 2008. This is often produced in ways that make comparison with other societies and economies possible. Its publications, and analyses by other users based on its data, are reported and discussed daily in the media as the basis for the public understanding of the country in which they live. The complexity and degree and speed of change in the society, combined with the challenge of measuring some of these rise to periodic debates about some of its indicators. Consequently, unexpected or incomplete data or occasional errors or disputes about its analysis can also attract considerable attention, ONS data can also be used in epidemiologic studies such as survival analysis. This was originally a 1997 Labour manifesto commitment and was also the policy of the Liberal Democrat, such independence was also sought by the Royal Statistical Society and the Statistics Commission. The National Statistician would be accountable to Parliament through a more widely constituted independent governing Statistics Board. The ONS would be a government department so that the staff, including the Director, would remain as civil servants. The details of the plans for independence were considered in Parliament during the 2006/2007 session and resulted in the Statistics, on 7 February 2008, following the first meeting of the shadow board, it was announced that it would be known as the UK Statistics Authority. In 2012, Andrew Dilnot replaced Michael Scholar as chairman of the Authority, since its establishment, ONS has had five Directors, Professor Tim Holt, Len Cook, Karen Dunnell, Jil Matheson, and, from October 2012, Glen Watson. Len Cook was the first Director to hold the newly created role of National Statistician, the roles of Director of ONS and National Statistician were combined until 2012 when Jil Matheson continued as National Statistician while Glen Watson became Director of the ONS. John Pullinger replaced Jil Matheson as National Statistician in July 2014, the work of the ONS covers the collection of data and the analysis and publication of statistics covering the economy, population, and society of the UK. Where data is broken down by geographical area, this is usually done by the areas defined in the ONS geographical coding system and they are members of the Government Statistical Service and are the professional responsibility of the head of the service, who is also the National Statistician. Each department has a statistical service Head of Profession, for example, data on Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry comes primarily from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. ONS is also responsible for the maintenance of the Inter-Departmental Business Register and this ceased to operate from 1 April 2008. The General Register Office and the post of Registrar-General for England & Wales ceased to be part of ONS from that date, the annual United Kingdom National Accounts are published in an online publication by the Office for National Statistics
Office for National Statistics
–
Office for National Statistics (Welsh: Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol)
20.
Economy of Scotland
–
The economy of Scotland is the 43rd largest in the world with an estimated nominal gross domestic product of up to £152 billion in 2015. As of 2016, Scotland, if it were a separate country, since the Acts of Union 1707, Scotlands economy has been closely aligned with the economy of the rest of the UK. England has historically been the main trading partner of Scotland, however, since the United Kingdom became part of the European Union, Scotland has developed closer links with other European Union economies. However, Scotland still conducts the vast majority of its trade within the UK, Scotland was one of the industrial powerhouses of Europe from the time of the Industrial Revolution onwards, being a world leader in manufacturing. In common with most other advanced industrialised economies, Scotland has seen a decline in the importance of manufacturing industries and primary-based extractive industries. This has, however, been combined with a rise in the sector of the economy. Since 1979, management of the UK economy has followed a broadly laissez-faire approach, the Bank of England is Scotlands central bank and its Monetary Policy Committee is responsible for setting interest rates. The Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank can print their own notes to be issued around Scotland, they are not legal tender, but are generally accepted. After the Industrial Revolution in Scotland, the Scottish economy concentrated on industry, dominated by the shipbuilding, coal mining. Scottish participation in the British Empire also allowed Scotland to export its output throughout much of the world, however heavy industry declined in the late 20th century, leading to a shift in the economy of Scotland towards technology and the service sector. The 1980s saw a boom in the Silicon Glen corridor between Glasgow and Edinburgh, with many large technology firms relocating to Scotland. In 2007 the industry employed over 41,000 people, scottish-based companies have strengths in information systems, defence, electronics, instrumentation and semiconductors. There is also a dynamic and fast growing electronics design and development industry, there is also a significant presence of global players like National Semiconductor and Motorola. Other major industries include banking and financial services, construction, education, entertainment, biotechnology, transport equipment, oil and gas, whisky, the Gross Domestic Product of Scotland in 2013 was $248.5 billion including revenue generated from North Sea oil and gas. Edinburgh is the financial centre of Scotland, with many large financial firms based there. Glasgow is the fourth largest manufacturing centre in the UK, accounting for well over 60% of Scotlands manufactured exports, shipbuilding, although significantly diminished from its heights in the early 20th century, is still a large part of the Glasgow economy. Aberdeen is the centre of North Sea offshore oil and gas production, with such as Shell. Other important industries include textile production, chemicals, distilling, agriculture, when Scotland ratified the 1707 Act of Union, despite Scotlands national debt, taxes were low due to war avoidance and trade thrived from the Baltic to the Caribbean
Economy of Scotland
–
Edinburgh: Scotland's capital city and Europe's fourth largest financial centre by equity assets
Economy of Scotland
–
Aberdeen: often dubbed the EU's energy capital
Economy of Scotland
–
Glasgow: Scotland's most populous city and its main manufacturing centre
Economy of Scotland
–
An
oil rig in the
North Sea, oil production is centred in the waters off the Scottish northeast coast
21.
Economy of Northern Ireland
–
The economy of Northern Ireland is the smallest of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland previously had an industrial economy, most notably in shipbuilding, rope manufacture and textiles. To this day, Northern Ireland still suffers from the results of the Troubles, which occurred between the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. Northern Ireland has the smallest economy of any of the twelve NUTS1 regions of the United Kingdom, at £27. 4bn, or about two-thirds of the size of the next smallest, North East England. However, this is partly because Northern Ireland has the smallest population, in April 2007 a Halifax survey found Northern Irelands average house price to one of the highest in the UK, behind London, the South East and the South West. It also found Northern Ireland to have all of the top ten property hot spots, with the Craigavon, unemployment in Northern Ireland has decreased substantially in recent years, and is now roughly at 6. 1%, down from a peak of 17. 2% in 1986. Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment have fallen most quickly, working-age economic inactivity is 28%, which is the highest of any UK region. Northern Irelands macroeconomy is also characterised by considerably longer actual working hours, during the Troubles, Northern Ireland received little foreign investment. Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, investment in Northern Ireland has increased significantly, most investment has been focused in Greater Belfast and to a lesser extent Greater Derry. Major projects include the £400 million Victoria Square retail development in Belfast City Centre, the city will hosts the largest waterfront development in Europe with the Titanic Quarter scheme, costing over £1 billion and taking seven years to complete. The Cathedral Quarter has also seen substantial investment, in Londonderry/Derry, the ILEX Urban Regeneration Company has responsibility for driving forward the regeneration of the city. It is currently charged with redeveloping Ebrington Square and Fort George, the Culture Company is charged with running events and programmes during the citys stint as City of Culture in 2013. The Matrix Panel aims to grow NIs wealth by encouraging the exploitation of its science, the work has shown that there is still a need for greater exploitation of science and technology and a step-change in innovation in the economy and workplaces. The Panel’s recommendations are the result of an effort of technology industry leaders. Agriculture in Northern Ireland is heavily mechanised, thanks to high costs and heavy capital investment. In 2000, agriculture accounted for 2. 4% of economic output in Northern Ireland, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, livestock and dairy account for the majority of agricultural output. The main crops are potatoes, barley, and wheat, heavy industry is concentrated in and around Belfast, although other major towns and cities also have heavy manufacturing areas. Machinery and equipment manufacturing, food processing, textile and electronics manufacturing are the leading industries, other industries such as papermaking, furniture manufacturing, aerospace and shipbuilding are also important, concentrated mostly in the eastern parts of Northern Ireland
Economy of Northern Ireland
–
Harland and Wolff cranes in
Belfast
Economy of Northern Ireland
–
George Best Belfast City Airport
Economy of Northern Ireland
–
The
Enterprise passing
Poyntzpass.
22.
Government Office Regions
–
The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
Government Office Regions
–
Regions of England English regions
23.
Service sector
–
The tertiary sector or service sector is the third of the three economic sectors of the three-sector theory. The others are the secondary sector, and the primary sector, the basic characteristic of this sector is the production of services instead of end products. Services include attention, advice, access, experience, and discussion, the production of information has long been regarded as a service, but some economists now attribute it to a fourth sector, the quaternary sector. The tertiary sector of industry involves the provision of services to businesses as well as final consumers. The goods may be transformed in the process of providing the service, however, the focus is on people interacting with people and serving the customer rather than transforming physical goods. It is sometimes hard to define whether a company is part of the secondary or tertiary sector. These governmental classification systems have a hierarchy that reflects whether the economic goods are tangible or intangible. Unlike governmental classification systems, the first level of market-based classification systems divides the economy into functionally related markets or industries, the second or third level of these hierarchies then reflects whether goods or services are produced. For the last 100 years, there has been a shift from the primary and secondary sectors to the tertiary sector in industrialised countries. The tertiary sector is now the largest sector of the economy in the Western world and these are not necessarily busboys and live-in maids. Many of them are in the professional category and they are earning as much as manufacturing workers, and often more. The first economy to follow path in the modern world was the United Kingdom. The speed at which other economies have made the transition to service-based economies has increased over time, historically, manufacturing tended to be more open to international trade and competition than services. Service providers face obstacles selling services that goods-sellers rarely face, services are intangible, making it difficult for potential customers to understand what they will receive and what value it will hold for them. Indeed, some, such as consultants and providers of investment services, since the quality of most services depends largely on the quality of the individuals providing the services, people costs are usually a high fraction of service costs. Whereas a manufacturer may use technology, simplification, and other techniques to lower the cost of goods sold, for example, how does one choose one investment adviser over another, since they are often seen to provide identical services. Charging a premium for services is usually an option only for the most established firms, who charge extra based upon brand recognition
Service sector
–
Product’s lifecycle
Service sector
–
A motel in
Bjerka,
Norway
Service sector
–
Inside a supermarket in
Russia
Service sector
–
VÚB-Bank in
Bratislava (Slovakia)
24.
