1.
Gloucestershire
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Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the city, and Bristols population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and it later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was Glos, rather than the frequently used but erroneous Gloucs. or Glouc. In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, the RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion, the county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area. This is a chart of trend of gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven schools, two are in Stroud, one in Cheltenham and four in Gloucester. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, all but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms, each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. Most of the old market towns have parish churches, at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in Calcot, a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, near Cheltenham is the 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve, the mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey
Gloucestershire
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A campus of the
University of Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
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Flag
Gloucestershire
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Parish Church of St. Mary, Fairford
Gloucestershire
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Zoo
2.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
Ordnance Survey National Grid
–
Grid square TF. The map shows
The Wash and the
North Sea, as well as places within the counties of
Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and
Norfolk.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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Geodesy
3.
Civil parishes in England
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In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century
Civil parishes in England
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Map of English parishes and Welsh communities
4.
Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire
Districts of England
–
Districts (England)
5.
South Gloucestershire
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South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority in South West England. It comprises multiple suburban areas to the north and east of Bristol, South Gloucestershire was created in 1996 from the northern section of the county of Avon, which was abolished at that time. The area includes multiple towns and population centres, with many of these continuing to expand in both population and industry. Many of these towns and population areas are listed under two major subheadings below, South Gloucestershire took its title for historic reasons, but as a unitary authority it is not administered as part of the shire county of Gloucestershire. It is, however, part of the county of Gloucestershire. However, under the terms of that act, the area was removed from Gloucestershire, in 1996, the county of Avon was abolished, and South Gloucestershire was created as a unitary authority comprising the former districts of Kingswood and Northavon. The area borders the city and county of Bristol, the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority, the geographic area currently known as South Gloucestershire should not be confused with Southern Gloucestershire. Nor should organisations or bodies in the past titled South Gloucestershire, in the 2001 census, the population of South Gloucestershire was 245,641. In the 2011 census, this had increased to 262,767, much of the population is in towns that form the suburbs to the north and east of Bristol. There are also the large Towns of Yate and Thornbury, along with Chipping Sodbury plus the population centres of Winterbourne, and Frampton Cotterell areas. The main employers are the authority with 9,500 people and the Ministry of Defence Headquarters for Defence Procurement. Other key employers include Airbus, Rolls Royce and the Royal Mail, friends Provident and Hewlett Packard also have major offices in nearby Stoke Gifford. Many employers operate in the developed area between the northern edge of Bristol and the M5 motorway, an area sometimes described as the North Fringe of Bristol. This includes the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre, comprising The Mall regional shopping centre, East of Patchway are the Aztec West and Almondsbury business parks either side of the A38, extending to Bradley Stoke and the M4/M5 Almondsbury Interchange. Employers with sites in this area include EE and the RAC, South Gloucestershire is home to 99 primary schools and 16 secondary schools, and post-16 centres. There is one university, which was a polytechnic, The University of the West of England. In 2008, DCSF figures revealed that there was a 6. 6% overall absence in the secondary schools. The River Severn forms the edge of the area, with a wide coastal plain terminated by an escarpment
South Gloucestershire
–
Shown within
Gloucestershire
6.
Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
Ceremonial counties of England
–
Ceremonial counties (England)
7.
Regions of England
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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
Regions of England
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Regions of England English regions
8.
