United Kingdom - 英国

U.KIt is a constitutional monarchy mainly located in the British Isles.

Britain is a fusion of native culture and immigrant culture. It has a deep history and a vibrant modern culture. Both its history and its modernity have had a huge impact on the world. Although the United Kingdom is no longer the maritime hegemon, the United Kingdom is still a very popular destination for tourists. The capital and largest city of the UK isLondon。

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name

Full name of the United KingdomUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Referred to as "United Kingdom" (UK), where "Great Britain"(GB) refers to the three countries of the British IslesEngland，ScotlandwithWales. In Chinese, the full name and abbreviation are not as widely used as the name "UK", which also benefits from the strong influence of England and English in history.[1]

climate

Affected by the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding waters, the British climate is relatively mild and humid, and belongs to a temperate oceanic climate. Warm and slightly humid summers and not too cold winters allow tourists to enjoy outdoor activities mostly throughout the year. But the weather in the United Kingdom is sometimes changeable, and it often becomes windy and rainy, wearing clothes to cope with the changeable climate. Britain’s rain is well-known around the world, but in fact it is relatively rare to rain for more than two or three hours at a time. In some areas, especially the east, there will be no precipitation for several weeks. In the UK, cloudy or partly cloudy weather is more common. It is best to be prepared for possible weather changes when you go out. It is not in winter, a sweater and a raincoat can meet the requirements. In summer, the temperature in some areas can reach 30°C; in winter it may be a little bit cold, the temperature in the south will drop to 10°C, and the temperature in Ireland in the north will drop to -10°C.

Because the UK stretches from north to south for more than a thousand kilometers, the temperature difference between north and south is quite large. The amount of precipitation is also different, with relatively less in the east and more in the west. Scotland and the northwest of England [especially the Lake District] are often rainy and cold. In winter, snowfall in the mountains is very common in the mountains of Northern Ireland. The northeast and central regions are very cool, but the precipitation is even less. The southeast and the east of England are mostly dry and warm, and the southwest is also warmer but relatively humid. Wales and Northern Ireland are somewhere between cool and mild, and the rainfall is not too heavy, but the mountains of Wales experience heavy snow occasionally. The highest land in the UK is more than 1,300 meters high, and the altitude has a considerable impact on rainfall and temperature.

festival

• New Year's Day (January 1st)
• The day following New Year's Day (January 2)-only applicable to Scotland
• St. Patrick's Day (March 17)-Catholic holiday, only applicable to Northern Ireland
• Good Friday-a Friday before Easter
• Easter Monday-the first Monday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, not applicable to Scotland
• Public holiday in early May-first Monday in May
• Spring public holiday-last Monday in May
• Orange Day (July 12)-only applicable to Northern Ireland
• Summer public holiday-last Monday in August
• Fireworks Festival (November 5)
• Christmas (December 25)
• Gift Opening Day (December 26)

Time zone

The time zone of the United Kingdom is UTC (in fact, UTC was originally based on the Royal Observatory in the Greenwich District of London, England), and UTC 1 is used when daylight saving time is implemented.

area

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is composed of the following regions, territories and territories:

pay attentionRepublic of IrelandIt is a country completely different from Britain, which gained independence from Britain in 1922.

Royal territory

city

There are many cities in the UK worth visiting. The following are selectedNineRepresentative cities, other cities are listed in their respective regions:

• London It is the capital of the United Kingdom and the capital of England. London is a must-visit place for tourists to Britain. Attractions such as Big Ben, London Eye and Buckingham Palace are all civilized in the world. In 2012, London hosted the 30th Olympic Games.
• Birmingham It has a great shopping environment, and is famous for its flavor cuisine Balti and a deep industrial foundation.
• Liverpool A bustling city occupies an important position in music, sports, nightlife and multiculturalism.
• Manchester It is an old British industrial city. Have two teams that are well-known in the UK and the worldManchester UnitedwithManchester City。
• Edinburgh It is the capital of Scotland. It has many ancient buildings, mostly in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
• Belfast It is the capital of Northern Ireland and is becoming a very popular tourist destination.
• Cardiff It is the capital of Wales and a coal export port with a glorious history. It has very modern buildings, "Doctor Who" and the UK's most successful urban reconstruction project.
• Bristol A historic city, famous for its Georgian architecture and nautical traditions, it is the birthplace of trip-hop music.
• Glasgow Scotland's second largest city, a new cultural hotspot, and a European cultural city.