Forestry
–
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, using, conserving, and repairing forests and associated resources to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human and environment benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands, the science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester, other terms are used a verderer and a silviculturalist being common ones. Silviculture is narrower than forestry, being concerned only with forest plants, Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere, and forestry has emerged as a vital applied science, craft, and technology. Forestry is an important economic segment in various industrial countries, the preindustrial age has been dubbed by Werner Sombart and others as the wooden age, as timber and firewood were the basic resources for energy, construction and housing. The development of forestry is closely connected with the rise of capitalism, economy as a science and varying notions of land use. Roman Latifundiae, large estates, were quite successful in maintaining the large supply of wood that was necessary for the Roman Empire. Large deforestations came with respectively after the decline of the Romans, however already in the 5th century, monks in the then Byzantine Romagna on the Adriatic coast, were able to establish stone pine plantations to provide fuelwood and food. This was the beginning of the massive forest mentioned by Dante Alighieri in his 1308 poem Divine Comedy, the use and management of many forest resources has a long history in China as well, dating back to the Han Dynasty and taking place under the landowning gentry. A similar approach was used in Japan and it was also later written about by the Ming Dynasty Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi. In Europe, land rights in medieval and early modern times allowed different users to access forests. The notion of commons refers to the traditional legal term of common land. The idea of enclosed private property came about during modern times, however, most hunting rights were retained by members of the nobility which preserved the right of the nobility to access and use common land for recreation, like fox hunting. Systematic management of forests for a yield of timber is said to have begun in the German states in the 14th century, e. g. in Nuremberg. Typically, a forest was divided into sections and mapped. Large firs in the black forest were called „Holländer“, as they were traded to the Dutch ship yards, large timber rafts on the Rhine were 200 to 400m in length, 40m in width and consisted of several thousand logs. The crew consisted of 400 to 500 men, including shelter, bakeries, ovens, timber rafting infrastructure allowed for large interconnected networks all over continental Europe and is still of importance in Finland. The notion of Nachhaltigkeit, sustainability in forestry, is connected to the work of Hans Carl von Carlowitz
Forestry
–
Forestry work in
Austria
Forestry
–
A deciduous
beech forest in
Slovenia
Forestry
–
Timber harvesting is a common component of forestry
Forestry
–
Hans Carl von Carlowitz
25.
Bank of England
–
The Bank of England, formally the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world, after the Sveriges Riksbank, and it was established to act as the English Governments banker and is still one of the bankers for the Government of the United Kingdom. The Bank was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until it was nationalised in 1946, in 1998, it became an independent public organisation, wholly owned by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the government, with independence in setting monetary policy. The Banks Monetary Policy Committee has a responsibility for managing monetary policy. The Banks Financial Policy Committee held its first meeting in June 2011 as a macro prudential regulator to oversee regulation of the UKs financial sector, the Banks headquarters have been in Londons main financial district, the City of London, on Threadneedle Street, since 1734. It is sometimes known by the metonym The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street or The Old Lady, the busy road junction outside is known as Bank junction. Until 2016, the bank provided banking services as a popular privilege for employees. Englands crushing defeat by France, the dominant naval power, in naval engagements culminating in the 1690 Battle of Beachy Head, England had no choice but to build a powerful navy. No public funds were available, and the credit of William IIIs government was so low in London that it was impossible for it to borrow the £1,200,000 that the government wanted. To induce subscription to the loan, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of the Governor, the Bank was given exclusive possession of the governments balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue bank notes. The lenders would give the government cash and issue notes against the government bonds, the £1. 2m was raised in 12 days, half of this was used to rebuild the navy. This helped the new Kingdom of Great Britain – England and Scotland were formally united in 1707 – to become powerful, the power of the navy made Britain the dominant world power in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The establishment of the bank was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, the plan of 1691, which had been proposed by William Paterson three years before, had not then been acted upon. The Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694, the first governor was Sir John Houblon, who is depicted in the £50 note issued in 1994. The charter was renewed in 1742,1764, and 1781, the Bank moved to its current location in Threadneedle Street in 1734, and thereafter slowly acquired neighbouring land to create the edifice seen today. When the idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century, the 1844 Bank Charter Act tied the issue of notes to the gold reserves and gave the Bank sole rights with regard to the issue of banknotes. Private banks that had previously had that right retained it, provided that their headquarters were outside London, a few English banks continued to issue their own notes until the last of them was taken over in the 1930s. Scottish and Northern Irish private banks still have that right, the bank acted as lender of last resort for the first time in the panic of 1866
Bank of England
–
Headquarters
Bank of England
–
Logo
Bank of England
–
The sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694)
Bank of England
–
The main Bank of England façade, c. 1980
26.
Central bank
–
A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages a states currency, money supply, and interest rates. Central banks also usually oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries, Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally designed to be independent from political interference. Still, limited control by the executive and legislative bodies usually exists, prior to the 17th century most money was commodity money, typically gold or silver. However, promises to pay were widely circulated and accepted as value at least five hundred years earlier in both Europe and Asia. The Song dynasty was the first to issue generally circulating paper currency, in 1455, in an effort to control inflation, the succeeding Ming Dynasty ended the use of paper money and closed much of Chinese trade. The Bank of Amsterdam, established in the Dutch Republic in 1609, is considered to be the forerunner to modern central banks. The Wisselbanks innovations helped lay the foundations for the birth and development of the banking system that now plays a vital role in the worlds economy. Along with a number of local banks, it performed many functions of a central banking system. Lucien Gillard calls it the European guilder, and Adam Smith devotes many pages to explaining how the bank guilder works, the model of the Wisselbank as a state bank was adapted throughout Europe, including the Bank of Sweden and the Bank of England. Established by Dutch-Latvian Johan Palmstruch in 1668, Sveriges Riksbank is often considered by many as the worlds oldest central bank, the lenders would give the government cash and also issue notes against the government bonds, which could be lent again. A Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694, the bank was given exclusive possession of the governments balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue banknotes. The £1. 2M was raised in 12 days, half of this was used to rebuild the Navy and these modern central banking functions evolved slowly through the 18th and 19th centuries. The currency crisis of 1797, caused by panicked depositors withdrawing from the Bank led to the government suspending convertibility of notes into specie payment. The bank was accused by the bullionists of causing the exchange rate to fall from over issuing banknotes. Nevertheless, it was clear that the Bank was being treated as an organ of the state, henry Thornton, a merchant banker and monetary theorist has been described as the father of the modern central bank. An opponent of the real bills doctrine, he was a defender of the bullionist position, thorntons process of monetary expansion anticipated the theories of Knut Wicksell regarding the cumulative process which restates the Quantity Theory in a theoretically coherent form. Until the mid-nineteenth century, commercial banks were able to issue their own banknotes, many consider the origins of the central bank to lie with the passage of the Bank Charter Act of 1844. Under this law, authorisation to issue new banknotes was restricted to the Bank of England, at the same time, the Bank of England was restricted to issue new banknotes only if they were 100% backed by gold or up to £14 million in government debt
Central bank
–
Public finance
Central bank
–
The old town hall in Amsterdam where the
Bank of Amsterdam was founded in 1609, painting by
Pieter Saenredam.
Central bank
–
The sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694).
Central bank
–
The
Bank of England, established in 1694.
27.
Monetary policy
–
Further goals of a monetary policy are usually to contribute to economic growth and stability, to lower unemployment, and to maintain predictable exchange rates with other currencies. Monetary economics provides insight into how to craft an optimal monetary policy, since the 1970s, monetary policy has generally been formed separately from fiscal policy, which refers to taxation, government spending, and associated borrowing. Monetary policy is referred to as either being expansionary or contractionary, expansionary policy is when a monetary authority uses its tools to stimulate the economy. An expansionary policy increases the supply of money in the economy more rapidly than usual. It is traditionally used to try to combat unemployment in a recession by lowering interest rates in the hope that easy credit will entice businesses into expanding, also, this increases the aggregate demand, which boosts growth as measured by gross domestic product. Expansionary monetary policy usually diminishes the value of the currency, thereby decreasing the exchange rate, the opposite of expansionary monetary policy is contractionary monetary policy, which slows the rate of growth in the money supply or even shrinks it. This slows economic growth to prevent inflation, monetary policy is associated with interest rates and availability of credit. Instruments of monetary policy have included short-term interest rates and bank reserves through the monetary base, for many centuries there were only two forms of monetary policy, Decisions about coinage, Decisions to print paper money to create credit. Interest rates, while now thought of as part of monetary authority, were not generally coordinated with the forms of monetary policy during this time. Monetary policy was seen as a decision, and was generally in the hands of the authority with seigniorage. With the advent of larger trading networks came the ability to set the price between gold and silver, and the price of the currency to foreign currencies. This official price could be enforced by law, even if it varied from the market price, paper money called jiaozi originated from promissory notes in 7th century China. Jiaozi did not replace metallic currency, and were used alongside the copper coins, the successive Yuan Dynasty was the first government to use paper currency as the predominant circulating medium. In the later course of the dynasty, facing shortages of specie to fund war and their rule in China, they began printing paper money without restrictions. The goal of policy was to maintain the value of the coinage, print notes which would trade at par to specie. To accomplish this end, central banks as part of the standard began setting the interest rates that they charged. The maintenance of a standard required almost monthly adjustments of interest rates. The gold standard might be regarded as a case of fixed exchange rate policy
Monetary policy
–
Public finance
28.