South West England
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South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and the South East Dorset conurbation. There are eight cities, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth and it includes two entire national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and four World Heritage Sites, including Stonehenge and the Jurassic Coast. The northern part of Gloucestershire, near Chipping Campden, is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the tip of Cornwall, the region has by far the longest coastline in England and many seaside fishing towns. The region is at the first-level of NUTS for Eurostat purposes, key data and facts about the region are produced by the South West Observatory. Following the abolition of the South West Regional Assembly and Government Office, the region is known for its rich folklore, including the legend of King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor, as well as its traditions and customs. Cornwall has its own language, Cornish, and some regard it as a Celtic nation, the South West of England is known for Cheddar cheese, which originated in the Somerset village of Cheddar, Devon cream teas, crabs, Cornish pasties, and cider. It is also home to the Eden Project, Aardman Animations, the Glastonbury Festival, most of the region is located on the South West Peninsula, between the English Channel and Bristol Channel. It has the longest coastline of all the English regions, totalling over 700 miles, much of the coast is now protected from further substantial development because of its environmental importance, which contributes to the region’s attractiveness to tourists and residents. Geologically the region is divided into the largely igneous and metamorphic west and sedimentary east, Cornwall and West Devons landscape is of rocky coastline and high moorland, notably at Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. These are due to the granite and slate that underlie the area, the highest point of the region is High Willhays, at 2,038 feet, on Dartmoor. In North Devon the slates of the west and limestones of the east meet at Exmoor National Park, the variety of rocks of similar ages seen here have led to the countys name being lent to that of the Devonian period. The east of the region is characterised by wide, flat clay vales and chalk, the vales, with good irrigation, are home to the regions dairy agriculture. The Blackmore Vale was Thomas Hardys Vale of the Little Dairies, another and these downs are the principal area of arable agriculture in the region. Limestone is also found in the region, at the Cotswolds, Quantock Hills and Mendip Hills, all of the principal rock types can be seen on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and East Devon, where they document the entire Mesozoic era from west to east. The climate of South West England is classed as oceanic according to the Köppen climate classification, the oceanic climate typically experiences cool winters with warmer summers and precipitation all year round, with more experienced in winter. Annual rainfall is about 1,000 millimetres and up to 2,000 millimetres on higher ground, summer maxima averages range from 18 °C to 22 °C and winter minimum averages range from 1 °C to 4 °C across the south-west
South West England
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High Willhays on
Dartmoor, Devon, the region's highest point.
South West England
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South West England region in England
South West England
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Pulteney Bridge in Bath, Somerset: the entire city is a World Heritage Site.
South West England
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M5 looking north towards
Avonmouth
9.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
Countries of the United Kingdom
10.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
England
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Stonehenge, a
Neolithic monument
England
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Flag
England
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Boudica led an uprising against the
Roman Empire
England
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Replica of a 7th-century ceremonial
helmet from the
Kingdom of East Anglia, found at
Sutton Hoo
11.
United Kingdom
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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
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Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
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Flag
United Kingdom
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The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
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The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
12.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Street name signs on Birdbrook Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, showing old "Birmingham 22" (top) and modern "B44" postcodes.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
13.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Location of the United Kingdom (dark green)
14.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
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The first police force in England was formed in Covent Garden by Somerset born novelist Henry Fielding, in 1748. In 1835, Bristol and Bath became the first to create their own forces in the county itself. The original Bristol constabulary had 232 officers issued with a top hat, blue coat and this constabulary began certain practices that were eventually adopted country-wide, including recruiting female officers and photographing prisoners. Bridgwater and Chard followed with their own constabularies in 1839, with all forces being merged into the Somerset Constabulary in 1940 and it was the only force to provide a mounted escort for the Queen during her Royal Jubilee tour of Bristol in 1977. Avon & Somerset Constabulary provides service for approximately 1.5 million people, in January 2013, Port took the PCC to court to seek an injunction to block the interviews of candidates for the post of Chief Constable. In mid-May 2014, Gargan was suspended by Commissioner Mountstevens following allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards female officers, the enquiry into the allegations was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Gargan is reported by the Commissioner to have denied the allegations, during the period of Gargans suspension, the force was run by the Deputy Chief Constable, John Long. Records of the Bristol Constabulary and Avon and Somerset Constabulary are held at Bristol Archives, the constabulary is overseen by the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner, a new elected position which replaced the Avon and Somerset Police Authority in November 2012. The police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Panel, the first police and crime commissioner, who was elected on 15 November 2012 and took office on 21 November 2012, is Sue Mountstevens. She had previously been a magistrate and a member of the police authority, the Portishead complex cost £31 million to construct and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1995. Avon and Somerset Police use a total of 41 police stations, targeted Patrol Teams responding to emergency calls. Traffic Units patrol the roads and target and pursue people committing traffic offences, criminal Investigation Departments detect serious crime Forensic Services investigate crime scenes for forensic evidence that may correspond with many of the Home Office databases. Pro-active Policing Units target persistent criminals and focus on specific operations, Dog Units are officers who patrol with dogs and respond to incidents where a police dog is required. The helicopter is staffed by officers of both forces and features various technology including thermal imaging, a spotlight and Global Positioning System. The aircraft has a time of two minutes. The helicopter can also be used as an air ambulance when required and this is now under the control of the NPAS. This collaboration also encompasses the Armed Response Units and Police Dog Patrols, the RPU has 55 cars and 28 motorcycles. The RPU has three bases, Almondsbury, Weston-Super-Mare and Taunton, Avon and Somerset Constabulary has a Support Group that specialise in very specific needs of investigations or missions, such as police divers, football match management and explosive searching
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
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Somerset Constabulary Badge on display at
King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
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Badge of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
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Former Bristol central police station
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
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Yeovil Police Station
15.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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A fire engine of the
London Fire Brigade, the second-largest service in the country after the
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service in action
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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A 1951 Dennis P12 fire appliance belonging to the
Wiltshire Fire Brigade
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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Fire on
West Pier in
Brighton, England
16.
