What Is The Physical Geography Of Ireland

Why Is Ireland So Green

Why is Ireland so Green

Enelia Martienss

• An Irish Castle. When in Ireland you must visit at least one castle.
• Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
• Newgrange: The 5,000 year-old Tomb of Irish Kings.
• The Giant’s Causeway.

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Ireland

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• Cnoc na Péiste. Location: Co Kerry.
• Mount Brandon. Location: Co Kerry.
• Lugnaquilla. Location: Co Wicklow.
• Galtymore. Location: Co Limerick & Co Tipperary.
• Baurtregaum. Location: Co Kerry.
• Slieve Donard. Location: Co Down.
• Mullaghcleevaun. Location: Co Wicklow.

Atlantic OceanCeltic SeaIrish Seaeast

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Formation Of The United Kingdom

Much of the United Kingdom’s history is known for the British Empire, its continuous worldwide trade and expansion that began as early as the end of the 14th century and the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. This article, however, focuses on the formation of the United Kingdom.

The UK has a long history that consists of several different invasions, including a brief entry by the Romans in 55 B.C.E. In 1066 the UK area was part of the Norman Conquest, which aided in its cultural and political development.

In 1282 the UK took over the independent Kingdom of Wales under Edward I and in 1301, his son, Edward II, was made the Prince of Wales in an effort to appease the Welsh people according to the United States Department of State. The oldest son of the British monarch is still given this title today. In 1536 England and Wales became an official union. In 1603, England and Scotland also came under the same rule when James VI succeeded Elizabeth I, his cousin, to become James I of England. A little over 100 years later in 1707, England and Scotland became unified as Great Britain.

Geography And Climate Of The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is located in Western Europe to the northwest of France and between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. Its capital and largest city is London, but other large cities are Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Edinburgh. The UK has a total area of 94,058 square miles . Much of the topography of the UK consists of rugged, undeveloped hills and low mountains but there are flat and gently rolling plains in the eastern and southeastern areas of the country. The highest point in the UK is Ben Nevis at 4,406 feet and it is located in the northern UK in Scotland.

The climate of the UK is considered temperate despite its latitude. Its climate is moderated by its maritime location and the Gulf Stream. However, the UK is known for being very cloudy and rainy throughout much of the year. The western parts of the country are wettest and also windy, while the eastern portions are drier and less windy. London, located in England in the south of the UK, has an average January low temperature of 36ËF and a July average temperature of 73ËF .

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Geography Of Ireland Facts For Kids

Ireland is an island in Northwestern Europe in the north Atlantic Ocean. The island lies on the European continental shelf, part of the Eurasian Plate. The island’s main geographical features include low central plains surrounded by coastal mountains. The highest peak is Carrauntoohil , which is 1,041 meters above sea level. The western coastline is rugged, with many islands, peninsulas, headlands and bays. The island is bisected by the River Shannon, which at 360.5 km with a 102.1 km estuary is the longest river in Ireland and flows south from County Cavan in Ulster to meet the Atlantic just south of Limerick. There are a number of sizeable lakes along Ireland’s rivers, of which Lough Neagh is the largest.

Economics And Land Use In The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has the third largest economy in Europe and it is one of the world’s largest financial centers. The majority of the UK’s economy is within the service and industrial sectors and agriculture jobs represent less than 2% of the workforce. The main industries of the UK are machine tools, electric power equipment, automation equipment, railroad equipment, shipbuilding, aircraft, motor vehicles, electronics and communications equipment, metals, chemicals, coal, petroleum, paper products, food processing, textiles, and clothing. The agricultural products of the UK are cereals, oilseed, potatoes, vegetables cattle, sheep, poultry and fish.

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Physical Geography Of The Uk

The UK has some of the most diverse environments for its size. Take a look at the video below to see how well you know the natural environments of the UK.

The video below explores landscapes in the UK in 100 seconds.

The UK in 100 seconds from Friends of the Earth on Vimeo.

The physical geography of the UK was formed through geological, fluvial, glacial, erosional and tectonic processes.

The majority of the UKs upland areas are located in the north and west of the country. These areas are mainly formed from igneous and metamorphic rock. Lowlands are typically found around the coast and in the south and east. These areas are mainly made up of sedimentary rock.