Royal Mint
–
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to strike British coins. The Royal Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, producing coins for England, since 2010 it has operated as Royal Mint Ltd, a company owned by HM Treasury, under an exclusive contract to supply all coinage for the UK. Royal Mint Ltd is 100% owned by HM Treasury, which delegates shareholder responsibilities to the Shareholder Executive, responsibility for the security of the site falls to the Ministry of Defence Police, who provide an armed contingent. In 1968 The Royal Mint began to move its operations from Tower Hill in the City of London to Llantrisant, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, and has operated on a single site in Llantrisant since 1980. At Llantrisant it holds a collection of coins dating from the 16th century onwards, housed in eighty cabinets made by Elizabeth IIs cabinet maker. The site occupies 38 acres and employs over 900 people, the annual Trial of the Pyx assays coins produced for the UK government for size, weight and chemical composition. The London Mint first became an institution in 886, during the reign of Alfred the Great. By 1279 it had moved to the Tower of London, and remained there the next 500 years and he unofficially moved the Pound Sterling to the gold standard from silver in 1717. By the time Newton arrived, the Mint had expanded to fill several rickety wooden buildings ranged around the outside of the Tower, in the eighteenth century the processes for minting coins were mechanised and rolling mills and coining presses were installed. The new machinery and the demand on space in the Tower of London following the outbreak of war with France led to a decision to move the Mint to an adjacent site in East Smithfield. The new building, designed by James Johnson and Robert Smirke, was completed in 1809, and included space for the new machinery, the building was rebuilt in the 1880s to accommodate new machinery which increased the capacity of the Mint. During World War II, The Royal Mint was bombed by the Germans, the Royal Mint was hit on several occasions and was put out of commission for three weeks at one point. In 1967 it was announced that the mint would move away from London to new buildings in Llantrisant, smirkes 1809 Building is now used as commercial offices by Barclays Global Investors. On 1 April 1975 The Royal Mint became a trading fund to improve its efficiency by requiring it to become self-financing. In March 2009, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling began planning to sell off The Royal Mint, on 31 December 2009 it ceased to be an executive agency and its assets were vested in a limited company, Royal Mint Ltd. The owner of the new company became The Royal Mint trading fund, the Royal Mint exists principally to mint coins for circulation in the UK. As of 2013, The Royal Mint produces approximately 15% of the coin based currency. From the 1970s to 2009, it produced all Order of the British Empire Insignia, the Royal Mint in London also produced coins for Canada until a branch was opened in the Canadian capital city Ottawa in 1908
Royal Mint
–
The Royal Mint moved from the Tower of London to new premises c. 1809
Royal Mint
–
The Royal Mint
Royal Mint
–
Silver
Sixpence, struck in 1593 under
Queen Elizabeth I, Royal Mint, (
Tower of London).
Royal Mint
–
The Royal Mint building of the 1880s
29.
Coins of the pound sterling
–
The standard circulating coinage of the United Kingdom is denominated in pounds sterling, and, since the introduction of the two-pound coin in 1994, ranges in value from one penny to two pounds. Since decimalisation, on 15 February 1971, the pound has been divided into 100 pence, from the 16th century until decimalisation, the pound was divided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence. British coins are minted by the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, Wales, the Royal Mint also commissions the coins designs. As of 30 March 2010, there were an estimated 28 billion coins circulating in the United Kingdom, the first decimal coins were circulated in 1968. These were the five pence and ten pence, and had values of one shilling, the decimal coins are minted in copper-plated steel, nickel-plated steel, cupro-nickel and nickel-brass. The two-pound coins, and, as of the 28th March 2017, all the circulating coins have an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse, and various national and regional designs, and the denomination, on the reverse. The exception, the 2008 one-pound coin, depicts the shield of arms on the reverse. All current coins carry a Latin inscription whose full form is ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA FIDEI DEFENSATRIX, meaning Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, Queen, in addition to the circulating coinage, the UK also mints commemorative decimal coins in the denomination of five pounds. Prior to decimalisation, the denomination was five shillings, that is. Crowns, therefore, had a value of 25p from decimalisation until 1981. Ceremonial Maundy money and bullion coinage of gold sovereigns, half sovereigns, some territories outside the United Kingdom, that use the pound sterling, produce their own coinage, with the same denominations and specifications as the UK coinage but local designs. In the years just prior to decimalisation, the circulating British coins were the half crown, the farthing had been withdrawn in 1960. There was also the Crown, which was legal tender but only minted on special occasions, all modern coins feature a profile of the current monarchs head. The direction in which they face changes with each successive monarch, for the Tudors and pre-Restoration Stuarts, both left and right-facing portrait images were minted within the reign of a single monarch. In the Middle Ages, portrait images tended to be full face, the English silver penny was derived from another silver coin, the sceat, of 20 troy grains weight, which was in general circulation in Europe during the Middle Ages. In the 12th century, Henry II established the silver standard for English coinage, of 92. 5% silver and 7. 5% copper. The coinage reform of 1816 set up a ratio and physical sizes for silver coins. Silver was eliminated from coins, except Maundy coins, in 1947, the history of the Royal Mint stretches back to AD886
Coins of the pound sterling
–
Examples of the standard reverse designs minted until 2008 (£2 coin is not shown)
Coins of the pound sterling
–
Cromwell 1653–1658
Coins of the pound sterling
Coins of the pound sterling
–
James II 1685–1688
30.
Llantrisant
–
Llantrisant is a town in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales, within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan, Wales, lying on the River Ely and the Afon Clun. The three saints of the name are SS. Llantrisant is a settlement, at an altitude of 174 m above sea level. The town is home to the Royal Mint, there is evidence for settlements in and around Llantrisant stretching back over three millennia. Two Bronze Age burial mounds are on Mynydd Garthmaelwg, the side of the Ely Valley. A1.05 metres tall, by 1.68 metres wide, possibly Bronze Age, an Iron Age hillfort stands on Rhiwsaeson Hill. The enclosure, now known as Caerau Hillfort, measures 230 metres by 180 metres, a settlement has existed on this site from at least the beginning of the 6th century, when the poet Aneurin wrote of the white houses of Glamorgan when referring to Llantrisant. It was seized around 1246 by Richard de Clare who built Llantrisant Castle and it is thought that de Clare established the borough of Llantrisant though the exact charter occurred in 1346. In 1346, Llantrisant was granted a Royal Charter months before the archers from the town helped Edward, the Llantrisant longbow men were pivotal in the adoption of the English longbow as the missile weapon of choice for the English crown during the Middle Ages. Llantrisant was one of the eight boroughs constituting the Glamorgan borough following the Act of Union, the rite was intended as a reminder to each generation of the importance of the borough boundaries. The children in question are held under the arms and the legs and it is believed that the Beating of the Bounds started in 1346, when Llantrisant was awarded its Royal Charter. This allowed them the freedom to trade without paying tolls within the boundaries of the former borough, the last occasion of this event was in June 2010, but the event is now seen as a purely historic tradition and social community event. At nearby Tarren Deusant is a spring with unusual petrosomatoglyph carvings of two faces, two saints, but now six are present, Llantrisant is known for its pub culture with a number of venues including The New Inn, the Wheatsheaf and the Cross Keys Hotel. Formerly in the Bull Ring was the Rock and Fountain pub, the focal point of the town is the Bull Ring, a commercial square in the centre of the town that was used for bull-baiting, until it was disallowed in 1827 due to unruly crowds. The square contains a statue of Dr William Price a pioneer of cremation, the Union Workhouse was built in 1884 on the Bull Ring – west of where Dr Prices statue stands today and behind the town pump. It became known as The Model House, in the rather optimistic belief that its inmates would lead a life of model Christianity, two pubs, a shop and a cottage were demolished to make way for the expansion of the workhouse. The building closed as a workhouse in the early 1900s and first became a house, then an inn and later a general store. They were known as a cornflour and provisions merchant, and a linen and woolen drapers, also selling boots, the site was bought in the 1950s by Planet Gloves, who manufactured gloves there until the late 1960s
Llantrisant
–
The remains of Llantrisant Castle
Llantrisant
–
The 15th century tower of The Church of the Three Saints, Llantrisant
31.
Tower Hill
–
Tower Hill is an elevated spot northwest of the Tower of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, just outside the City of London boundary. It was formerly an area known as Great Tower Hill. Historically it was the site of public executions and today it is notable for being the site of the Tower Hill Memorial. The area is served by Tower Gateway DLR station and Tower Hill tube station, a road named Tower Hill forms a short stretch of the A3211 route between Byward Street in the west and a junction with Minories and Tower Hill Terrace in the east. A nearby church, All Hallows-by-the-Tower, is known for fragments of Romanesque architecture dating back to AD680, in 1855 the area became part of the district of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The District of Tower became part of the Whitechapel District, under the authority of the Whitechapel District Board of Works and this was ambiguous and The Great Tower Hill Act 1869 was required to explicitly interpret it as Old Tower Without, including within it Great Tower Hill. The Tower Liberty was abolished in 1894 and incorporated into the County of London
Tower Hill
–
10 Trinity Square, Tower Hill
Tower Hill
–
Tower Hill as shown on the
"Woodcut" map of c. 1561
Tower Hill
–
Site of the Scaffold on Tower Hill
32.
