Chapter 2: What is the UK? — Set 9

The Old Man of Hoy stands off the island of Hoy in Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. At about 137 metres tall, it is one of Britain's best-known sea stacks.

Muckle Flugga lighthouse, first lit in 1858, is the most northerly lighthouse in Britain, standing close to Out Stack, the most northerly rock in the UK.

Bass Rock hosts more than 150,000 northern gannets, the world's largest colony of the species on a single rock. The scientific name of the gannet, Morus bassanus, comes from the rock.

Loch Morar, in the Highlands near Mallaig, reaches a depth of about 310 metres, making it the deepest freshwater body in the British Isles — deeper than Loch Ness.

The rose is the national flower of England, the thistle is the national flower of Scotland and the daffodil is the national flower of Wales. The leek is also a Welsh emblem, but it is a vegetable, not a flower — Wales's national flower is the daffodil.

The funnel shape of the Severn Estuary produces the second highest tidal range in the world, up to about 15 metres, second only to the Bay of Fundy in Canada.

Three Scottish banks — the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank — issue their own sterling banknotes, which circulate alongside Bank of England notes.

Wales is Cymru in Welsh. Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, and Kernow is the Cornish name for Cornwall.

Scotland is Alba in Scottish Gaelic. Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales, and Mannin is the Manx name for the Isle of Man.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a village on Anglesey, off the north-west coast of Wales. Its full name is one of the longest place names in Europe.

The Tynwald is the legislature of the Isle of Man, a Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea. Gibraltar, by contrast, is a British Overseas Territory, not a Crown Dependency.

Hillsborough Castle, in County Down, is the official residence of the monarch in Northern Ireland. The monarch's official residence in Scotland is the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle occupy a wooded peninsula formed by a tight loop of the River Wear in north-east England, and together form a World Heritage Site.

The Thames, at about 346 km, is the longest river flowing entirely within England. The Severn is longer overall but rises in Wales and flows through both countries.

The Bank of England stopped issuing £1 notes in the 1980s when the £1 coin took over, although the Royal Bank of Scotland still issues its own £1 notes in Scotland.

The Severn Bore is a tidal wave created when the rising tide is funnelled into the narrowing River Severn, sending a wave upstream as far as Gloucester and beyond. It is so predictable that surfers gather to ride it.

The traditional source of the Thames is Thames Head, near Kemble and Cirencester in Gloucestershire, in the Cotswold Hills.

The Severn rises on the slopes of Plynlimon in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales, before flowing through Shropshire and Worcestershire to the Bristol Channel.

At roughly 41 km (25 miles) end to end, Loch Awe is the longest freshwater loch in Scotland. Loch Lomond is larger by surface area, while Loch Ness holds more water.

Loch Katrine has supplied Glasgow with drinking water since 1859, when Queen Victoria opened the aqueduct scheme carrying its water some 25 miles to the city.

Derwentwater sits just south of Keswick in Cumbria, in the northern Lake District, and is both fed and drained by the River Derwent.

The Farne Islands are a National Nature Reserve famous for tens of thousands of breeding puffins in summer and one of England's largest colonies of Atlantic grey seals.

Skomer's Atlantic puffin colony is the largest in southern Britain. The island also hosts around half of the world's breeding population of Manx shearwaters.

Sark is one of the few places in the world where cars are banned from the roads. Only tractors, bicycles and horse-drawn vehicles are allowed, and the island also has no street lights.