Why So Few People Live In Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or Southwest England
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The United Kingdom is one of Europe's largest countries by population with about 67 million people. Despite this, the vast majority of those people live with England and, more specifically, the central part of England. This gives England far more power over Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland over domestic affairs. So why don't more people live in other regions of the United Kingdom and what's the relationship between the United Kingdom and the tiny Isle of Man?
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What?! Wales didn't experience industrialisation to any notable extent? South Wales was a key area of industrialisation and population growth in the 19th century, and by the turn of the 20th was the only area of Britain experiencing net inward migration!
Indeed, and further was a mining giant even 3,000 years ago (1,000 years before the Romans even arrived!). Same with Cornwall that was called the land of tin by Herodotus of Ancient Greece.
Well look at Swansea today.
And they all left when it was over. No one lives there now 😂
Wales was definitely industrialised. Even where I live in West Wales there was a lot of industrialisation in the late 18th/early 19th century, though now it’s mostly farming.
This was a small change in population compared to the indusrial revolution in England, drawing men and their families south for work, or an empire promising land and fortune elsewhere. My ancestors left the Gorbals for India, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and weirdly, Scunthorpe for the steel mills. Perhaps if we hadn't messed the English about with a series of naff Stuart monarch's, then they wouldn't have had to look to those Dutch & Hanovarian replacements. It's a bit like what the plantegenets did to the Saxons in the Harrying of the North. Remove the problem by removing the people. Evil but necessary at the time for stability. Scotland led the world in engineering during the Victorian era!
A LOT of land In wales is uninhabitable due to the mountainous regions etc. And we have a large agricultural sector. Same goes for Scotland.
A lot of the Highlands is perfectly inhabitable, and was inhabited before the Clearances. It's even more possible to inhabit such areas today if we chose to, but we choose not to.
Wales has a high population of working poor. So they leave for pastures new.
@@RW-nr6bh Very true. The highlands were rich forests, much like Northern England those lands have been cleared and made barren. All that land is now the possession of massive estates that control far too much land and prevent both people and nature from moving back in.
There are no mountains in Wales, just hills.
There are no mountains in Wales, just hills. People live in Alpes and Rocky Mountains, not mentioning Nepal and such.
I didn't realise you meant the Hebrides! Might want to check that pronunciation. BTW as a Northern Irisher I would have included Belfast in the list of industrial cities - it was a vitally important industrial hub for shipbuilding, linen and rope making. You've presumably heard of Titanic!
Ya, I caught that weird pronunciation of Hebrides... which led me to ponder the interesting accent of the Narrator? I'm guessing Minnesota, USA? The accent in that area is a blend of Swedish, Dutch/Germanic and Scots/Irish. Honestly, sometimes people from Minnesota speak more like a weird blend of European than the frequent Afro/Caribbean which strongly influences American metro areas of the rest of USA
I always forget NI is part for the UK. I think the saying "out of sight, out of mind" is true.
Yeah lol sounded like some Spanish pronunciation there, but i knew what the narrator meant. Still funny though
@maxisussex there are those of us on the 'mainland' who are well aware of our Northern Irish cousins, their land, and ties to us. 🙂
@@TD-np6zeAfro-Caribbean? You mean like BBC News Pidgin?
Both Glasgow and Newcastle were huge shipbuilding centres.
Plymouth is not as big as Bristol which you didn't mention. To be honest, having grown up in the South West, I wouldn't call it ' relatively uninhabited' by European standards. Try living in rural Spain.
I totally agree, compared to other areas in other parts of the world UK is populated in almost all areas. The fact is that almost all nations in the world has a huge difference in which areas are relatively high or low population, totally normal and not surprising at all.
Bristol is included in the central populated area though, I think he was talking about the largest cities outside that at the time.
@@Jeffron71 He also forgot to mention Exeter, which is the capital of Devon and not Plymouth.
Devon feels pretty empty, outside Plymouth, The Riviera and Exeter. Though rural Spain is another level of barren.
@@dannyh9290 Too bad they refuse to improve the transportation in those bits due to shallow "prosperity" reasons or whatever other BS.
Nice video but Southwest England is actually well populated, with nearly 6 million people it has more people than Scotland.