Cost of living
–
Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time are often operationalized in a cost of living index, cost of living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living in different geographic areas. Differences in cost of living between locations can also be measured in terms of purchasing power parity rates, employment contracts, pension benefits, and government entitlements such as Social Security can be tied to a cost-of-living index, typically to the consumer price index. A COLA adjusts salaries based on changes in a cost-of-living index and they may also be tied to a cost-of-living index that varies by geographic location if the employee moves. Annual escalation clauses in employment contracts can specify retroactive or future percentage increases in worker pay which are not tied to any index, cost-of-living allowance is equal to the nominal interest minus the real interest rate. When cost-of-living adjustments, negotiated wage settlements and budgetary increases exceed CPI, however, CPI is based on the retail pricing of a basket of goods and services. Most purchases of that same basket require the use of after-tax dollars—dollars that were subject to the highest marginal tax rate. Consequently, the COLA will necessarily have to exceed the CPI inflation rate to maintain purchasing power and they include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs. The survey itself is a tool designed to calculate cost-of-living allowances and build compensation packages for expatriates. The survey incorporates easy-to-understand comparative cost of living indices between cities, the survey allows city-to-city comparisons, but for the purpose of this report all cities are compared to a base city of New York City, which has an index set at 100. The survey has been carried out for more than 30 years, the most recent survey was published in March 2017. Singapore, remains the most expensive city in the world for the year running. Sydney and Melbourne have both cemented their positions as top-ten staples, with Sydney becoming the fifth most expensive, asia is home to more than five most expensive cities in the top twenty but also home to eight cheapest cities of the cheapest ten. Stipends or extra pay provided to employees who are being temporarily relocated may also be called cost-of-living adjustments or cost-of-living allowances, such adjustments are intended to offset changes in welfare due to geographic differences in the cost of living. Such adjustments might more accurately be described as a per diem allowance or tied to a specific item, employees who are being permanently relocated are less likely to receive such allowances, but may receive a base salary adjustment to reflect local market conditions. For example, service members stationed in Japan receive a cost of living allowance of between $300 and $700 per month, in addition to their base pay
Cost of living
–
Protests in Aysén due to the high cost of living in
Patagonia
33.
Vale of Glamorgan
–
The Vale of Glamorgan, often referred to as The Vale, is a county borough in Wales. With an economy based largely on agriculture and chemicals, it is the southernmost unitary authority in Wales, attractions include Barry Island Pleasure Park, the Barry Tourist Railway, Porthkerry Park, St Donats Castle, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park and Cosmeston Medieval Village. It is also the location of Atlantic College, one of the United World Colleges, other towns include Penarth, Llantwit Major and Cowbridge. There are many villages in the county borough, the village would have consisted of a number of small stone round houses, or crofts, with thatched roofs. Clemenstone, to the west, was the seat of several high sheriffs of Glamorganshire, william Curre, known to have lived in Clemenstone in 1766, was also an occupant of Itton Court in Monmouthshire. In the early 19th century, Lady Sale née Wynch, wife of Sir Robert Sale, in 1974, the area became part of South Glamorgan, under the Local Government Act 1972. It created several problems in local governance, between the South Glamorgan County Council, Cardiff City Council and the Vale of Glamorgan Borough Council owing to their conflicting interests. It was a turbulent time for governance in the city of Cardiff, as for the first time in its history it had to authority with the county council. In April 1996, the Vale of Glamorgan became a county borough of Wales, located immediately to the west of Cardiff between the M4 motorway and the Severn Estuary, the Vale of Glamorgan covers 33,097 hectares and has 53 km of coastline. The largest centre of population is Barry, other towns include Cowbridge, Dinas Powys, Llantwit Major and Penarth. Much of the population inhabits villages, hamlets and individual farms, the area is low-lying, with a maximum height of 137.3 metres above sea level at Tair Onen to the east of Cowbridge. The borough borders Cardiff to the north east, Rhondda Cynon Taf to the north, Bridgend to the north west and the Bristol Channel to the south. The yellow-grey cliffs on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast are unique on the Celtic Sea coastline as they are formed of a combination of limestone, shale. They were formed 200 million years ago when the area lay underneath a warm, shallow. Thus today the cliffs contain traces of Jurassic sea creatures, such as ammonites and this stratification can also be found on other parts of the Celtic seaboard, such as Bude in Cornwall, across the Bristol Channel. As the Glamorgan Heritage Coast faces westwards out to the Atlantic, it bears the brunt of onshore winds, ideal for surfing, but a nuisance for ships sailing up the Bristol Channel to Cardiff. As in North Cornwall and South-West Ireland, the fierce Atlantic gales created ideal conditions for deliberate shipwrecking, the Vale of Glamorgan was determined to be the wealthiest area in Wales in a 2003 survey conducted by Barclays Bank that measured disposable income. Chemical industries are located to the east of the port of Barry while further inland the main activity is agriculture, especially beef and dairy cattle, with marketing facilities at Cowbridge
Vale of Glamorgan
–
Looking across the Vale of Glamorgan on Brynhill Golf Course, Highlight Barry, Vale of Glamorgan
Vale of Glamorgan
–
Vale of Glamorgan County Borough Bwrdeistref Sirol Bro Morgannwg
Vale of Glamorgan
–
The rich countryside of the Vale of Glamorgan
Vale of Glamorgan
–
Looking across the Bristol Channel from
Porthkerry Park, in
Barry, Vale of Glamorgan
34.
Cardiff city centre
–
Cardiff city centre is the city centre and central business district of Cardiff, Wales. The area is bound by the River Taff to the west. Cardiff became a city in 1905, compared to nearby cities, the new St Davids Centre has more retail space than the whole of Newport or Swansea. In 2008–9, the footfall of shoppers was 55 million. Cardiff is the sixth most successful shopping destination in the United Kingdom – behind London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff was granted city status by Edward VII in 1905. In the 1960s, planners described Cardiff city centre as worn out, inconvenient, drab, the centre had escaped the extensive wartime bomb damage inflicted on other cities, so little redevelopment took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The Buchanan Plan of 1964 envisaged a highly ambitious extended city centre, by the time the legal agreement to implement Centreplan 70 was signed, the 1973 property crash had made it unviable. Development in the 1970s and 80s was more piecemeal than envisaged in Centreplan, the latter became, according to official publicists, one of the icons of Cardiffs new image. Development of the began in February 2010 and is expected to be completed by July 2011. Cardiff Council says that work to create the Castle Quarter as a friendly environment for High Street. Castle Street follows on from Cowbridge Road East from Canton and begins after Cardiff Bridge and it becomes Duke Street after the junction with High Street before turning north and becoming Kingsway, leading to Cardiff Civic Centre. From west to east, streets that begin from the side of this stretch are Westgate Street, Womanby Street, High Street, St Johns Street, Queen Street. Cardiff Castle and Bute Park dominate the northern side of the street, on the southern side are pubs, bars, retail and hotel units. Castle Arcade and Duke Street Arcades begin from this stretch, St. Mary Street and High Street. The former street is named after the 11th century church of St. Mary, today the stretch of road is the home of a number of bars, night clubs and restaurants, as well as branches of many major banks. Also fronting onto the street is Howells department store, which stretches from just after Cardiff Central Market to the corner of Wharton Street, from August 2007 the street was closed to private vehicles, leaving only buses, cycles and taxis allowed to access the whole street. The street is closed to all traffic every Friday and Saturday night to allow the efflux from night clubs and pubs located in that part of the street to clear. It is also closed when major events take place such as at the Millennium Stadium, the Prince Of Wales is a prominent J D Wetherspoon establishment at the junction with Wood Street, which leads to Central Station
Cardiff city centre
–
The Hayes, Cardiff with Cardiff Central Library (right)
Cardiff city centre
–
Stadium House (left) and South Gate House (right), in the west of the city centre
Cardiff city centre
–
John Speed 's 1610 map of Cardiff
Cardiff city centre
–
Duke Street Arcade
35.
Cardiff Bay
–
Cardiff Bay is the area of water created by the Cardiff Barrage in South Cardiff, the capital of Wales. It is also the name given to the areas of the city surrounding the Bay. The creation of Cardiff Bay is now regarded as one of the most successful regeneration projects in the United Kingdom. The Bay is supplied by two rivers to form a 500-acre freshwater lake around the former dockland area south of the city centre. The Bay was formerly tidal, with access to the sea limited to a couple of each side of high water. Cardiff Bay played a part in Cardiff’s development by being the means of exporting coal from the South Wales Valleys to the rest of the world. The coal mining industry helped fund the building of Cardiff into the Capital city of Wales and helped the Third Marquis of Bute, after the Second World War most of the industry closed down and became derelict. But, in 1999, new life was injected into the area by the building of the Cardiff Bay Barrage, one of the most controversial building projects of the day but also one of the most successful. The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was created in 1987 to stimulate the redevelopment of 1,100 hectares of derelict land, the Development Corporation aimed to attract private capital by spending public money to improve the area. Despite opposition by environmentalists and wildlife organisations, the mudflats at the mouths of the River Taff and River Ely were inundated, the Barrage has created several new habitats for freshwater species with the wetlands to the south of the Hamadryad Park. When the Development Corporation was wound up in on 31 March 2000, the whole area was unrecognisable from ten years before. Much private land was now open to the public, particularly around the inner harbour, work is progressing to complete a 13 kilometre walkway around the Bay. In addition, the development has enabled land in the city centre to be redeveloped for higher-value uses, the development of something like 1,250 apartments a year however might cause future problems. As at 2008 up to one third were not occupied, critics such as Lorraine Barrett say, the flat complexes will not help to build up a community and too little attention has been paid to develop affordable housing. With the recent falls in property values, sales in the area have become problematic, therefore, landlords might be more willing to rent their places out to people who may not be suited to that type of living. Connecting the Bay area to the centre of Cardiff was a goal when plans to develop the docklands were first mooted. Original plans included a grand boulevard with high density commercial and residential units straddling both sides, on 30 January 2013 the award-winning planning consultant, Adrian Jones, stated that Cardiff Bay was a contender for the worst example of waterside regeneration in Britain. No, it is the lack of any coherent urban structure, of real streets, in other words, it is the dumb plan
Cardiff Bay
–
Cardiff Bay before the construction of the
Cardiff Bay Barrage
Cardiff Bay
–
Cardiff Bay in 2008
Cardiff Bay
–
Pierhead Building (left) and Senedd (right)
36.