A map to show the physical geography of the UK and Ireland

The UK consists of a number of river basins. These are large areas of land drained by a river and its tributaries. At 220 miles the longest river in the UK is the River Severn.

A map to show the main river basin regions in the UK source gov.uk

Main drainage basins in the UK source unknown

Northern Ireland: Geography And Maps

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Northern Ireland occupies 17% of the island of Ireland. It is divided amongst 6 counties and is crisscrossed by uplands and lowlands. At 850 m , Slieve Donard is the highest point in the country. Northern Ireland also hosts Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in Britain.

Belfast is the capital and largest city in Northern Ireland. It is also the second largest city on the island of Ireland . Derry or Londonderry is the second city of Northern Ireland.

The Mourne Mountains are where old mountain tracks take you past lakes, rivers, woodland and up to the many peaks. Slieve Donnard is the highest mountain in the Mournes range and also the highest mountain in Northern Ireland. The north coast of Northern Ireland has some wonderful scenery. This coastline is of outstanding natural beauty where a breathtaking and rugged coastline merges with glens and lush forest parks.

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Geography In Civil Society In The Republic Of Ireland

3Ireland has changed much over the last few decades. Peripherality and marginality, as well as a lack of capital and entrepreneurship, were long seen as reasons why economic development was very concentrated on the agricultural sector with a resulting lack of industrialisation. Rural-urban migration followed the patterns evident throughout much of Europe during the twentieth century but in the case of Ireland most of the towns and cities to which migrants went were not in Ireland. They were, instead, in other countries. The loss of so many young vibrant emigrants resulted in Irish society being very conservative, inward looking and resistant to change. It is only over the last few decades that this pattern has been reversed and the process of movement from underemployment on unprofitable agricultural landholdings to cleaner and more attractive employment in industry and services has been achieved. Accompanying inward-migration, especially from other European and African countries, has triggered a rapid transition from a mono-cultural society to a poly-cultural milieu. With such developments should come a questioning of traditional values and the growth of inter-cultural understanding and adaptation that should become the norm.

9Mary Cawley argues that the concept of a rural idyll is enjoying a renaissance in contemporary Ireland, following a trend that is present more widely at an international level . She identifies four ways in which the idyll finds expression :

Relations Between Geography And The Economical Sphere/policy Makers

44Individual geographers have, especially over the last three decades, contributed through their research, publications and submissions to policy-forming groups. Such contributions have become more common in recent years and the broadening of the publishing base from journals that are not always easily accessed by the public to more widely-available and wide-ranging books has aided this changing perception of the contribution of Irish geography. A particularly good example of one such book is that edited by Aalen, Whelan and Stout Atlas of the IrishRural Landscape which is regarded as a marvellous resource base by geographers, the general public and policy-makers in environmental areas. A similar venture is currently being prepared as an atlas of Cork to coincide with its status as European City of Culture in 2005. Again, it will both inform and act as a resource base for future issue-based concerns and developments.

45These developments have been accompanied by the involvement of geographers in preparing both commissioned and personally conceptualised reports and papers on specific issues of concern. Dominant among these in the last few years are topics pertaining to the environment in the broadest sense of the word at scales varying from the local, through the regional, and the national on to the global.

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What Is The Physical Landscape

The physical landscape is the mix of lowland and upland, of rivers, lakes, and seashores that provides the arena for life in Ireland. This landscape is very varied. It has a major influence on lives now as it had in the past. It influences the food we eat, the water we drink and the electricity we use every day.

As scenery, it is an ingrained element of daily life and culture, and is an outstanding resource for recreation and tourism. It is the surface on which, over thousands of years, settlers in Ireland have made their mark: creating homes, farms, and cities making fields and plantations and building lines of communication.

Major Cities In Ireland

Dublin is the county chief commercial, industrial, administrative, educational and cultural centre, while Cork city has traditionally been associated with the processing and marketing of agricultural products, the presence of large-scale industrial development around its outer harbour and the use of natural gas from the offshore Kinsale field. Waterford , Dundalk and Drogheda are smaller regional centres with industrial functions.

On the west coast, the main city is Limerick , which is located at the lowest crossing place on the river Shannon. It shares in the prosperity of the Shannon Industrial Estate but its harbour facilities are now little used, though significant port and industrial activities are developing westwards along the Shannon estuary. Other significant western urban centres are Galway and Sligo .