South West England has by far the lowest population density of any region of England
That’s less people than London
Scotland has a much bigger population than the South West of England and Kernow. Remember that the statistics for the South West are very skewed as regional apportionment includes Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Swindon and the Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole unitary Council but not some of the neighbouring towns (Ringwood, Lymington, Romsey, New Milton) which along with Southampton are classified as South East. If I travel from Plymouth on the English Cornish border to friends in the Lake District half of my journey is getting to the South West West Midlands boundary near Ashchurch. The remainder is in both West Midlands and North West Generally the reasons why Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Devon and Kernow (Cornwall) are less populated is a rural economy further from traditional industrial resources. Although Kernow started the industrial revolution with metal mining which goes back centuries most of the metal save some small pockets have been mined out. The other reason people live in the middle on the megacity axis is transport and employment. The ONS essentially have England split into three urban suburban corridors - Trans Pennine from Blackpool, Liverpool City Region and Stoke on Trent in the West to Grimsby/Cleethorpes, Hull and York in the East. Recently the government buzz word has been Northern Powerhouse. The Diagonal roughly along the route of the London to Crewe railway via Birmingham and Wolverhampton And the Wave a collection of coastal communities from Wareham in Dorset to Eastbourne in Sussex mostly connected to one another.
The mostly protestant north, you have to mention the plantations, even if you don’t have to get into the specific history
The South West population is seasonal with many second homes and holiday homes and housing pressures on those of us living here. Aren’t many countries similar with population focus in specific regions and metropolitan areas? From personal experience South East Brazil is an example that comes to mind.
I suggest you read Engels on the conditions in the UK during the industrial revolution. You'll change your mind on Glasgow. It developed equal to if not faster than Birmingham and Manchester. It was a absolute powerhouse.
Are you Scottish?
@cityzens634 What if he or she is. In the 19th century, Glasgow was known as the Second City of the Empire (after London). It was a shipbuilding and engineering hub that launched a huge amount of tonnage that century. Clyde-built was a byword for quality and progressiveness. The city was also a sugar and tobacco hub, while nearby Paisley was a textile centre. Dundee was the jute capital of Britain, Bathgate and surroundings had the first commercial-scale shale oil refinery, and so on, ...
@cityzens634 No. I read the son of a German industrialist, present in the UK, who collated statistics produced at the time, and I accept his findings. I'm not sure what nationality has to do with having a functioning brain. Care to explain?
Doesn't matter whether they're Scottish or not. I'm not Scottish, but what they say is correct - here's an odd neglect in the video of Glasgow and the NE of England when it comes to their past industrial might. @@cityzens634
@@cityzens634If they are Scottish 🏴 they'll be slagging off England 🏴 to you shortly so you'll know when they start doing that 😂.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Highland clearances that massively uprooted Scotland's demographics and made half the country into the emptiest area in all of the British Isles.
Economic decline made it unviable for the then population
Comparable changes from peasant subsistence farming occurred in England and Southern Scotland - providing the labour needed by the rapidly-growing industries from the 1780s onwards.
Probably because it wan't that impactful in the context of the British isles, the same happened over large swathes of England and Wales which doesn't gey the attention.
@@davidsoulsby1102 Yeah so half the whole landmass of Scotland essentially gets cleansed of its inhabitants, an entire culture of distinct highland tradition nearly wiped out, and that somehow isnt impactful in the context of a video about the 'why' places are empty. The whole point of this IS to get them the attention.
@@ThomasDonnelly1888Well said. He also never mentions the Plantation of Ulster by Oliver Cromwell in the 1600's. These "quick bite" historical videos are more misleading than no videos at all.
Wales was a pioneer in iron technology, the iron works of Merthyr and Blaenavon were some of the largest in the UK. Also the first steam train to run on rails was in Merthyr Tydfil in 1804....
Maybe google it wrong but... "The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Coalbrookdale Locomotive, built by Trevithick in 1802. It was constructed for the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in the United Kingdom though no record of it working there has survived." but then pioniers can be concurrent right, with just a few months or weeks separating their efforts! Rejoice that it all happened here in the UK, for ultimately, were are, one people!