Avon Fire and Rescue Service
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Avon Fire & Rescue Service is the fire and rescue service covering the unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire in South West England. Avon Fire Brigade was created in 1974, when Avon county was created, in 1996, the county was abolished and four separate unitary authorities were created. Administration of the service was taken over by a joint fire authority made up of councillors from the four unitary authorities, in 2004, the Fire And Rescue Services Act was passed. To better reflect the roles and responsibilities of the fire service. Fleur Lombard QGM was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peacetime Britain, while Avon Fire, the Fleur Lombard Bursary Fund provides travel grants so that a junior UK firefighter may visit the fire service of another country. The role of a fire and rescue service has increased from fighting fires to cover the core functions of Protecting, Preventing and Responding. The fire service aims to cut the risk of developing in the first place by promoting safety messages to local residents. Avon Fire & Rescue Service runs community safety campaigns, the summer 2009 campaign, Be BBQ Safe, included a hard hitting interview with a BBQ fire burns victim who spent the previous summer in intensive care after using nitro to light his BBQ. The Car Clear scheme was launched in 2001, with the intention of promptly removing abandoned vehicles from streets and this eliminates the possibility of arson attacks. In meeting their Mission, Vision and Values Avon Fire & Rescue Service utilizes a large cadre of emergency equipment and these include 81 appliances,51 pumping appliances, four turntable ladders and 16 special appliances. Adding to the emergency response can also be their boats, pods, fork lift trucks, a Control Emergency Evacuation Vehicle. In 2009 &2011 Avon Fire & Rescue added 2 - Polybilt bodied Combined Aerial Rescue Platforms, the first began service at the Patchway fire station and was subsequently moved to the Speedwell fire station. The second was assigned to the Bedminster fire station, however both of these appliances have been withdrawn from service by July 2016 and the bodywork has been removed from the chassis to allow for the chassis to be used for new specialist appliances. Also in 2009 to better serve the public the Yate Fire Station was upgraded to “whole-time/retained status”, firefighters would now be ready to respond from the fire station 24/7. This was an upgrade from the previously “crewed” status of 0800 –1700 hours daily and firefighters responding from their homes. As part of the “Investing for the Future” programme which began in 2014 Kingswood Fire Station was closed for refurbishment, the Kingswood Fire Station project was completed and subsequently the Speedwell Fire Station closed permanently all in 2015. The Chair of Avon Fire Authority assured the public that response standards will remain unchanged, along with the Speedwell Fire Station the Keynsham Fire Station was also closed November 1,2015. According to the Chairman of Avon Fire Authority, Councillor Peter Abraham The regeneration of Keynsham town centre meant we needed to move the existing Keynsham Fire Station
Avon Fire and Rescue Service
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Avon Fire and Rescue Service badge
17.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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A
Mercedes Sprinter ambulance of the
South Western Ambulance Service responds to an emergency call
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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The
London Air Ambulance in action
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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A paramedic's motorcycle in Birmingham
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Device of the
Scottish Ambulance Service
18.