Dinorwic Quarry
–
The Dinorwic Slate Quarry is a large former slate quarry, now home to the Welsh National Slate Museum, located between the villages of Llanberis and Dinorwig in North Wales. It was the second largest slate quarry in Wales, indeed in the world and it covered more than 700 acres consisting of two main quarry sections with 20 galleries in each and a number of ancillary workings. Extensive internal tramway systems connected the quarries using inclines to transport slate between galleries, the first commercial attempts at slate mining took place in 1787, when a private partnership obtained a lease from the landowner, Assheton Smith. Although this met with success, the outbreak of war with France, taxes. A new business led by Assheton Smith was formed on the expiry of the lease in 1809. Although by 1930 its working employment had dropped to 2,000, the slate vein at Dinorwic is nearly vertical and lies at or near the surface of the mountain, allowing it to be worked in a series of stepped galleries. This is however not quite how the quarry developed and this was a situation that lasted for many years, certainly until the mid-1830s. The 1824 railway brought transport problems, produce from the upper quarries was not a problem, but Wellington, Ellis, Turner, Harriet and Victoria quarries were all below the level of the railway. This was a problem solved in the 1840s when the lake level railway was built, adelaide Quarry became a part of Allt Ddu, and Chwarel Fawr and Chwarel Goch became linked to it too. In the Great New Quarry Raven Rock and Garret Quarries became one massive quarry, operating as an open hillside gallery quarry, Harriet, Morgans and Sofia quarry are all still identifiable as separate pits today, whilst Braich Quarry became a large working of 3 contiguous smaller pits. Below this, The galleries of Victoria and Wellington were joined along the hillside, each was eventually to contain several small Sinks too, some below lake level. The current form of the quarry is little different from that of the time of the Great War, save for enlarging of the quarry faces. Certainly all the main inclines were in place, very little was altered until closure, the nearby Marchlyn quarry was opened in the 1930s to provide access to the main slate vein higher up the mountain. The quarry closed in July 1969, the result of industry decline and it was however decided that some final work could be done by clearing some of the waste from the Garret fall. This involved making a road for more modern quarry vehicles across some of the terraces. This amount of slate won by this method was small and all production stopped by 1969, at the Receivers instruction a public auction was arranged, intended to pay off some of the quarrys debts. The auctions were held on 12 and 13 December 1969, the auctioneers national advertisement, the event was described as An auction sale of machine tools and stocks, four Hunslet locos, and engine and boat fittings. The locomotives referred to, lots 613-616, were Dolbadarn, Red Damsel, Wild Aster, before the bidding started, it was announced that Gwynedd County Council had placed a Preservation Order on the Gilfach Ddu workshops, and many items within it
Dinorwic Quarry
–
Vivian quarry, part of the Dinorwic Quarry
Dinorwic Quarry
–
The Incline
Dinorwic Quarry
–
The Welsh Slate Museum located in Gilfach Ddu
Dinorwic Quarry
–
Reef dives
37.
Bristol
–
Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 449,300 in 2016. The district has the 10th largest population in England, while the Bristol metropolitan area is the 12th largest in the United Kingdom, the city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. Iron Age hill forts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon, Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373, when it became a county of itself. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities after London in tax receipts, Bristol was surpassed by the rapid rise of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham in the Industrial Revolution. Bristol was a place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. On a ship out of Bristol in 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian, in 1499 William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America. At the height of the Bristol slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, the Port of Bristol has since moved from Bristol Harbour in the city centre to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock. Bristols modern economy is built on the media, electronics and aerospace industries. The city has the largest circulating community currency in the U. K. - the Bristol pound, which is pegged to the Pound sterling. It is connected to London and other major UK cities by road, rail, sea and air by the M5 and M4, Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway mainline rail stations, and Bristol Airport. The Sunday Times named it as the best city in Britain in which to live in 2014 and 2017, the most ancient recorded name for Bristol is the archaic Welsh Caer Odor, which is consistent with modern understanding that early Bristol developed between the River Frome and Avon Gorge. It is most commonly stated that the Saxon name Bricstow was a calque of the existing Celtic name, with Bric a literal translation of Odor. Alternative etymologies are supported with the numerous variations in Medieval documents with Samuel Seyer enumerating 47 alternative forms. The Old English form Brycgstow is commonly used to derive the meaning place at the bridge, utilizing another form, Brastuile, Rev. Dr. Shaw derived the name from the Celtic words bras, or braos and tuile. The poet Thomas Chatterton popularised a derivation from Brictricstow linking the town to Brictric and it appears that the form Bricstow prevailed until 1204, and the Bristolian L is what eventually changed the name to Bristol. Iron Age hill forts near the city are at Leigh Woods and Clifton Down, on the side of the Avon Gorge, a Roman settlement, Abona, existed at what is now Sea Mills, another was at the present-day Inns Court. Isolated Roman villas and small forts and settlements were scattered throughout the area. Bristol was founded by 1000, by about 1020, it was a centre with a mint producing silver pennies bearing its name
Bristol
–
Bristol
Bristol
Bristol
–
Black and white etching showing the towers of
St Stephen's Church,
St Augustine the Less Church and
Bristol Cathedral, published c.1850
Bristol
–
West front of Bristol Cathedral
38.
Liverpool
–
Liverpool is a major city and metropolitan borough in North West England.24 million people in 2011. Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the south west of the county of Lancashire and it became a borough from 1207 and a city from 1880. In 1889 it became a county borough independent of Lancashire, Liverpool sits on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary and its growth as a major port is paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, raw materials such as coal and cotton, the city was also directly involved in the Atlantic slave trade. Liverpool was home to both the Cunard and White Star Line, and was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic and others such as the RMS Lusitania, Queen Mary, and Olympic. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007, and it held the European Capital of Culture title together with Stavanger, Norway, several areas of Liverpool city centre were granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004. The Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock, tourism forms a significant part of the citys economy. Liverpool is also the home of two Premier League football clubs, Liverpool and Everton, matches between the two being known as the Merseyside derby, the world-famous Grand National horse race takes place annually at Aintree Racecourse on the outskirts of the city. The city is home to the oldest Black African community in the country. Natives of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians and colloquially as Scousers, a reference to scouse, the word Scouse has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect. Pool is a place name element in England from the Brythonic word for a pond, inlet, or pit, cognate with the modern Welsh. The derivation of the first element remains uncertain, with the Welsh word Llif as the most plausible relative and this etymology is supported by its similarity to that of the archaic Welsh name for Liverpool Llynlleifiad. Other origins of the name have suggested, including elverpool. The name appeared in 1190 as Liuerpul, and it may be that the place appearing as Leyrpole, in a record of 1418. King Johns letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool, the original street plan of Liverpool is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter, making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in an H shape, Bank Street, Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, Juggler Street, Moor Street, in the 17th century there was slow progress in trade and population growth. Battles for the town were waged during the English Civil War, in 1699 Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament, that same year its first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa. Since Roman times, the city of Chester on the River Dee had been the regions principal port on the Irish Sea
Liverpool
–
From top left:
Pier Head and the
Mersey Ferry;
St George's Hall and the
Walker Art Gallery,
Liverpool Catholic Cathedral;
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral;
Georgian architecture in
Canning;
Princes Dock
Liverpool
–
"Liverpool in 1680" the earliest known image of Liverpool
Liverpool
–
A map of Liverpool's original seven streets (north to the left)
Liverpool
–
Inaugural journey of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, the first ever commercial railway line.
39.
Drover (Britain)
–
A drovers road, drove or droveway is a route for droving livestock on foot from one place to another, such as to market or between summer and winter pasture. Many drovers roads were ancient routes of unknown age, others are known to back to medieval or more recent times. Drovers roads are wider than other roads, able to accommodate large herds or flocks. Packhorse ways were quite narrow as the horses moved in single file, whereas drove roads were at least 40 feet and up to 90 feet wide. In the United Kingdom, where many original drovers roads have been converted into single carriageway metalled roads, in Wales, the start of many droveways, drovers roads are often recognisable by being deeply set into the countryside, with high earth walls or hedges. The most characteristic feature of these roads is the occasional turn in the road. It is likely that the so-called Roman Steps in the Rhinogydd in Wales is an example of a drove road, drovers accompanied their livestock either on foot or on horseback, travelling substantial distances. Rural England, Wales and Scotland are crossed by numerous roads that were used for this trade, many of which are now no more than tracks. Controlling herds of three or four hundred animals on roads, keeping them healthy, and feeding them en route over several weeks or months required expertise. There was licensing under the legislation, introduced in 1563, intended to control badgers of grain and drovers of cattle and they were also exempted from the Disarming Acts of 1716 and 1748, which were passed after Jacobite uprisings. They were not necessarily literate but were respected as experts in their trade, some form of drovers roads existed in Romano-British times and certainly throughout the Early Middle Ages. For example, the old east-west drovers road connecting the Dorset/Exeter region with London, many lengths of the Welsh Road through the English Midlands coincide with manorial or parish boundaries, suggesting that it predates them and probably had pre-Roman origins as an ancient trackway. Drovers from Scotland were licensed in 1359 to drive stock through England and these may be simply the earliest records of a more ancient trade. There is increasing evidence for large-scale cattle-rearing in Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain, Cattle and sheep were part of the Romano-British economy. By the Anglo-Saxon period there was long distance movement of cattle, what is certain is that during the medieval period there was a substantial trade in cattle out of Wales into England, to which cattle from Ireland were added. These were driven across Somerset, Wiltshire and Berkshire to feed the population of London. Medieval drovers roads were wide by medieval standards,20 metres across, with wide grazing verges on either side and they are documented from the 13th century and were organized in the 16th century by Statuts de la transhumance. This established drovers roads that continued without change into the age of the railroad
Drover (Britain)
–
Drover's Road near
Latteridge,
South Gloucestershire
Drover (Britain)
–
A section of drover's road at Cotkerse near
Blairlogie, Scotland
Drover (Britain)
–
Cañada Real Leonesa Occidental in
Province of Ávila, Spain
40.