The 1804 steam engine in Merthyr was also built by Trevithick, who had a history of building steam locamotives that ran on roads - the Merthyr one was the first to actually carry people and goods and was done as a bet @@Mark_Bickerton
What Wales was most famous for in the Industrial Revolution is supplying high quality coal to the world and suppling slate for the roofs of the world.
Parys mountain? That was the world's largest copper mine at one point.
@@stevebarlow3154 And Wales was once the largest lead exporter in the world
Central Belt of Scotland is heavily populated. It makes no sense to show the Bristol Channel's Welsh side as unpopulated but English side as populated. It's the Welsh side that's more urban
With regards to the movement of people from rural areas to the industrial cities- its also worth mentioning the "highland clearances" where landowners evicted people from the land to make room for livestock grazing
As with Ireland (famine), no mention was made of the massive emigrations caused by these upheavals to America, Canada , Australia and New Zealand.
@@SuperNevile The potato blight caused problems over the whole of Europe, not just Ireland, Ireland had decided to not diversify like the rest and relied massively on potato's. Thats what caused the famine, the Irish government and land owners set the wheels in motion with this decision.
It wasn't just the Highlands, though its the Scottish that claim it for them selves. Wales, Ireland and many parts of northern England had the same problem. Sheep became the most valuable "crop", sheep don't need many people to rear.
@@davidsoulsby1102No but now we understand why they run for their lives when they see a Welsh 🏴 man or Welsh 🏴 they/them 😂😂😂.
@@davidsoulsby1102 Yes, I know all that, but what the video doesn't mention is that was the catalyst for mass emigration. All it said was there was famine and that was it. That was my point.
Also you forgot to mention the other two crown dependencies: The bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey
The balliwicks? If that's a real term...
@@AllThreeWitches ‘bailiwicks’ my bad haha en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Dependencies
Yeah. Just look at what's happened politically with Sark (part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey) in the past couple of decades, and the political position of the Isle of Man looks pretty straightforward. Sark's often referred to as the last country in the world to have had a feudal government, having transitioned to democracy in 2008.
A couple corrections: The Isle of Man is highly autonomous financially but immigration policy to the island is aligned with the UK government and all arrivals from the UK to the IOM are treated as domestic. Secondly, the IOM is in a customs union with the UK , so there are no customs checks between the two jurisdictions
Why IOM has the same symbol as Sicily (3 legs), any historical connection?
@@andromeda45188 long live Londonistan!
@@andromeda45188 least delusional far-rightist
@@leoprg5330 It probably relates to Viking rule, both were conquered by the Norse invaders, the IoM continued to be ruled by them until the 13th century. The three legs symbol is associated with the Vikings.
@@striderwhiston9897Denial
Living in Scotland my whole life I love how few people live here, it is a bit of a culture shock when I visit a big city like London though
London is too overwhelming, not been back there in about 10 years after we moved to the northwest of Scotland. Living in a pretty secular community of a few thousand people up here is like reclaiming your sanity back.
I'm from London and I moved out to another part of England 🏴 10 years ago. When I visit it's really odd as it's like l'm seeing it through different eyes. I love to visit but I love to leave again and can safely say I would never want to have to live there again. It's got so much to do though so I like to go there if I'm looking at a city break and to see family.
It's even more crazy how empty much of Scotland is when you realise the majority of the people live in the relatively small central band around Glasgow and Edinburgh!
@@Roger_Kirk A significant development that enabled that was the draining of the marshes by Dutch engineers at the start of the 19C. Much of the Forth/Clyde valley was only brought into cultivation at that time.
From rural Northern Ireland I can’t cope with it, I got headaches and dizziness from getting used to overpopulated urban areas haha
I'm delighted to see Swansea / Abertawe mentioned, a much overlooked historic city and a beautiful part of the British Isles. 👍
Yes, and it beats Cardiff when it comes to natural beauty and outdoor activities!
Helo o Efrog Newydd! Bydda i'n mynd i dy gwlad hyfryd mis nesaf.
Hebrides is pronounced Heb-ri -dees. Glasgow was at least as big a manufacturing area as Manchester . Shipbuilding alone was massive on the river Clyde in the 19th century 20% of the WORLDS ships were built on the Clyde . It was known as the second city of the Empire .