arrival

Tourist VISA

According to the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

• Hongkong
  • Hold a British National (Overseas) passport:6 months visa exemption
  • Hold a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport:6 months visa exemption
  • Hong Kong residents holding other travel documents: a visa may be required. Please go toUK government website for details
• Macao
  • Hold Portuguese nationality and hold a Portuguese passport:Visa-free
  • Hold a Macau SAR passport:6 months visa exemption
  • Macau residents holding other travel documents: a visa may be required. Please go toUK government website for details
• People's Republic of China (China): A visa may be required. Please go toUK government website for details
• Republic of China (Taiwan): If the personal data page contains the uniform number of the ID card,Visa-free
• Singapore:6 months visa exemption
• Malaysia:6 months visa exemption

aviation

Air is the main way to travel to the UK. The busiest airport in the country is Heathrow Airport in London. Heathrow Airport is also the departure and arrival point of many international flights.

boat

Before the construction of the Anglo-French Undersea Tunnel, ships across the English Channel used to be one of the important means of transportation connecting Britain and Europe. Although tourists can now travel between Britain and Europe by plane or train, tourists can still choose to travel to Britain by boat.

There are three companies that provide sailing services across the English Channel. The sea route across the strait is usually in Calais, Dunkirk (Dunkerque in French), Dieppe, Roscoff, Cherbourg, Caen, Le Havre (Le Havre) or St. Malo (St. Malo), and usually Dover (Dover), Newhaven (Newhaven), Plymouth (Plymouth), Pool (Poole) and Portsmouth (Portsmouth) ) As the end point. Among them, New Haven and Dover are relatively close to London. The sailing schedules are sparse and dense, and the required time ranges from 1.5 hours to more than 10 hours.

Traveling between the United Kingdom and the United States by sea was very popular before the commercial aviation industry began to develop, but now it is very rare. Cunard Lines still operates trans-Atlantic cruise routes between Europe and the United States, but not every ship will arrive in the UK. Some will stop in France or Germany. These ship journeys will take several days.

train

The Eurostar high-speed train service connects the UK with neighboring European countries. Eurostar serves from London to France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

transportation

The direction of road traffic in the United Kingdom is different from that in continental Europe, and it is driven on the left. This is the same as Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and Japan.

Cities in the UK usually have a very developed public transport system. In the case of London, the city has subways, buses, light rail, ferries and taxis for everyone to use.

Language

The official language of the United Kingdom is English, and English is also a strong language in the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, the English accent in southern England is recognized as the standard English accent. Other non-standard accents include Hackney, which is traditionally spoken by the grassroots in London, and Northern, Scottish, Irish and Welsh accents, which are traditionally spoken by the population of northern England.

In addition to English, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have their own native languages. People who speak these local languages ​​and those who only speak English cannot understand each other, but the proportion of the population who do not understand English at all in the total population in the UK is very small, so if you have a certain level of English, in the UK There will be no problems with communication.

There are also people who can speak foreign languages ​​in the UK. According to the data from the 2011 Census of the United Kingdom, in England and Wales, "Chinese" (defined as "Mandarin Chinese" [Mandarin, Mandarin] or "Cantonese Chinese" [Cantonese, Cantonese]) is mainly used in England and Wales. There are about 140,000 language speakers.

go sightseeing

Britain has 25 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and there are so many places worth visiting. It has hundreds of free museums across the country to visit, thousands of city parks to wander in, hundreds of interesting communities to visit, and millions of acres of rural scenery for you to visit. Britain is not just about boring rainy days, and coming to Britain is not just going to Buckingham Palace to see if Her Majesty is at home.

Cityscape

London --- Samuel Johnson once wrote, "If a person hates London, he hates life." This statement is still true today, because London has a large number of attractive places. Art venues such as the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Modern have collected the world's best works. The theatres and cinemas in London’s West End and South Bank are cultural gathering places, as well as Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. There are also traditional tourist attractions such as Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and the London Eye. Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, was originally centered on the old town, castle and Holyrood Palace, but the new town was a masterpiece of Georgian architecture. Both the new city and the old city are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Oxford and Cambridge – In these two ancient university towns, you can wander in the shade of dreams, go boating in the river, and even pass through the courtyards of some colleges.

Natural scenery

There are many national parks and statutory special natural beauty areas in the UK to protect the country's natural heritage. England, Scotland andWalesThere are a total of 14 national parks (9 in England, 2 in Scotland, and 3 in Wales) and 49 areas of special natural beauty (35 in England, 4 in Wales, 9 in Northern Ireland, and 1 in England and Wales). Scotland has no special natural beauty areas, but there are corresponding national scenic areas. There are a total of 35 such national scenic areas in the UK. The English countryside is very charming. In the south, there are picturesque Cotsworth and the Jurassic Coast. In the east, there is a quiet marshland. In the east, there are picturesque scenery and outdoor sports in the Lake District and Peak District. Wales has Britain's most beautiful Snowdonia National Park and Gower Beach. Scotland has large areas of wilderness and highlands, as well as beautiful islands. Northern Ireland has Giant’s Point and the northern coast of Antrim.

