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National Profile - ICYE

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to be joking. The British are masters of the understatement and rarely enthuse aboutanything. When asked "How are you?", a typical answer would be, "Oh, not too bad".This actually means "I'm really well", but it is very un-English to say so.It is important to remember that the United Kingdom is a country with manygeographical differences. Village people often tend to be a lot friendlier towards newpeople than people in the big cities who are too busy running from one place to anotherto take time for a chat.The most common meeting-place is the pub - and they are to be found on almost everystreet-corner in any town or city. There might not be a shop in some of the many smallvillages, but there will definitely be a pub or two. People not only gather in the pubs fortheir pint of beer, but also for their lunch out. The pubs close at 11 p.m. (10.30 p.m. onSundays) after which only specially licensed places, such as wine-bars and discotheques,stay open.9.3 Other InformationPoliticsThe main political parties are the Conservatives (the Tories), the Labour Party and theLiberal Democrats. The Labour Party with its leader Gordon Brown has been in powersince 1997.GeographyThe United Kingdom comprises England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Spreadout on 242,500 sq. km it stretches 1000 km from the south coast of England to the northof Scotland and is 500 km at its widest.PopulationPopulation:Population density:Most populated cities:60.5 million246 inhabitants/sq.kmGreater London – 7.5 millionBirmingham – 1 millionLanguageThe official language of the UK is English. In Wales, especially the North and West, thenative language, Welsh, is widely spoken as well as taught in schools. Gaelic is taught inmany Irish schools even though the official language is English. In remote parts ofScotland, English has only been spoken for the last hundred years. Accents and dialectsvary from region to region and town to town, or even within the same city.Ethnic GroupsOver three million people belong to ethnic minority groups. The biggest ethnic groupsare:1. Indian2. Pakistani3. Irish4. Black Caribbean5. Black African6. BangladeshiReligionThe main religion is Christianity and the Protestant Church of England is the establishedchurch. Freedom of worship is a legal right. In most big towns there is a synagogue andmosque as well as Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh places of worship.21

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