South Western Ambulance Service
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The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the National Health Service across South West England. On March 1,2011 SWASFT was the first ambulance service in the country to become a Foundation Trust, the Trust merged with neighbouring Great Western Ambulance Service on 1 February 2013. SWASFT serves a population of more than 5.3 million, the operational area is predominantly rural but also has large urban centres including Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter, Truro, Bath, Swindon, Gloucester, Bournemouth and Poole. The Trust’s core operations include, Emergency ambulance 999 services Urgent Care Services – GP out-of-hours medical care NHS111 call-handling and triage services Tiverton Urgent Care Centre. It is one of ten Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency services and employs more than 4,000 mainly clinical and operational staff plus GPs. The Trust is one of the largest in England and it covers an area of 51,871 km and 827 miles of coastline. In 2015/16 approximately one in eight 999 calls to South Western Ambulance Service are treated over the telephone, hear and treat is 12. 7% of calls and means the patient receives clinical advice over the telephone. For 36. 4% of incidents the patients experience see and treat, in a further 7. 7% of incidents, the patient is taken to a non-emergency hospital department so that might mean a community hospital or minor injuries unit. The remaining incidents result in a patient being taken to an emergency department. SWASFT is the best performing ambulance service in the country for non-conveyance rates, in addition approximately 62% of patients taken to hospital are admitted – this is again the highest performance for an ambulance trust in the country. SWASFT place a lot of emphasis on patient experience and actively encourage feedback about its services - whether positive or negative, lessons learned from the feedback, and all improvements and changes, are reported to its Board of Directors. The Trust also engages with patients and the public at events and shows, the number of compliments received by the Trust in 2014/15 increased by 41% to 2,055. Complaints also rose by 20% to 1,268, the easiest way to contact the Trust is online at their website. In May 2014 the Trust won a contract to run a minor injuries unit at Tiverton and District Hospital
South Western Ambulance Service
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Scilly Isles August 2014
South Western Ambulance Service
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South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
South Western Ambulance Service
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SWAST ambulance on an emergency call
19.
List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
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There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom, each electing a single Member of Parliament to the House of Commons every five years. Voting last took place in all 650 of those constituencies at the United Kingdom general election on 7 May 2015, in addition there is the constituency of the Speaker, which by tradition does not belong to any party. The number of seats rose from 646 at the 2005 general election after proposals made by the commissions for England, Wales. Constituencies in Scotland remained unchanged, as the Boundary Commission for Scotland had completed a review just before the 2005 general election, for the 2013 review this was primarily the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. The Sainte-Laguë formula method is used to form groups of seats split between the four parts of the United Kingdom and the English Regions, the electorate figures given in the second column of the tables below are those used by the commissions during their reviews. These electorate figures date from the start of the review in each country, England, February 2000, Scotland, June 2001, Wales, December 2002, and Northern Ireland, May 2003. Of the 650 seats listed below,533 are in England,59 in Scotland,40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland, Scotland – No changes from 2005 election. Wales – Number of seats unchanged, three seats were abolished and three were created, Aberconwy, Arfon, and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Northern Ireland – No extra or fewer seats allocated. England, North Yorkshire, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Norfolk, Essex, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, isle of Wight maintained its status as one constituency, the largest by electorate. The City of York was divided into two seats, neither overlapping part of North Yorkshire, North London, Birmingham and the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear and South Yorkshire lost a seat each. Herefordshire and Worcestershire, to reflect their full reinstatement as separate counties, were considered in separate reviews, bath, Bristol and Somerset underwent arguably the most significant changes to reflect the abolition of Avon. Updated electorate figures from December 2010 have been added for the English, lists of electoral districts by nation Boundary Commission for N. I. Fifth Periodical Report – Parliamentary Constituencies of Northern Ireland
List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
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United Kingdom
20.
Thornbury and Yate (UK Parliament constituency)
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Thornbury and Yate is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since the 2015 election by Luke Hall, a Conservative. Encompassing an area to the north-east of Bristol, it is one of three constituencies that make up the South Gloucestershire Unitary Authority Area, along with Filton and Bradley Stoke and Kingswood. This seat is a successor to the former Northavon constituency, which was abolished following boundary changes taking effect at the 2010 general election and it is named after the two largest towns in the constituency, Thornbury and Yate. This seat was fought for the first time at the 2010 general election and it was the first Liberal Democrat victory to be declared on the evening of 6 May. The vote share change comes from the results as this is a new seat. List of Parliamentary constituencies in Avon List of Parliamentary constituencies in Gloucestershire Notes References
Thornbury and Yate (UK Parliament constituency)
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Boundary of Thornbury and Yate in Avon.
21.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
22.