In 1981 the population of London was 6.7 million. Now it is officially 9.7 million but is believed to be much higher. That is an increase of 50%. Meanwhile there has not been an increase of 50% in facilities such as hospitals or trains. A similar trend is being seen in other cities. It will be interesting to see your update on this topic in a few years’ time.
But diversity is our strength, is it not? Things like the NHS have been massively enriched by millions of users who have never contributed to it. The Police have never been so efficient at hunting down internet trolls whilst facilitating the activities of grooming gangs. The fire service can't put a fire out; but I defy you to find a more diverse workforce so well versed in colonial history. You can wait 12 hours for an ambulance, but at least you can take comfort in knowing that they are out there dealing with the drunks and yobs in a sensitive, inclusive manner. I simply do not understand what your issue is.
Londonistan 😢😢😢😢
Actually since the 1980s there's been a huge boom in daily commuters to London so they had to increase the number of trains. Its just the system is still poorly run and way too expensive.
Apparently the cancelled HS2 money from the north has been redirected to... eh London to fix the roads. Must be an election looming
Before the 2nd world war the population of London was 8.6 million, that number wasn’t overtaken until the 2010’s, that drop to 6.7 million was when London was in real trouble.
In your analysis of the impact of geography on population distribution within the UK you omitted the fact that London and the SE of England are the points closest to Europe and in particular the wealthiest part of Europe stretching from Holland, Belgium, North France and across North Germany. The River Thames was and is an important gateway to Europe and to the Baltic and the Mediterranean. This is why London and the South-east have maintained their dominance since the Romans and other invaders arrived even through the period of Industrial growth in the Nineteenth Century which contributed to population movement and the growth of cities outside London.
How is the Thames any more of a gateway to anywhere than the Humber, Tyne, Forth, Tay, Dee, Ness, Clyde, Solway, Mersey or Severn? When you have ships, the distance becomes a much less important factor than it would be for the equivalent overland distance.
When trade with Europe was the most important thing ports like King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth were thriving, when the focus switched to the former Empire Liverpool and Glasgow became more important and many of the North Sea ports faded away. The high population density in the South East is down to the financial powerhouse of London, rather than the proximity to Europe.
Not to mention the present day invasion
@@davidbull1914 European trade is much more important now, Glasgow doesn't do well following the decline of Imperial preference. Also being 10 hours closer to Montreal is less of an advantage than being 10 hours closer to Antwerp, when it takes a week to cross the Atlantic.
@@debbiegilmour6171 Because the weather and the agriculture deteriorate as you go North ?
With respect to you there is so many inaccuracies on this history on uk but good for you on trying 👌👌
Especially for someone not from the UK 😆
Unfortunately we are a very small island with uncontrolled immigration effecting all our public services and housing.
No where not. We’re the 6th largest island in the world. Immigration tho is a touchy subject where I once believed it wasn’t a problem my mind is starting to change especially since I live in Wales and are now recently starting to see the effect.
Why are the North East and North West of England not spoken about, given their importance to the UK’s geography and story?
.Manchester was mentioned. He could have discussed the Channel Islands instead of a lengthy analysis of the Isle of Man, but on the whole I was very satisfied with his report.
Neither are part of the UK or thought of much by the population. I wouldn't bother with either of them.@@stevebbuk9557
@@stevebbuk9557 Look at the map, Manchester is in the middle of the country, it isnt really the North.
@@davidsoulsby1102 England isn't a country reee
@@optick3554That's funny cause it's the biggest one on the Island of Great Britain 🤔
Home to just, 67 million people? That's the highest level ever and has grown enormously in just a few decades
He was comparing it to the days of empire so fits
@@hanifleylabi8071 but the empire population was huge since India was included. Imagine putting a billion people on the island
American bias.
