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Centre points of the United Kingdom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This stake is one of several way markers that mark the location of variously calculated geographic centres of Britain.[citation needed] It is located just to the west of Whitendale Hanging Stones in Lancashire at SD 64188 56541.
"Centrographers" at the centre of mainland Great Britain, in a field near Whalley, Lancashire at Grid Ref SD 72321.72 36671.1 (approximately), in December 2005

There has long been debate over the exact location of the geographical centre of the United Kingdom, and its constituent countries, due to the complexity and method of the calculation, such as whether to include offshore islands, and the fact that erosion will cause the position to change over time. There are two main methods of calculating this "centre": either as the centroid of the two-dimensional shape made by the country (projected to the Airy ellipsoid then flattened using the Transverse Mercator projection), or as the point farthest from the boundary of the country (either the sea, or, in the case of constituent countries, a land border). These two methods give quite different answers.

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  • The Difference between the UK, Great Britain & England Explained
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  • How did The British Empire rule the World?
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  • The Centre of Britain

Transcription

Welcome to the United Kingdom (and a whole lot more) explained by me, C. G. P. Grey The United Kingdom, England, Great Britain? Are these three the same place? Are they different places? Do British people secretly laugh those who use the terms wrongly? Who knows the answers to these questions? I do and I'm going to tell you right now. For the lost: this is the world, this is the European continent and this is the place we have to untangle. The area shown in purple is the United Kingdom. Part of the confusion is that the United Kingdom is not a single country but is instead a country of countries. It contains inside of it four co-equal and sovereign nations The first of these is England — shown here in red. England is often confused with the United Kingdom as a whole because it's the largest and most populous of the nations and contains the de facto capital city, London. To the north is Scotland, shown in blue and to the west is wales, shown in white. And, often forgotten even by those who live in the United Kingdom, is Northern Ireland shown in orange. Each country has a local term for the population. While you can call them all 'British' it's not recommended as the four countries generally don't like each other. The Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh regard the English as slave-driving colonial masters — no matter that all three have their own devolved Parliaments and are allowed to vote on English laws despite the reverse not being true — and the English generally regard the rest as rural yokels who spend too much time with their sheep. However, as the four constituent countries don't have their own passports, they are all British Citizens, like it or not.They are British Citizens of the United Kingdom — whose full name by the way is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So where's Great Britain hiding? Right here: the area covered in black is Great Britain. Unlike England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Great Britain is a geographical rather than a political term. Great Britain is the largest island among the British Isles. Within the United Kingdom, the term 'Great Britain' is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales alone with the intentional exclusion of Northern Ireland. This is mostly, but not completely true, as all three constituent countries have islands that are not part of Great Britain such as The Isle of Wight, part of England, the Welsh Isle of Anglesey and the Scottish Hebrides, The Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands, Islands of the Clyde. The second biggest island in the British Isles is Ireland. It is worth noting that Ireland is not a country. Like Great Britain, it is a geographical, not political, term. The Island of Ireland contain on it two countries, Northern Ireland — which we have already discussed — and the Republic of Ireland. When people say they are 'Irish' they are referring to the Republic of Ireland which is a separate country from the United Kingdom. However, both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom are members of the European Union even though England often likes to pretend that it's an Island in the mid-atlantic rather than 50km off the cost of France. But that's a story for another time. To review: The two largest islands in the British Isles are Ireland and Great Britain. Ireland has on it two countries — the republic of ireland and northern ireland, while Great Britain (mostly) contains three: England, Scotland and Wales. These last three, when combined with northern Ireland form the United Kingdom. There are still many unanswered questions. Such as, why, when you travel to Canada is there British Royalty on the money? To answer this, we need to talk about Empire. You can't have gone to school in the English-speaking world without having learned that the British Empire once spanned a 1/4th the worlds land and governed nearly a 1/4th its people. While it is easy to remember the part of the empire that broke away violently... We often forget how many nations gained independence through diplomacy, not bloodshed. These want-to-be nations struck a deal with the empire where they continued to recognize the monarchy as the head of state in exchange for a local, autonomous parliament. To understand how they are connected, we need to talk about the crown. Not the physical crown that sits behind glass in the tower of London and earns millions of tourist pounds for the UK but the crown as a complicated legal entity best thought of a a one-man corporation. Who created this corporation? God Did. According to British Tradition all power is vested in God and the monarch is crowned in a Christian ceremony. God however — not wanted to be bothered with micromanagement — conveniently delegates his power to an entity called the crown. While this used to be the physical crown in the tower of london — it evolved over time into a legal corporation sole able to be controlled only by the ruling monarch. It's a useful reminder that the United Kingdom is still technically a theocracy with the reigning monarch acting as both the head of state and the supreme governor of the official state religion: Anglicanism. Such are the oddities that arise when dealing with a 1,000 year-old Monarchy. Back to Canada and the rest. The former colonies that gained their independence through diplomacy and continue to recognize that authority of the crown are known as the Commonwealth Realm. They are, in decreasing order of population: Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Jamaica, The Solomon Islands, Belize, The Bahamas, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Tuvalu. All are independent nations but still recognize the monarchy as the head of state even though it has little real power within their borders. There are three further entities that belong to the crown and these are the Crown Dependencies: he Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey. Unlike the Commonwealth Realm, they are not considered independent nations, but are granted local autonomy by the crown and British Citizenship by the United Kingdom — though the UK does reserve the right to over-rule the laws of there local assemblies. Are we all done "now"? Almost, but not quite. There are still a couple of loose threads, such as this place: The tiny city of Gibraltar on the Southern Cost of Spain famous for its rock, its monkeys and for causing diplomatic tension between the United Kingdom and Spain. Or what about the Falkland Islands? Which caused so much tension between the United Kingdom and Argentina that they went to war over them. These places belong in the last group of crown properties know as: British Overseas Territories. But their former name — crown colonies — gives away their origins. They are the last vestiges of the British Empire. Unlike the Commonwealth Realm, they have not become independent nations and continue to rely on the United Kingdom for military and (sometimes) economic assistance. Like the Crown Dependencies, everyone born in their borders is a British Citizen. The Crown colonies are, in decreasing order of population: Bermuda, Cayman Islands,Turks and Caicos Islands, Gibraltar, The British Virgin Islands, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Anguilla, Saint Helena, Ascension Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Montserrat, British Indian Ocean Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Falkland Islands, British Antarctic Territory, Pitcairn Islands. For our final Venn diagram, the United Kingdom is a country situated on the British Isles and is part of The Crown which is controlled by the monarchy. Also part of the crown and the British Isles are the crown dependencies. The independent nations of the former empire that still recognize the crown are the Commonwealth Realm and the non-independent remnants of the former empire are the British Overseas Territories. Thank you very much for watching.