Drovers road
–
A drovers road, drove or droveway is a route for droving livestock on foot from one place to another, such as to market or between summer and winter pasture. Many drovers roads were ancient routes of unknown age, others are known to back to medieval or more recent times. Drovers roads are wider than other roads, able to accommodate large herds or flocks. Packhorse ways were quite narrow as the horses moved in single file, whereas drove roads were at least 40 feet and up to 90 feet wide. In the United Kingdom, where many original drovers roads have been converted into single carriageway metalled roads, in Wales, the start of many droveways, drovers roads are often recognisable by being deeply set into the countryside, with high earth walls or hedges. The most characteristic feature of these roads is the occasional turn in the road. It is likely that the so-called Roman Steps in the Rhinogydd in Wales is an example of a drove road, drovers accompanied their livestock either on foot or on horseback, travelling substantial distances. Rural England, Wales and Scotland are crossed by numerous roads that were used for this trade, many of which are now no more than tracks. Controlling herds of three or four hundred animals on roads, keeping them healthy, and feeding them en route over several weeks or months required expertise. There was licensing under the legislation, introduced in 1563, intended to control badgers of grain and drovers of cattle and they were also exempted from the Disarming Acts of 1716 and 1748, which were passed after Jacobite uprisings. They were not necessarily literate but were respected as experts in their trade, some form of drovers roads existed in Romano-British times and certainly throughout the Early Middle Ages. For example, the old east-west drovers road connecting the Dorset/Exeter region with London, many lengths of the Welsh Road through the English Midlands coincide with manorial or parish boundaries, suggesting that it predates them and probably had pre-Roman origins as an ancient trackway. Drovers from Scotland were licensed in 1359 to drive stock through England and these may be simply the earliest records of a more ancient trade. There is increasing evidence for large-scale cattle-rearing in Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain, Cattle and sheep were part of the Romano-British economy. By the Anglo-Saxon period there was long distance movement of cattle, what is certain is that during the medieval period there was a substantial trade in cattle out of Wales into England, to which cattle from Ireland were added. These were driven across Somerset, Wiltshire and Berkshire to feed the population of London. Medieval drovers roads were wide by medieval standards,20 metres across, with wide grazing verges on either side and they are documented from the 13th century and were organized in the 16th century by Statuts de la transhumance. This established drovers roads that continued without change into the age of the railroad
Drovers road
–
Drover's Road near
Latteridge,
South Gloucestershire
Drovers road
–
A section of drover's road at Cotkerse near
Blairlogie, Scotland
Drovers road
–
Cañada Real Leonesa Occidental in
Province of Ávila, Spain
41.
English Midlands
–
The Midlands is a cultural and geographic area roughly spanning central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders South East England, South West England, North West England, Yorkshire and Humber, East of England and its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important location for the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The greater part of the area is formed of two English statistical regions, the West Midlands and East Midlands, the Midlands does not correspond to any current administrative area, and there is therefore no strict definition. With more restricted boundaries than the area known as the Midlands. These are also constituencies of the European Parliament, the East Midlands region comprises the shire counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire and the unitary county of Rutland. The two regions have a population of 10,135,000, and an area of 11,053 sq mi. The largest Midlands conurbation, which includes the cities of Birmingham, various part of the Midlands are somewhat poetically referred to as the Heart of England, especially in tourist literature. The various areas of the Midlands have their own character, giving rise to a high number of local history. Nottingham played a part in the English Civil War, which is commemorated in a number of place names. Areas such as Derbyshires Amber Valley and Erewash combine attractive countryside with industrial heritage and are home to historic canals, the Black Country, broadly the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall, played an important part in the Industrial Revolution. The Midlands is predominantly low-lying and flat in character, although isolated hills such as Turners Hill have extensive views. Upland areas lie in the west and north of the region with the Shropshire Hills to the west, close to the Welsh border, the Shropshire Hills reach heights of over 500 m, including the Long Mynd, Clee Hills and Stiperstones ridge. Wenlock Edge, running through the middle of the Shropshire Hills AONB, is a long, low ridge, the Peak District reaches heights of between 300 m and 600 m with Kinder Scout being the highest point at 636 m. Further south, the Welsh border reaches over 700 m high, at Black Mountain, other small areas of lower hills in the Midlands include Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, and the Lincolnshire Wolds in Lincolnshire. The Cotswolds – designated an AONB in 1966, – extend for over 90 miles through six counties, but centred on Gloucestershire. They reach a highest point of 330 m at Cleeve Hill, the Malverns are formed of some of the oldest rock in England and extend for some 13 km through two West Midlands counties as well as northern Gloucestershire in the southwest. The highest point of the hills is the Worcestershire Beacon at 425 m above sea level, the Midlands has a temperate maritime climate. With cold, cloudy, wet winters and comfortable, mostly dry, the temperature usually ranges from −0.4 °C during winter nights to 24.1 °C during summer days
English Midlands
–
The Midlands in England
42.
Smithfield Market
–
Smithfield is a locality in the ward of Farringdon Without situated at the City of Londons northwest in central London, England. The principal street of the area is West Smithfield, the area also contains Londons oldest surviving church, St Bartholomew-the-Great, founded in 1123 AD. Some of its original market premises fell into disuse in the late 20th century, the Corporation of Londons public enquiry in 2012 drew widespread support for an urban regeneration plan intent upon preserving Smithfields historical identity. In the Middle Ages, it was a grassy area known as Smooth Field. Given its ease of access to grazing and water, Smithfield established itself as Londons livestock market, remaining so for almost 1,000 years. In 1123, the area near Aldersgate was granted by King Henry I for the foundation of St Bartholomews Priory at the request of Prior Rahere in thanks for his being nursed back to good health. The Priory exercised its right to land between Aldersgate, Long Lane and modern-day Newgate Street, erecting its main western gate which opened onto Smithfield. The Priory thereafter held the rights to hold weekly fairs. A trading event for cloth and other goods as well as being a pleasure forum, in 1855, however, Bartholomew Fair was closed down by the City authorities after degenerating into a magnet for debauchery and public disorder. A chapel and hermitage were constructed, renamed New Church Haw, but in 1371, later Augustinian canonesses established the Priory of St Mary, north of the Knights of St John property. By the end of the 14th century, these houses were regarded by City traders as interlopers — occupying what had previously been public open space nearby one of the City gates. On numerous occasions vandals damaged the Charterhouse, eventually demolishing its buildings, by 1405, a stout wall was built to protect the property and maintain the privacy of the Order, particularly its church where men and women alike came to worship. The religious houses were dissolved in the Reformation, and their lands broken up, the Priory Church of St John remains, as does St Johns Gate, traditionally regarded as the boundary between Smithfield and Clerkenwell. John Houghton, Prior of Charterhouse, went to Thomas Cromwell accompanied by two other local priors seeking an oath of supremacy that would be acceptable to their communities. This resulted in their being flung into the Tower of London, on 29 May, the remaining twenty monks and eighteen lay brothers were forced to swear the oath of allegiance, the ten who refused were taken to Newgate Prison and left to starve. Until 1899 Charterhouse was extra-parochial, when it became a civil parish incorporated in the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, from its inception, the Priory of St Bartholomew treated the sick. Letters Patent were presented to the City, granting property and income to the new foundation the following month, the Priorys principal church, St Bartholomew-the-Great, was reconfigured after the dissolution of the monasteries losing the western third of its nave. Reformed as an Anglican parish church, its boundaries were limited to the site of the ancient priory
Smithfield Market
–
Smithfield Meat Market
Smithfield Market
–
Smithfield from the
"woodcut" map of c. 1561, illustrating its proximity with open fields to the west, and cattle pens by the City
Smithfield Market
–
Smithfield in 1827, from
John Greenwood 's map of London
43.