Geoff, I hope videos but as a Brit I have so many issues with this video. Finally you draw a live basically over nearly all but the very north, southwest of England, and East Anglia and call this central England (it may look central when showing the whole of the UK, but it's not just central England you've shown in the shaded area. You've also basically included most of the big cities and excluded everywhere else and said most people live here, that's obvious!!! Secondly London isn't in central England, as you said later in the video it's in the South East, which is true, and this is the area most densely populated, and if the video been and why they UK population is mostly in the South East it would be a great video, but it isn't. Thirdly, more that we've established that London isn't in central England, what the English would call central England is the regions known as the West Midlands and the East Midlands. Birmingham is the biggest city in the West Midlands whilst cities like Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester are those in the East Midlands. The Midlands could extend as far south as Oxford but that's probably as far as you could go before you get into the South. Fourthly, Manchester is not in central England either, neither is Leeds (or Sheffield, which you called to mention, but should have), they are in the North, Manchester being in a region called the North West, Sheffield and Leeds being in a region called Yorkshire & the Humber (the Humber being the river estuary that the city of Hull sits upon). Lastly, and I can't believe you didn't bring up this when mentioning Northern Ireland, but the reason it had a greater number of protestants than other parts of Ireland is because many Scots and English (especially those from around the England-Scotland however reivers) were planted there under the reign of James II. Even with this plantation to make what was once the most Irish part of Ireland less Irish there was not much of a pro British majority (and anyone who points to a vote they had to remain part of the UK, only those offering their own property could vote, which meant a lot of the pro Irish population had no say). I love your channel and videos but I felt this one just hasn't been researched enough, and went on either another video I I've seen on this, that was equally inaccurate or just drawing lines on maps (or from statistics), and without context I see why this might cause a problem.
As a Scottish person, frankly, this is just nonsense. There are just under 6 million people in Scotland, which is perfectly normal for a country of that size. There are a dozen countries in Europe with populations smaller or equal to Scotland. England, conversely, is one of the most densely populated countries on Earth. It's two completely different situations.
When I lived and worked in Arizona, US, there was a little ghost town west of Phoenix named Swansea.
Nice video - I think the numbers for “Southwest England” are low because you’ve included Bristol and Gloucestershire as part of “Central England” (see map at 6:42), but these regions are usually considered to be in the Southwest. The traditional (ceremonial) counties of the Southwest are Bristol (460k pop), Gloucestershire (916k pop), Wiltshire (720k pop), Somerset (965k pop), Dorset (770k pop), Devon (1.2m pop) and Cornwall (568k pop). It’s only really Cornwall that’s particularly sparsely populated out of these, as the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bristol and Somerset have a combined population that’s almost equal to that of all of Wales in a significantly smaller area (Glos, Somerset, Bristol and Wilts are 10,916 km2 with a pop of ~3.06m; compare that to Wales, which is 21,218km2 with a pop of ~3.1m). If you were to make a nation of the four ceremonial counties above, it would have a population density of about 280/km2, which would make it the 51st most dense country on the planet (the UK would drop to the 52nd spot, for context Japan is 42nd (326/km2), Pakistan is 46th (302/km2) and Vietnam is 48th (298/km2)). So as you can see, large parts of Southwest england are actually quite densely populated in comparison to the rest of the world.
Here in Scotland, we have a population of about 5.5 million, who mostly live in the central belt between Glasgow, Edinburgh, and up to Dundee, and then along the East coasts. The rest is mostly villages and towns scattered about (a very rough broad generalisation that not the complete story!) as it's mostly mountains/hills/moorland that's just not suitable for large settlements.
Scotland is huge tho about 1/3 the area of the island of Britain Even if just 40% is suitable for settlement you can still fit like 10 million ppl easily Of course you need the infrastructure to go with it
@vinniechan yeah, scotland is a huge part of the island. But really not much of "worth" in those empty areas to go to other that because we could. It would certainly stop the spread of existing cities/towns if there was somewhere else to go.
That's true, although interestingly prior to 18th-19th centuries, the Highlands was more populated than it is today, relatively speaking. It's hard to find good population estimates for the time, but a _lot_ of people emigrated from the Highlands, both to the Americas and to urban areas in the rest of the UK.
@@merrymachiavelli2041 The exodus from the Highlands was the result of a change in agricultural practices and economics similar to the Agricultural Revolution in England and the Lowland Clearances in Scotland.
If it were true that large settlements weren't possible due to mountains then I think somebody needs to inform Norway, Austria and Switzerland quick, because it's obvious noöne told them. Look at Bergen as a good example. A city surrounded by fjords and mountains of about 300k people with its own light railway. Towns like Inverness, Perth, Stornoway, Kirkwall, Lerwick, Dumfries, Ullapool, Oban, and even Portree (and I haven't even mentioned the various big towns in Fife) have the potential to get that big and few of those towns have anywhere near as challenging a terrain as Bergen does.