Commuter town
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A commuter town is a town whose residents normally work elsewhere, although they live, eat and sleep in these neighborhoods. The name also suggests that these communities have little commercial or industrial activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward locals. A commuter town may also be known as an exurb, or a community, bedroom town or bedroom suburb. The phrase bedroom town has also adopted into the Japanese wasei-eigo word bed town. Suburbs and commuter towns often coincide, but not always, similar to college town, resort town, and mill town, the term commuter town describes the municipalitys predominant economic function. A suburb, in contrast, is a community of size, density, political power. A towns economic function may change, for example when improved transport brings commuters to industrial suburbs or railway towns in search of suburban living, commuter towns may be in rural or semi-rural areas, with a ring of green space separating them from the larger city or town. Where urban sprawl and conurbation have erased clear lines among towns and cities in large metropolitan areas, commuter towns can arise for a number of different reasons. Sometimes, as in Sleepy Hollow, New York or Tiburon, California, in other cases, a pleasant small town, such as Warwick, New York, over time attracts more residents but not large businesses to employ them, requiring denizens to commute to employment centers. Another cause, particularly relevant in the American South and West, is the growth of once-small cities. Owing largely to the creation of the Interstate Highway System. As a result, many cities were absorbed into the suburbs of these larger cities. Often, however, commuter towns form when workers in a region cannot afford to live where they work, the late 20th century dot-com bubble and United States housing bubble drove housing costs in Californian metropolitan areas to historic highs, spawning exurban growth in adjacent counties. For example, most cities in western Riverside County, California can be considered exurbs of Orange County, California and Los Angeles County, as of 2003, over 80% of the workforce of Tracy, California was employed in the San Francisco Bay Area. A related phenomenon is common in the towns of the American West that require large workforces, yet emphasize building larger single-family residences. In certain major European cites, such as Berlin and London, around London, several towns – such as Basildon, Crawley, Harlow, and Stevenage – were built for this purpose by the Commission for New Towns. In some cases, commuter towns can result from negative economic conditions, steubenville, Ohio, for instance, had its own regional identity along with neighboring Weirton, West Virginia until the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. In 2013, Jefferson County, Ohio was added to the Pittsburgh metropolitan area as part of its larger Combined Statistical Area, long-time residents may be displaced by new commuter residents due to rising house prices
Commuter town
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Morning rush hour at
Maplewood, New Jersey's
NJ Transit station
Commuter town
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Camarillo, California, a typical U.S. bedroom community made up almost entirely of homes, schools, and retail outlets.
23.
Civil parish
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In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century
Civil parish
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Map of English parishes and Welsh communities
24.
Cotswolds
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The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and into the countryside gained popularity. Now the Cotswolds boundaries are roughly 25 miles across and 90 miles long, stretching south-west from just south of Stratford-upon-Avon to just south of Bath. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties, mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the hills give their name to the Cotswold local-government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area. The highest point of the region is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft, there is evidence of Neolithic settlement from burial chambers on Cotswold Edge, and there are remains of Bronze and Iron Age forts. Later the Romans built villas, such as at Chedworth, settlements such as Gloucester, the area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone wool churches. The affluent area in the 21st century has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own homes there or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds. The name Cotswold is popularly attributed the meaning sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides, incorporating the term, wold, compare also the Weald from the Saxon/German word Wald meaning wood. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names, Cutsdean, Codeswellan, the spine of the Cotswolds runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire and south western Warwickshire. The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and this feature, known as the Cotswold escarpment, or sometimes the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge. This is a cuesta, in geological terms, the dip slope is to the southeast. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud, to the southeast, the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region. To the south the Cotswolds, with the uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath. The area is characterised by small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone. This limestone is rich in fossils, particularly of fossilised sea urchins, Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Dursley, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe. Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester and Stroud are larger urban centres that border on, or are surrounded by. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th, William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly, now part of a country park. Chipping Campden also is known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic Jurassic limestone
Cotswolds
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Castle Combe, a typical Cotswolds village made with Cotswold stone
Cotswolds
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Bibury, a typical Cotswold village
Cotswolds
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Rolling hills and farm fields that typify the Cotswolds landscape
Cotswolds
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The "Secret Garden" at Sudeley Castle
25.
