Chapter 2: What is the UK? — Set 7

The River Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland, flowing into and out of Lough Neagh before reaching the sea near Coleraine.

The Spey flows through Speyside in the north-east of Scotland, a region famous for salmon fishing and malt whisky distilleries.

The UK has a temperate maritime climate: winters are usually mild, summers cool, and rain can fall in any month of the year.

Moist Atlantic winds reach the west and north-west first, so those parts of the UK tend to be wetter than the east.

The current £1 coin, introduced in 2017 to beat counterfeits, has twelve sides and is made from two metals.

The Union Flag is widely known as the Union Jack, a name that has been used for it for centuries.

St Davids in Wales is Britain's smallest city, a small town-sized place whose city status comes from its great cathedral.

Scottish banknotes are pounds sterling, the shared currency of the whole United Kingdom, and are generally accepted across the UK.

UK coins in general circulation run 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2, so the 50p and the 20p are both current coins. There is no 25p coin in general circulation, and no £5 coin either.

The Giant's Causeway stands on the County Antrim coast of Northern Ireland.

The Strait of Dover is the narrowest part of the English Channel, where England and France are closest.

Land's End and John o' Groats mark the famous end-to-end journey across mainland Britain, from the far south-west to the far north-east.

Kent, in the south-east, is known as the Garden of England for its fruit orchards and hop gardens.

Holy Island (Lindisfarne) is joined to the mainland by a causeway that disappears under the sea at high tide, so visits must be timed to the tides.

The Needles are chalk sea stacks off the western end of the Isle of Wight, near a striped cliff and a lighthouse.

Scafell Pike is the highest mountain in England and Slieve Donard is the highest mountain in Northern Ireland. Ben Macdui is only the second highest mountain in Scotland, after Ben Nevis, and Pen y Fan is the highest peak in South Wales but not in the whole of Wales, where Snowdon is higher.

Lough Erne is in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and is made up of two connected lakes dotted with islands.

The Firth of Forth is the estuary of the River Forth on Scotland's east coast, crossed by the Forth bridges near Edinburgh.

The Cotswolds stretch across the south-west and south-central parts of England, mainly in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.

York stands on the River Ouse, which flows through the city on its way to the Humber estuary.

Morecambe Bay lies off the north-west coast of England, between Lancashire and Cumbria, and is famous for its fast-moving tides.

Cardigan Bay is the broad bay on the west coast of Wales, stretching from the Llŷn Peninsula down to Pembrokeshire.

Iona lies in the Inner Hebrides, just off the Isle of Mull. St Columba founded a monastery there in AD 563, and the abbey became one of the oldest Christian centres in Britain.

Fingal's Cave is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns, created as lava cooled and cracked. They are part of the same ancient lava flow as the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.