At 5:40 I think the pronunciation of "Hebrides" in this video could use some improvement.
No mention of the population impact of the Scottish Clearances?
No - locally important, nationally just the last gasp of the Agricultural Revolution.
Not sure if I'm missing something here but the North East is ignored in this documentary. For example the map at 9:30 talks about the biggest population centres outside central England, but skips over Newcastle with its 800,000+ population, not including it's twin city Gateshead
What you’ll notice about driving on the motorway/highway between the cities in the green region is how busy they are. Once you leave that region further towards northern England, Scotland, wales and south west England you notice how the traffic gradually dissipates as you go into lower population density regions.
I'll remember that next time I'm stuck in a traffic jam on the M5
That is the situation but it doesn't really answer the "why?" Why are there fewer people in the North?
Not at all true in SW England in summer. You really begin to notice the lack of M roads when you're stuck behind 15 caravans
I have an old Dubliner friend, now in his late 70's. He said one remarkable thing to him was that once he and his mates left Dublin on their bikes (when they were kids), was that the countryside was pretty much lacking any people or any sign whatsoever of human activity. (Ireland's incredibly sparsely populated).
@@debbiegilmour6171 because its shit up there. and the best roads up there are the ones coming down south.
Central Scotland between Glasgow and Edinburgh is very populated so is the very south of wales
You skipped right over the origin of Northern Ireland in the ulster plantation, and as a Scots Irish trouble maker I can not let it pass with out strenuous protest!!! 8-P
I found it very odd he didn't mention this. Recently learned about some of the Plantation of Ulster where basically trouble makers on the English-Scottish border, the reivers, were planted in Ulster to make the province less Irish Catholic. That was always bound to create harmony and togetherness!!! I guess the English cared just as much about those in Ulster then we they do now!!!
@@mattpotter8725 "I guess the English cared just as much about those in Ulster then we they do now!!!" Even when complaining about something the Scots are more responsible for, people will still blame the English 🤣
@@lordgemini2376 To be fair the English has been invading Ireland long before the Plantation, and there are English reivers as well that were planted, and by the time of the biggest plantation it was a King of England and Scotland that carried it out, so the English are hardly blameless, plus even though a lot of the planters were out Scottish origin it was the English gentry on the whole that were the landowners granted land confiscated from the Irish.
@mattpotter8725 "it was a king of England and Scotland who carried it out." Whom was born in Scotland, was raised by Scots, was the head of a scottish dynasty, and was the king of Scotland almost 40 years before he was the king of England. Blaming England for the actions of king james VI is roughly equivalent to blaming England for the actions of William the conqueror (which i am certain you would do if he somehow did anything that offended you) or blaming Russia for the actions of genghis Khan.
@@mattpotter8725Too much to cover, the Harrowing of the North was also missed and equally important, but how much can you include in one vid. The guy did a pretty good job apart classifying Manchester & Liverpool in the Midlands and pronouncing Glasgow in a somewhat comical way.
The Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey are crown dependencies with a similar status to the Isle of Man. In the Isle of Man the British monarch is the Lord of Mann (Elizabeth II still called herself “Lord of Mann” rather than Lady), whereas in the Channel Islands the monarch is technically the Duke of Normandy, but I believe people there usually just say “the king/queen”.
Missed out the North East of England. Newcastle metro area is 900,000 and if Sunderland is added in its 1.5 million. Also during the 19th century Glasgow was the 2nd city of the Empire
so was Dublin tbf...there have been a few 'second cities'
It was always Liverpool considering from 1820 to 1920 it was UKs second biggest city and largest port.
I think it’s really brave to discuss another country the way you have here with all the potential pitfalls like pronunciation. You may want to check the flag you’ve assigned to the UK and compare it to the fluttering ones you have in your pictures of The Mall in London. Personally I don’t care about flags and nations but some people do. It would be like leaving out a few stars on the US flag.
Good video. But the Uk is made up of four so-called countries, not kingdoms since there is only one kingdom which is united
1603
Not for much longer.
Isn't Wales a principality?