Bristol city centre
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Bristol city centre is the commercial, cultural and business centre of Bristol, England. It is the south of the central ring road and north of the Floating Harbour, bounded north by St Pauls and Easton, east by Temple Meads and Redcliffe. It is contained entirely within the Council ward of Cabot, the historic heart of the city was immediately north of Bristol Bridge, between the River Frome and the River Avon, in the area of High Street, Broad Street and Corn Street. The eastern part of area, between the bridge and Bristol Castle, was destroyed in 1940 during the Bristol Blitz, but the western part largely survived. After the war, the area was redeveloped, and Castle Park was also created. The course of the River Frome, immediately to the west of the centre, was covered over in stages. The area became the hub of the tramway network, and was known as the Tramways Centre. It was so called long after the last trams left in 1939, between 1936 and 1938, the Centre was enlarged when more of the River Frome, between Broad Quay and St Augustines Parade, was covered in, making way for an inner ring road. These planning decisions are beginning to be reversed, for example, St Augustines Parade is also becoming less car oriented, as roads have been narrowed, turned into bus lanes or closed altogether. The Centre was redeveloped for the millennium, with fountains and a cascade being erected, like most 1950s buildings in Britain, affordable but architecturally uninteresting utilitarian buildings form the bulk of the Broadmead area. In the 1980s, some of these were demolished to make way for the Galleries shopping centre, in 2008, the shopping area was extended over the central ring road to produce a new shopping centre, Cabot Circus, which opened in September 2008. The City Docks were immediately south of the Centre, although most ships used Avonmouth Docks after the Royal Edward Dock was opened in 1908, ocean-going ships were regularly seen at the Centre until the 1960s. In 1972 the Royal Portbury Dock was opened, and the City Docks were closed, the harbour buildings, including the tobacco warehouses, became redundant
Bristol city centre
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The channelled River Avon (the Floating Harbour) flows through the city centre. Most of the central part of the City of Bristol is shown here
Bristol city centre
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The heart of Bristol city centre, seen from the bottom of Park Street
Bristol city centre
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Radisson Blu Hotel and Broad Quay Serviced Apartments, The Centre
26.
Planned community
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A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in an ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in these communities, the term new town refers to planned communities of the new towns movement in particular, mainly in the United Kingdom. It was also common in the European colonization of the Americas to build according to a plan either on ground or on the ruins of earlier Native American cities. C. in the United States. In Egypt, a new capital city east of Cairo has been proposed, the federal administrative centre of Malaysia, Putrajaya, is also a planned city. Abu Dhabi and some of the recently built cities in the Persian Gulf region are also planned cities, prior to the boom, these were just villages or towns. The city of Gaborone was planned and constructed in the 1960s, in 2012, President Teodoro Obiang decided to move the capital to a new jungle site at Oyala. Konza Technology City is a city that is hoped to become a hub of African science. The capital, Abuja, is a city and was built mainly in the 1980s. Upon completion, the new city which is still under development is anticipating 250,000 residents, centenary City, in the Federal Capital Territory, is another planned smart city under development. The city is designed to become a major tourist attraction to the country, a list of Nigerian cities and neighbourhoods that went through a form of planning are as follows, Abuja, one of the most populous planned cities, and the fastest growing city in the world. Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State Lekki, a new city in Lagos State Lekki Free Zone, a trade zone in the Lekki Orange Island. Victoria Island in Lagos, Lagos State A number of cities were set up during the apartheid-era for a variety of ethnic groups, Planned settlements set up for white inhabitants included Welkom, Sasolburg and Secunda. Additionally the majority of settlements in South Africa were planned in their early stages, some settlements were also set up for non whites such as the former homeland capital of Bhisho. Naypyidaw is the capital of Myanmar, also known as Burma and it is administered as the Naypyidaw Union Territory, as per the 2008 Constitution. On 6 November 2005, the capital of Burma was officially moved to a greenfield 3.2 km west of Pyinmana, and approximately 300 km north of Yangon. The capitals official name was announced on 27 March 2006, Burmese Armed Forces Day, much of the city was still under construction as late as 2012. As of 2009, the population was 925,000, which makes it Burmas third largest city, after Yangon, famous examples are Changan in Tang dynasty and Beijing
Planned community
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Partizánske in
Slovakia – an example of a typical planned industrial city founded in 1938 together with a shoemaking
factory in which practically all adult inhabitants of the city were employed.