Dining

Compared with French cuisine and Italian cuisine and other European countries, the British diet has fewer types of dishes, and fewer types of ingredients and cooking methods (such as: fish and chips, starry sky pie, lamb entrails, etc.). Therefore, British cuisine has traditionally left a stereotype of "unpalatable" and "dark cuisine" to the world. However, the impression of British cuisine in foreign countries has changed in recent years, and some local chefs (such as Jimmy Oliver and Gordon Ramsey) have also gained a certain degree of popularity outside the UK.

Nowadays, people in the UK can taste dishes from India, China, and old colonial countries, making the UK a country with a very diverse food culture.

Potatoes occupies an important position in British food culture and can be regarded as an important staple food of the British. Although the British diet is simpler than other European countries, the traditional English breakfast is much richer than other European countries (collectively referred to as "Continental Breakfast").

The dessert culture in the UK is particularly developed. It is not uncommon for families in the UK to eat only two meals a day. It is tea time instead of lunch, and there are many types of desserts during tea time. The afternoon tea culture has also become an important part of British food culture and has become a representative British cultural industry.

Learn

England, Wales and Scotland implement a compulsory education system for 5 to 16 years old, and Northern Ireland implements a compulsory education system for 4 to 16 years old. Compulsory education is in charge of local governments, while higher education is in charge of the central government. Attaching importance to the improvement of the level of education and scientific research, is currently carrying out education reforms, allowing universities to increase tuition fees, while continuing to increase investment in education. The education budget for the 2011 fiscal year was 89 billion pounds. Students in public schools in primary and secondary schools are exempt from paying tuition, accounting for more than 90% of the total number of students. Private schools have better teachers and teaching equipment, but the fees are high. Most of the students are children of wealthy families, accounting for about 7% of the total number of students. The English blindness rate is only 1%. About 40% of secondary school graduates can receive higher education. There are more than 110 universities and higher education colleges nationwide. Well-known institutions of higher learning include Oxford University, Cambridge University, Imperial College London, London School of Economics, University of St Andrews, University College London, University of Warwick, University of Manchester, University of Edinburgh and Cardiff University. There are currently more than 300,000 overseas students studying in British colleges and universities. The UK is one of the world's important research and development bases for high-tech and high value-added industries, and its scientific research involves almost all scientific fields. With 1% of the world’s population, 5% of the world’s scientific research is engaged in, 9% of published academic papers and 12% of citations, second only to the United States. The number of international award winners accounts for about 10% of the world, and more than 80 Nobel Prize winners have emerged so far, ranking second in the world. It has strong competitiveness in biotechnology, aviation and national defense.

Work

Safety

The overall public security in the UK is getting worse and worse from south to north. There are occasional robberies against Chinese people, so please do not carry large amounts of cash. Please try to use bank cards and checks for daily consumption. Make a copy of your passport, bank card, and check number so that you can report the loss and report the case in a timely and accurate manner. Avoid disputes with alcoholics. Don't travel alone at night, try to avoid dark, unmanned streets.

Medical treatment

The National Health Service is the hallmark of the British welfare system. It was founded in 1948 by the then Labor Party government and has continued to this day, providing free medical services to all people. In fiscal year 2011, the UK's health budget reached 126 billion pounds. Due to the good implementation of primary health care, the average life expectancy in the UK is comparable to that of other developed countries. In 2011, the average life expectancy of men was 77.7 years and that of women was 81.9 years; the infant mortality rate was 4.3‰.

custom

Communication

The development of wireless telecommunication networks in the United Kingdom varies by region. All in all, the coverage of wireless telecommunication networks in big cities is higher than in suburbs or sparsely populated areas.

There are four major wireless telecom operators in the UK, namely EE, Vodafone, O2 and 3. The more well-known virtual mobile network telecommunications providers are GiffGaff and Lebara.

The Internet speed of each company varies due to technology, number of users or other factors, but the British generally believe that EE has the best speed.

When traveling in the UK, you can use the prepaid mobile phone cards sold by the above telecommunications operators called Pay As You Go (pay as you go). Data capacity, total talk time and total number of SMS messages are determined by each calling card. Some cheap phone cards will only provide 1GB of data capacity, while some more expensive phone cards will provide 20GB or even unlimited data capacity.

The prepaid mobile phone card provided by the European wireless carrier can be used in the United Kingdom if it is specified to be used in the United Kingdom. It is not clear whether European mobile phone cards can be used in the UK after Brexit.

Prepaid mobile phone cards can be purchased at London airports. There are phone card shops and phone card vending machines in the airport that sell phone cards to passengers. Calling cards can also be purchased at telephone shops in London or physical stores operated by wireless carriers.

Remark:Most telecommunications companies in the UK set their customer service department in India, so many customer service answers have a slightly Indian accent, usually interns and some newer telecommunications companies provide customers with inexperienced outsourcing contractors service.