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The Transformation Of The Natural Landscape

An attempt by the geographer Fred Aalen to show how the physical landscape is the outcome of many changes over the last ten thousand years. is just after the last Ice Age when much of the land was grass or bog. is about 6000BC when woodland was widespread and man had made little impact. is 2500BC after the first farmers had cleared some of the woods. is 500BC when blanket bogs were advancing, especially on hill areas, and in places woods were again advancing. is 800AD when farms centred on ringforts or raths were widespread. is 1840AD just before the Great Famine, when rural settlement was at its maximum. is to-day, when the extent of farmland is contracting and managed forestry is increasingly prominent.

Geography In The Educational System Of Northern Ireland

55Geography in education in Northern Ireland extends back beyond the nineteenth century when the daily routine in schools included the acquisition of locational knowledge by rote learning. The facts and figures learned from the textbooks supplied by government, the Christian Brothers and other educationalists in the national schools of the second half of the late nineteenth century involved no explanations. The main visual aid for this Capes and Bays geography was the map of Ireland which hung in most classrooms. By 1920s, secondary schools followed a syllabus which ensured that they knew about mapping and other data on Britain and the Empire, but interpretation was not required. It was popular in the years before Evans arrived and in his new department, therefore, he had an immediate supply of enthusiastic students for whom he designed a course in which relationships of human groups to their special environments were emphasised. Students learned to appreciate their immediate locale in its historic context at a time when the majority of them were rural dwellers, and to recognise that their area was a valuable part of the wider world. He was interdisciplinary in his method of enquiry and his preferred teaching method was field-based, observing and talking to people, a direct contrast to the university tradition . His example soon filtered to the teacher training colleges where geography was a core subject.

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Geography Of The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. With a total area of approximately 248,532 square kilometres , the UK occupies the major part of the British Islesarchipelago and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands. It is the world’s 7th largest island country. The mainland areas lie between latitudes 49°N and 59°N , and longitudes 8°W to 2°E. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in south-east London, is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.

The British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are covered in their own respective articles, see below.

About The World Travel Guide

The World Travel Guide is the flagship digital consumer brand within the Columbus Travel Media portfolio. A comprehensive guide to the worlds best travel destinations, its print heritage stretches back more than 30 years, with the online portal reaching its 20-year anniversary in 2019. Available in English, German and Spanish versions, the WTG provides detailed and accurate travel content designed to inspire global travellers. It covers all aspects, from cities to airports, cruise ports to ski and beach resorts, attractions to events, and it also includes weekly travel news, features and quizzes. Updated every day by a dedicated global editorial team, the portal logs 1 million+ unique users monthly.

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Geography In The Educational System Of The Republic Of Ireland

14Geography at primary school level during the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries was characterised by what is generally termed the Capes and Bays approach. Children were expected to memorise vast quantities of such material often without understanding what they were learning. Fahy states that when in 1872 a Payment by Results System was introduced in national schools it resulted in even greater emphasis on memorisation in geography teaching. It was so badly taught that in 1900 it was abandoned as a separate and compulsory subject and reached its lowest ebb in the period 1900-1921. It was re-instated as a subject in 1921 and from 1926 it was taught as a separate subject, independent of history. The programme introduced in 1926 remained virtually unchanged until 1971. It was almost entirely physical geography and human geography was largely ignored .

15In 1971 a new curriculum was introduced into primary schools. Just in advance of this a survey by Dillon in 1969 examined geography teaching and found that :

• A concentric approach that was firmly anchored in the childs immediate environment

• An approach that was integrated with the other areas of the curriculum

• Discovery methods that included first-hand investigative and project work

• An emphasis on the teachers being highly selective when devising their schemes of work

• The introduction of a greater air of reality and variety into primary school geography.

Learn Information About The United Kingdom

• M.A., Geography, California State University – East Bay
• B.A., English and Geography, California State University – Sacramento

The United Kingdom is an island nation located in Western Europe. Its land area is made up of the island of Great Britain, part of the island of Ireland and many smaller nearby islands. The UK has coastlines along the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, and the North Sea. The UK is one of the world’s most developed nations and as such it has a global influence.

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