Aberystwyth
–
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre, and holiday resort within Ceredigion, West Wales, often colloquially known as Aber. It is located near the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol, historically part of Cardiganshire, since the late 19th century, Aberystwyth has also been a major Welsh educational centre, with the establishment of a university college there in 1872. At the 2001 census, the population was 15,935. During nine months of the year, there is an influx of students—to a total number of 10,400 as of September 2012, including the suburbs of Llanbadarn Fawr, the population is 16,420. The town is situated near the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol, although the name may seem to suggest otherwise, only the River Rheidol passes through the town, following the reconstruction of the harbour, the River Ystwyth skirts the town. Today, it comprises a number of different areas, Aberystwyth town, Llanbadarn Fawr, Waunfawr, Llanbadarn, Trefechan. Aberystwyth is a town, considering the population density of the United Kingdom. The Welsh capital, Cardiff, is over 100 miles away, London is 210 miles distant from Aberystwyth. Aberystwyth experiences a climate similar to almost all of the United Kingdom. This is particularly pronounced due to its west coast location facing the Irish Sea, air undergoes little land moderation and so temperatures closely reflect the sea temperature when winds are coming from the predominant onshore direction. The nearest Met Office weather station is Gogerddan,3 miles to the northeast, the absolute maximum temperature is 34.6 °C, set during July 2006. Typically the warmest day will average 28.0 °C and 5.6 days will achieve a maximum of 25.1 °C or above, the absolute minimum temperature is −13.5 °C, set in January 2010. Typically 39.8 days will register an air frost, rainfall averages 1,112 mm a year, with over 1mm recorded on 161 days. All averages refer to the 1971–2000 period, Aberystwyth is a tourist destination, and forms a cultural link between North Wales and South Wales. Constitution Hill, scaled by the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, gives access to views and to other attractions at the summit. Scenic Mid Wales landscape within easy reach of the town includes the wilderness of the Cambrian Mountains, whose valleys contain forests, a convenient way to access the interior is by the preserved narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway. Although the town is modern, there are a number of historic buildings, including the remains of the castle. The Old College was originally built and opened in 1865 as a hotel, the new university campus overlooks Aberystwyth from Penglais Hill to the east of the town centre
Aberystwyth
–
View of Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
–
View of Clarach Bay from
Constitution Hill, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
–
Aberystwyth at around 1840. Crane, W., fl. ca. 1835-1850, lithographer.
Aberystwyth
–
The Queen's Hotel, Aberystwith
44.
Smelting
–
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy, its main use is to produce a base metal from its ore. This includes production of silver, iron, copper and other metals from their ores. Smelting makes use of heat and a reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag. The reducing agent is commonly a source of such as coke. The carbon removes oxygen from the ore, leaving behind the elemental metal, the carbon is thus oxidized in two stages, producing first carbon monoxide and then carbon dioxide. As most ores are impure, it is necessary to use flux, such as limestone. Plants for the reduction of aluminium are also generally referred to as aluminium smelters. Smelting involves more than just melting the metal out of its ore, most ores are a chemical compound of the metal with other elements, such as oxygen, sulfur or carbon and oxygen together. To produce the metal, these compounds have to undergo a chemical reaction, smelting therefore consists of using suitable reducing substances that will combine with those oxidizing elements to free the metal. In the case of carbonates and sulfides, a process called roasting drives out the carbon or sulfur, leaving an oxide. Roasting is usually carried out in an oxidizing environment, a few practical examples, Malachite, a common ore of copper, is primarily copper carbonate hydroxide Cu22. This mineral undergoes thermal decomposition to 2CuO, CO2, and H2O in several stages between 250 °C and 350 °C, the carbon dioxide and water are expelled into the atmosphere, leaving copper oxide which can be directly reduced to copper as described in the following section titled Reduction. Galena, the most common mineral of lead, is primarily lead sulfide, the sulfide is oxidized to a sulfite which thermally decomposes into lead oxide and sulfur dioxide gas. The sulfur dioxide is expelled, and the oxide is reduced as below. Reduction is the final, high-temperature step in smelting and it is here that the oxide becomes the elemental metal. A reducing environment pulls the final oxygen atoms from the raw metal, the required temperature varies over a very large range, both in absolute terms and in terms of the melting point of the base metal. Fluxes are used in smelting for several purposes, chief among them catalyzing the desired reactions, of the seven metals known in antiquity, only gold occurred regularly in native form in the natural environment. The others – copper, lead, silver, tin, iron and mercury – occur primarily as minerals and these minerals are primarily carbonates, sulfides, or oxides of the metal, mixed with other components such as silica and alumina
Smelting
–
Electric phosphate smelting furnace in a
TVA chemical plant (1942)
Smelting
–
Casting bronze ding-tripods, from the Chinese Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia of
Song Yingxing, published in 1637.
Smelting
–
Cowles Syndicate of
Ohio in
Stoke-upon-Trent England, late 1880s.
British Aluminium used the process of
Paul Héroult about this time.
45.
Coke (fuel)
–
Coke is a fuel with few impurities and a high carbon content, usually made from coal. It is the carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash. Cokes made from coal are grey, hard, and porous, while coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made. The form known as coke, or pet coke, is derived from oil refinery coker units or other cracking processes. Coke is used in preparation of producer gas which is a mixture of carbon monoxide, producer gas is produced by passing air over red-hot coke. Coke is also used to water gas. Historical sources dating to the 4th century describe the production of coke in ancient China, the Chinese first used coke for heating and cooking no later than the ninth century. By the first decades of the century, Chinese ironworkers in the Yellow River valley began to fuel their furnaces with coke. In 1589 a patent was granted to Thomas Proctor and William Peterson for making iron and steel and melting lead with earth-coal, sea-coal, turf, the patent contains a distinct allusion to the preparation of coal by cooking. In 1590 a patent was granted to the Dean of York to purify pit-coal, in 1620 a patent was granted to a company composed of William St. John, Robert Follensbee and other knights, mentioning the use of coke in smelting ores and manufacturing metals. In 1627 a patent was granted to Sir John Hacket and Octavius de Strada for a method of rendering sea-coal and pit-coal as useful as charcoal for burning in houses, without offense by smell or smoke. In 1603 Hugh Plat suggested that coal might be charred in an analogous to the way charcoal is produced from wood. In 1709 Abraham Darby I established a coke-fired blast furnace to produce cast iron, cokes superior crushing strength allowed blast furnaces to become taller and larger. The ensuing availability of iron was one of the factors leading to the Industrial Revolution. Before this time, iron-making used large quantities of charcoal, produced by burning wood, in the late 18th century, brick beehive ovens were developed, which allowed more control over the burning process. In 1768 John Wilkinson built a more practical oven for converting coal into coke, with greater skill in the firing, covering and quenching of the heaps, yields were increased from about 33 per cent to 65 per cent by the middle of the 19th century. The Scottish iron industry expanded rapidly in the second quarter of the 19th century. In 1802 a battery of beehives was set up near Sheffield, by 1870, there were 14,000 beehive ovens in operation on the West Durham coalfields, capable of producing 4.2 million tons of coke
Coke (fuel)
–
Raw coke
Coke (fuel)
–
Illustration of coal mining and coke burning from 1879.
Coke (fuel)
–
Coal coking ovens at Cokedale, west of
Trinidad, Colorado, supplied steel mills in
Pueblo, Colorado.
Coke (fuel)
–
Coke oven at
smokeless fuel plant,
Abercwmboi, South
Wales, 1976
46.
South Wales Valleys
–
The South Wales Valleys are a number of industrialised valleys in South Wales. Many of the valleys run roughly parallel to each other, the Rhondda Valleys and the Cynon Valley are located roughly in the centre. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the South Wales valleys were lightly inhabited, the industrialisation of the Valleys occurred in two phases. First, in the half of the 18th century, the iron industry was established on the northern edge of the Valleys. This made South Wales the most important part of British ironmaking until the middle of the 19th century, second, from 1850 to the outbreak of the First World War, the South Wales Coalfield was developed to supply steam coal and anthracite. The South Wales Valleys were Britains only mountainous coalfield, topography defined the shape of the mining communities, with a hand and fingers pattern of urban development. The population of the Valleys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was disproportionately young and male, Merthyr Tydfil, at the northern end of the Taff valley became Waless largest town thanks to its growing ironworks at Dowlais and Cyfarthfa Ironworks. The South Wales coalfield attracted huge numbers of people from areas to the valleys. This meant that many rows of terraced housing were built along the sides to accommodate the influx. The coal mined in the valleys was transported south along railways and canals to ports on the Bristol Channel, notably Cardiff, Newport, Cardiff was soon among the most important coal ports in the world and Swansea among the most important steel ports. There was a sense of salvation when the government announced the nationalisation of British coalmines in 1947, the decline in the mining of coal after World War II was a country wide issue, but South Wales and Rhondda were affected to a higher degree than other areas of Britain. Oil had superseded coal as the fuel of choice in many industries, of the few industries that were still reliant on coal, the demand was for quality coals, especially coking coal which was required by the steel industry. These two markets now controlled the fate of the mines in South Wales, and as demand fell from both sectors the knock-on effect on the industry was further contraction. The other major factors in the decline of coal were related to the massive under-investment in South Wales mines over the past decades. Most of the mines in the valleys were sunk between the 1850s and 1880s, which, as a consequence, meant they were far smaller than most modern mines. The Welsh mines were in comparison antiquated, with methods of ventilation, coal-preparation, in 1945 the British coal industry cut 72 per cent of their output mechanically, whereas in South Wales the figure was just 22 per cent. From 15,000 miners in 1947, Rhondda had just a pit within the valleys producing coal in 1984. In 1966, the village of Aberfan in the Taff valley suffered one of the worst disasters in Welsh history
South Wales Valleys
–
View from Perthcelyn, near
Mountain Ash in the
Cynon Valley
47.