Traditional locations

The town of Haltwhistle in Northumberland has banners stating that it is the "Centre of Britain".[1] By another calculation the centre can also be said to be Dunsop Bridge, Lancashire, 71 miles (114 km) to the south.[2]

However, in 2002 the Ordnance Survey conducted studies that pinpointed the respective centres more precisely, and it is their results that are quoted below.[3]

Centroid locations

The centroid is a mathematically derived point that is in every sense the centre of a two dimensional area like a piece of land. If a straight line is drawn through a centroid in any direction there will be equal length of the line on either side of the centroid as measured from it to the boundary if the line is unbroken on either side. If a line crosses an inlet of the sea then it can be considered as a stick of uniform weight with a material of negligible weight crossing the water, the line would then balance precisely at the centroid point if suspended.

Map of centres of the UK and Great Britain
Map of centres of UK and England by various methods

Put simply, the centroid is the point at which a cardboard cut-out of the area could be perfectly balanced on the tip of a pencil.[4] Islands are assumed fixed to the mainland in their precise position by invisible rigid weightless wires. A mathematical method is used to do the balancing to a much greater accuracy than the practical method could achieve.

Unless stated, positions are the centroids of the two-dimensional shapes made by the countries. Calculations include offshore islands unless stated.

United Kingdom

Great Britain

Great Britain (mainland only)

England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

Wales

Locations found by other methods

Point farthest from the sea

Point farthest from high tide mark (including tidal rivers)

Mid point of the longest north–south axis

  • Haltwhistle, Northumberland. The midpoint of the longest north–south meridian; also approximately the midpoint of each of the lines through it across Great Britain along the 16 main compass directions.[11]

Centre of population

  • This calculation depends on the method used (mean, median or geometric median; see Centre of population for details).
A calculation by Danny Dorling using the mean (least squares) method based on local authority district data from the 1990s gave the population centre of Great Britain at Appleby Parva, Leicestershire, 20 miles south of Derby. Since then, the population centre will have moved slightly south and east.[12][13]>[14]

Centre of England

Plaque on the ancient cross at Meriden, West Midlands, the traditional centre of England
Road sign welcoming visitors to the Centre of England at Morton, Derbyshire

For centuries the parish of Meriden to the west of Coventry has claimed to be the geographical centre of England, and there has been a stone cross there commemorating the claim for at least 500 years. The justification is that the point farthest from the sea is in the parish.[citation needed] Morton, Derbyshire also claims to be the centre of England as it is not only midway along England's longest north-south axis,[citation needed] but also midway between the east coast and the Welsh border.[citation needed] Claims are also made for a tree, the Midland Oak, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, although the basis for these claims is not clear.

See also

Further reading

  • John Michell (2009). Sacred Center: the Ancient Art of Locating Sanctuaries. Inner Traditions. ISBN 1594772843.

References

  1. ^ Vanessa Barford (22 August 2014). "Scottish independence: The town at the centre of Britain". BBC News. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  2. ^ a b c Brady Haran (20 October 2002). "Stuck in the middle with ewe". BBC News. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  3. ^ Social Media Manager, Gemma (22 August 2014). "Where is the centre of Great Britain?". The Official OS Blog. OS. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  4. ^ a b "Brave hearts of Scotland". BBC. 2002-10-24. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
  5. ^ BBC News (calculation made by Ordnance Survey) 16 September 2014
  6. ^ "Q. Where is the centre of mainland Great Britain?". MapZone. Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  7. ^ "A tale of two centres". BBC. 2002-10-22. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
  8. ^ "New centre of England marked in Fenny Drayton". BBC. 2013-06-14. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  9. ^ "Meg in the middle". BBC. 2002-10-23. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
  10. ^ "Saving the centre of Wales". BBC. 2002-10-24. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
  11. ^ The Centre of Britain Archived January 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Centre of Britain Hotel, Haltwhistle, Northumberland. Accessed May 2012
  12. ^ "News Item:". University of Leeds. Archived from the original on 3 October 2006. Retrieved 25 November 2007.
  13. ^ "Population Centre". Appleby Magna & Appleby Parva. Archived from the original on 23 November 2007. Retrieved 25 November 2007.
  14. ^ Dorling, D; Atkins, D J (1995). Population density, change and concentration in Great Britain 1971, 1981 and 1991 (Studies on Medical and Population Subjects No. 58). HMSO.
This page was last edited on 11 February 2024, at 15:39
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