What is it like living in the UK?
In the UK, there are different kinds of settlements, which vary in size and The number of people living in an area..
Watch: Learn about living in UK cities
Learn more about living in the UK.
Where would you like to live when your older?
My name is Charlie and I've always kinda like the idea of living in Hollywood and here I am!
Not Hollywood in the USA. Holywood in Northern Ireland, because today I'm investigating different places to live in the UK.
People often talk about finding somewhere to settle down and places where houses have been built are called settlements.
Different kinds of settlements have different names, depending on how big they are.
A hamlet is a tiny settlement with only a few houses in a group and no shops.
A village has more houses, a few shops, maybe a pub, a church even a school. There might be a bus or two that goes through the village but only a few times a day.
A town like Holywood is much bigger. It has a lot of houses and shops. Schools, cinemas, factories and offices. A regular bus service and a railway station.
Cities like Belfast are the biggest settlements. They have everything a town has along with a university, maybe a sports stadium or cathedral and a theatre. Almost everything you could want.
People come to live in Holywood because it isn't far from Belfast, but it is also by the sea. So people can visit Belfast during the day and then get on a train and come home to Holywood.
Town and cities are called urban areas. And the areas around them are called suburban, so Holywood is a suburban town of Belfast and people here live in the suburbs.
Further away from the urban and suburban areas, you get the rural areas - the countryside and it is here that you find villages and hamlets. There aren't so many jobs in rural areas, which is why they have smaller settlements.
There are fewer shops, no cinemas, and maybe only one bus a day, but there is more space and cleaner air. So there are advantages and disadvantages, whether you should live in a big town or small village.
What sort of settlement do you live in? Are you in an urban, suburban or rural area?
Living in the UK
What settlements are like and how the land is used depends on:
- The location and the climate
- The reason why the settlement developed
In the UK, around
Some parts of the UK have many more people than others - Scotland's mountains and remote islands have very few inhabitants, while England is the most crowded country, with London being the largest city in the UK.
All the land in the UK can be divided into three categories:
- Rural
- Urban
- Suburban
Rural
Rural areas are found in the countryside, surrounded by open land. Most of the land in the UK is rural.
Suburban
Suburban settlements are usually located outside of large cities and towns and the land here is used for housing.
Urban
Urban settlements are towns and cities with a high population.
Types of settlements
Settlements are places where people choose to live and work. They are different sizes, at different locations and they are always changing.
Image caption, An isolated house or a farm
An isolated house or a farm is usually one or two houses, far away from other settlements.
1 of 5
In the UK, a settlement becomes a city if a monarch (king or queen) awards it city status.
Activity
Quiz: Rural or urban?
Smaller islands and settlements in the UK
The UK is an island country with thousands of islands. The UK occupies the majority of the A group of islands off the north-western coast of Europe. Great Britain and Ireland are the largest two islands..
Most of the population of the UK lives on the two main islands, Great Britain and Ireland (in Northern Ireland), but there are also settlements on some of the UK's many islands.
Some of them, such as the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands, are remote. This can mean that life is very different to the life on the The land that forms the main part of a country. The UK mainland is Wales, England and Scotland..
Some of the differences could be:
- Job opportunities
- Transport links
- Choice in schools and education
- Variety of goods sold in shops
- Flooding risk
- More tourism
- House prices
- Unspoilt wildlife
Great Britain is the world's 9th largest island.
Case study: Easdale Island, Scotland
Easdale is a permanently inhabited island of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. It served as a slate quarry and in the past, there were hundreds of people living and working here. Today, it has a population of about 60 people.
There are no roads on the island, and wheelbarrows are used by the locals to bring their supplies on a ferry.
Can you find all the things that might be true for living on such a small, remote island?
| a number of schools to choose from | taking a ferry to travel to a bigger city | endangered animal species live here |
| visited by tourists | blocks of flats | shopping malls |
| wide job opportunities and variety of roles | community - everyone knows everyone | railway station |
Everything highlighted in orange is true about living on a small island.
| a number of schools to choose from | taking a ferry to travel to a bigger city | endangered animal species live here |
| visited by tourists | blocks of flats | shopping malls |
| wide job opportunities and variety of roles | community - everyone knows everyone | railway station |
Activity
Quiz: Living in the UK
Bitesize Primary games. game
Play fun and educational primary games in science, maths, English, history, geography, art, computing and modern languages.
More on Geography of the UK
Find out more by working through a topic
- count26 of 32
- count27 of 32
- count28 of 32
- count29 of 32