Industrial Revolution
–
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and most of the important technological innovations were British, aided by these legal and cultural foundations, an entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution drove industrialisation in Britain, which would be emulated in countries around the world. A change in marrying patterns to getting married later made able to accumulate more human capital during their youth. The Industrial Revolution marks a turning point in history, almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth, mechanised textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium, and later in France. Since then industrialisation has spread throughout much of the world, the precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes. Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants. The term Industrial Revolution applied to change was becoming more common by the late 1830s. Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of an industrial revolution, however, although Engels wrote in the 1840s, his book was not translated into English until the late 1800s, and his expression did not enter everyday language until then. Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee, some historians, such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts, have argued that the economic and social changes occurred gradually and the term revolution is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among some historians, the commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, beginning in the second half of the 18th century. By the 1830s the following gains had been made in important technologies, Textiles – mechanised cotton spinning powered by steam or water greatly increased the output of a worker, the power loom increased the output of a worker by a factor of over 40. The cotton gin increased productivity of removing seed from cotton by a factor of 50, large gains in productivity also occurred in spinning and weaving of wool and linen, but they were not as great as in cotton. Steam power – the efficiency of steam engines increased so that they used between one-fifth and one-tenth as much fuel, the adaptation of stationary steam engines to rotary motion made them suitable for industrial uses. The high pressure engine had a power to weight ratio. Steam power underwent an expansion after 1800. Iron making – the substitution of coke for charcoal greatly lowered the fuel cost for pig iron, using coke also allowed larger blast furnaces, resulting in economies of scale. The cast iron blowing cylinder was first used in 1760 and it was later improved by making it double acting, which allowed higher furnace temperatures
Industrial Revolution
–
A
Watt steam engine. The
steam engine, made of iron and fueled primarily by
coal, became widely used in the
United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution.
Industrial Revolution
–
Iron and Coal, 1855–60, by
William Bell Scott illustrates the rise of coal and iron working in the Industrial Revolution and the heavy engineering projects they made possible.
Industrial Revolution
–
Model of the
spinning jenny in a museum in
Wuppertal. Invented by
James Hargreaves in 1764, the spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the revolution.
Industrial Revolution
–
The only surviving example of a
spinning mule built by the inventor
Samuel Crompton.
48.
South Wales Coalfield
–
The South Wales Coalfield is a large region of south Wales that is rich in coal deposits, especially the South Wales Valleys. It supported a large part, but not all, of the industry in Wales. The South Wales Coalfield extends across parts of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, see also the Geology of South Wales. The coal generally increases in grade or rank from east to west, with bituminous coals in the east, the Rhondda Valley was particularly known for steam coals which fuelled steamships of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Communications along the floors provided the main routeways for exporting coal south to ports and docks such as Newport Docks, Cardiff Docks. Early activity was mainly by levels or adits driven into coal seams from outcrops in the valley sides, development of the coalfield proceeded very actively from about 1850, when deep mining became significant in the previously entirely rural Rhondda Valley. Later colliery shafts were sunk as deep as 800 yards in order to reach the thicker, better quality seams, iron ore was also extracted from the coal measures, principally from the north crop area. This trend, which was extended to railway locomotives, was a factor in the economic hardship which struck the coalfield after the First World War. Coal workings were over-expanded in the nineteenth century, but the Welsh coal owners had failed to invest in mechanisation. By the inter-war period the South Wales Coalfield had the lowest productivity, highest costs, hardship continued through the 1926 general strike, the great depression of the 1930s, World War II and thereafter. The 1937 novel The Citadel and the 1939 novel How Green Was My Valley describe such hardship, as do the poems of Idris Davies the miner, teacher and poet of Rhymney. New collieries, particularly in the part of the coalfield where anthracite is found, were developed into the 1960s by the National Coal Board. Following the general collapse of the UK coal industry, most pits closed during the 1980s, with such as exhaustion of reserves. The last deep mine, at Tower Colliery on the north crop, however, a few small licensed mines continue to work seams, mostly from outcrop, on the hillsides. Although some areas of the coalfield are effectively worked out, considerable reserves remain, however, the geological difficulties, which resulted in the closure of Nantgarw colliery, make the cost of significant further extraction high. The coalfield experienced a development when opencast mining was commenced on a large scale. In addition, old tips were reclaimed for their small coal content, most of the old sites have been filled and landscaped, but new operations continue. Landslipping of the valley slopes, and subsidence caused by the coal extraction, have also posed problems
South Wales Coalfield
–
Map of British coalfields
South Wales Coalfield
–
Crowd gathering at the
pit head of the Senghenydd Colliery in October 1913
South Wales Coalfield
–
Mining memorial at
Rhondda Heritage Park
49.
Merthyr
–
Merthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 63,546, situated approximately 23 miles north of Cardiff. At one time the largest town in Wales, Merthyr Tydfil is today the fourth largest urban area by population. Situated in the county of Glamorgan, it is the main town in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough and is administered by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. Both the town and the county borough are often referred to as simply Merthyr, according to legend, the town is named after Saint Tydfil, a daughter of King Brychan of Brycheiniog. According to her legend, she was slain at Merthyr by pagans around 480, although merthyr generally means martyr in modern Welsh, the meaning here is closer to the Latin martyrium, the mausoleum or church built over the relics of a martyr. Similar examples, all from south Wales, include Merthyr Cynog, Merthyr Dyfan, the Cornish and Breton language equivalents, in place names, are merther and merzher. Peoples migrating north from Europe had lived in the area for thousands of years. The archaeological record starts from about 1000 BC with the Celts, from their language, the Welsh language developed. Hillforts were built during the Iron Age and the tribe that inhabited them in the south of Wales were called the Silures, according to Tacitus, the Romans arrived in Roman Wales by about 47–53 AD and established a network of forts, with roads to link them. They had to fight hard to consolidate their conquests, and in 74 AD they built a fortress at Penydarren. It covered an area of three hectares, and formed part of the network of roads and fortifications, remains were found underneath the football ground where Merthyr Tydfil FC play. A road ran north–south through the area, linking the southern coast with Mid Wales, parts of this and other roads, including Sarn Helen, can be traced and walked. The Silures resisted this invasion fiercely from their strongholds. In time, relative peace was established and the Penydarren fortress was abandoned by about 120 AD and this had an unfortunate effect upon the local economy, which had come to rely upon supplying the fortress with beef and grain, and imported items such as oysters from the coast. Intermarriage with local women had occurred and many auxiliary veterans had settled locally on farms, with the Decline of the Roman Empire, Roman legions were withdrawn around 380 AD. By 402 AD, the army in Britain comprised mostly Germanic troops and local recruits, sometime during this period, Irish Dalriadan and Picts attacked and breached Hadrians Wall. By about 490 AD hordes of Saxons invaded and settled in the east or lowland Britain, the Latin language and some Roman customs and culture became established before the withdrawal of the Roman army. The girl was considered a martyr after her death in around 480, Merthyr translates to Martyr in English, and tradition holds that, when the town was founded, the name was chosen in her honour
Merthyr
–
Front page of the earliest surviving copy of the Welsh newspaper The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian; 5 July 1845
Merthyr
–
Merthyr Tydfil’s coat of arms, with its motto: Nid cadarn ond brodyrdde (meaning 'Only brotherhood is strong' in
Welsh).
Merthyr
–
St Tydfil's Church
Merthyr
–
The Old Town Hall after its renovation in 2014 to become REDHOUSE - Hen Neuadd Y Dref / Old Town Hall
50.
Swansea
–
Swansea, officially known as the City and County of Swansea, is a coastal city and county in Wales. It is the second largest city in Wales after Cardiff, Swansea lies within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan and the ancient Welsh commote of Gŵyr. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county includes the Gower Peninsula. According to its council, the City and County of Swansea had a population of 241,300 in 2014. During its 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was a key centre of the copper industry, archaeological finds are mostly confined to the Gower Peninsula, and include items from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. The Romans reached the area, as did the Norsemen, Swansea is thought to have developed as a Viking trading post. Its English name may be derived from Sveinns island – the reference to an island may refer to a bank at the mouth of the river Tawe, an alternative explanation is that the name derives from the Norse name Sweyn and ey, which can mean inlet. This explanation supports the tradition that the city was founded by the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard, the name is pronounced Swans-y /ˈswɒnzi/), not Swan-sea. The charter gave Swansea the status of a borough, granting the townsmen, a second charter was granted in 1215 by King John. In this charter, the name appears as Sweyneshe, the town seal which is believed to date from this period names the town as Sweyse. Following the Norman Conquest, a marcher lordship was created under the title of Gower and it included land around Swansea Bay as far as the River Tawe, the manor of Kilvey beyond the Tawe, and the peninsula itself. Swansea was designated chief town of the lordship and received a borough charter some time between 1158 and 1184, the port of Swansea initially traded in wine, hides, wool, cloth and later in coal. Smelters were operating by 1720 and proliferated, following this, more coal mines were opened and smelters were opened and flourished. Over the next century and a half, works were established to process arsenic, zinc and tin and to create tinplate, the city expanded rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and was termed Copperopolis. However, the census understated Swanseas true size, as much of the area lay outside the contemporary boundaries of the borough. Swanseas population was overtaken by Merthyr in 1821 and by Cardiff in 1881. Through the 20th century, heavy industries in the town declined, leaving the Lower Swansea Valley filled with derelict works, the Lower Swansea Valley Scheme reclaimed much of the land. The present Enterprise Zone was the result and, of the original docks, only those outside the city continue to work as docks, North Dock is now Parc Tawe
Swansea
–
Coat of arms
Swansea
Swansea
–
Swansea Castle.
Swansea
–
East view of the Yniscedwyn crane anthracite iron works, near Swansea c.1845
£55.8 billion (2015)[1]
23% (2014)[4]
4.4%[5]
UK
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