Planned community
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Brasília at night from
ISS.
Planned community
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Plan of
Fredericia (Denmark) in 1900- the city founded in 1650.
Planned community
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A planned community in the
Negev
27.
UK census
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Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 and Ireland in 1921. Simultaneous censuses were taken in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, the most recent UK census took place in 2011. Tax assessments were made in Britain in Roman times, but detailed records have not survived, in the 7th century AD, Dál Riata conducted a census, called the Tradition of the Men of Alba. England conducted its first formal census when the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086 under William I for tax purposes, distinct from earlier, less inclusive censuses, national decennial censuses of the general population started in 1801, championed by the statistician John Rickman. Regular national censuses have taken place every ten years since 1801, most recently in 2011. The first four censuses were mainly statistical, that is, mainly headcounts, the 1841 Census was the first to intentionally record names of all individuals in a household or institution. The Census Act of 1920 provides the framework for conducting all censuses in Great Britain. The primary legislation for Northern Ireland was introduced in 1969, before this legislation, it was necessary to have a separate act of parliament for each census. Britain was also responsible for initiating and co-ordinating censuses in many of its overseas colonies, because of the disruption caused by the Second World War, there was no census in 1941. However, following the passage into law on 5 September 1939 of the National Registration Act 1939, the resulting National Register was later used to develop the NHS Central Register. Censuses were taken on 26 April 1931 in Great Britain, but the returns for England, on 24 April 1966, the UK trialled an alternative method of enumeration – long form/short form. Every household was given a form to complete, while a sample of the population was given a long form to collect more detailed information. The short form was used for the count and to collect basic information such as usual address, sex, age. This was the first and only time that a census was carried out in the UK. The British government undertakes the census for policy and planning purposes, a number of datasets are also made available. However, personal information provided in confidence is likely to be exempted if disclosure could result in successful prosecution for breach of confidence, in exceptional circumstances, the Registrar General for England and Wales does release specific information from 70-, 80-, or 90-year-old closed censuses. National censuses in Scotland have been taken on the dates as those in England and Wales. Unlike the censuses for England and Wales, there was a bar on early release of the 1911 census details
UK census
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Form used to poll English households during the
2001 Census.
28.
Chipping Sodbury
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Chipping Sodbury is a market town in the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire, south-west England, founded in the 12th century by William Crassus. The villages of Old Sodbury and Little Sodbury are nearby, at the census the combined population of Yate and Chipping Sodbury was 26,855. Chipping Sodbury is the settlement in the civil parish of Sodbury. Little Sodbury is a civil parish. Sodbury parish council has elected to be known as Sodbury Town Council, an electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward starts in the north at Chipping Sodbury Golf Course, the total population of the ward taken at the 2011 census was 6,834. East of the town is the Chipping Sodbury Tunnel, a tunnel under the Cotswolds 2 miles 924 yards long. The tunnel is notorious for flooding in wet weather, often leading to disruption of services on the railway line to. Chipping Sodbury had a station from 1903 to 1961. Yate station, on the Bristol to Birmingham main line, closed in January 1965, Chipping Sodbury hosts a twice yearly Mop Fair, usually the last weekends of March and September. The town holds a Festival Week in early June, there is a farmers market twice a month, on the second and fourth Saturdays. A Victorian Evening is held on the first Friday in December, the event starts in the afternoon when school choirs perform in the street. The evenings events begin with the arrival of Father Christmas when snow is guaranteed, the streets are lined with stalls from local charities and organisations and old time amusements, including a Ferris wheel, Helter Skelter and two childrens rides. Choirs sing, bands play, and stalls bring a market feel, the town is served by a community radio station, GLOSS FM which broadcasts 365 days a year on its webcasts and twice a year on 87.7 MHz FM. Chipping Sodbury has two government funded schools and a secondary school. Chipping Sodbury School, the school, caters for children aged 11 to 18. The School shares Sixth Form provision with Brimsham Green School, the School obtained a Satisfactory status from Ofsted in 2011. St Johns Mead Primary School is named after the local CoE church, the other Primary School is Raysfield Infants and Junior schools
Chipping Sodbury
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The wide main street of Chipping Sodbury. Cars are parked where market stalls would once have been.