@@petermadany2779 Bingo.
that is merely a title@@petermadany2779
It depends where you draw the lines. Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Liverpool are in the north of England, where I live. If you include those, the north of England has a population of 15m and is very well populated.
Exactly!! Very well populated!!
I like Northumberland, the least populated county in England.
I used to think Scotland had very few people until I came to northern Finland. Finland has about the same number of people but is so much bigger.
Very interesting, Geoff! Thank you for this important and valuable lesson.
Please don't take any lessons from this video. He flat out got lots wrong, missed out a whole load of context and reasons why things are the way they are or was just wrong about a lot of stuff
The worst thing you could say to my Scottish descent grandfather (McBurney) was “I loved Scotland. It was so bare!”. 300 years after being dispossessed and kicked out to Northern Ireland and then needing to leave to Australia because of threat of inter-communal violence, the wounds were still very very raw.
Hm, this is your first video that left me wanting. Why focus on the Isle of Man when other Crown Dependencies (and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) have semi-autonomous parliamentary governments with control over local affairs?
We shouldn't forget the Channel Islands, with its bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey (including Alderney, Sark and Herm). They have a fascinating history.
Because although the ones you mention have their own little local authorities that can make a few laws (a slightly inflated version of the way a local council can make orders about dog fouling and the like), they are all part of the UK, send MPs to Westminster and thus come under Westminster's overall jurisdiction for all the important stuff. The Isle of Man, on the other hand, isn't and doesn't. I do agree that the Channel Islands etc. could have been included in the same way, though.
The shot at 4:51, where you're saying about the low plains of the South and East of England, is actually a shot of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the much disputed border town in North East England. The bridge in the shot, just south of the train station in Berwick, is the Royal Border Bridge
Dude I think you'll find Bristol's population is much larger than Plymouth's
In the case of Northern ireland less people live in Ireland In general. The irish population peaked in the 1840s before huge numbers were killed in a famine and there was huge waves of emigration after that
More than 2 Million emigrated during the Famine.
Five million at the peak I believe
@jonlightyear2000 an estimated 8 million people lived on the island of ireland in 1845. For comparison the island of britain had 16 million at that time .
@@bouse23 It was more like 11 million remember the census takers couldn't account for everyone in Ireland there was large parts of Ireland that were hard to access.
Thousands of young people are still leaving Ireland today because of house prices and lack of opportunity. Emigration is continuing with pace. 50,000 2022 63,000 2023 and you can only blame your government for that
Thank, Geoff. Always a great hang👍🏼
Wasn’t expecting an Isle of Man shout out! Nice vid
Thank you for your helpful and important Videos!
The official population is around 67 million but the for the real number you can add another 20 million
BS
5:41 _HEB-ri-DEEZ_
I thought the same thing. And Glass-gOH.
And Tin-wold
Nice video and very interesting to know more details about these info
Very informative about the IOM.
Most people live in the bigger towns and cities for employment. Lots of the beautiful places are in the middle of nowhere, which is great if you can work from home or farming or even retirement. But for the reality of life it’s not feasible.
Honestly I disagree. For example in London it's quite common to commute over an hour by public transport, often longer. You can live in the countryside in a county neighbouring the West Midlands and commute by car to Birmingham or another place in the W. Mids in the same time or less. It's just that more people want to live in the city which is fine by me and hope it continues.
In the US, we solve this issue with Urban Sprawl. Nobody wants to live in the urban core anymore, and cities stop being so dense.
I remember at school (fifty+ years ago) that the area stretching from South East England (The Home Counties) across to North West England (Lancashire) where the majority of the UK's population live was described as coffin shaped.
How fitting. 😂
just brilliant thanks
Thank you very interesting!
i wouldn't call the south west of England empty, the Population stands at 5.7 million which is a lot packed into such a small area, especially since it has 2 large Nation parks. i live in Devon and there is cities towns and thousands of villages everywhere.
I suspect the majority of that population is based in Bristol and the surrounding area. It (707k) has more people than Cornwall (250k), Plymouth (242k), Exeter(130k) and Torquay (52k) combined. With that spread, it feels pretty sparse.
@@dannyh9290 i get what you are saying but the southwest has a population density of 600 per sq mile which is quite a bit
@@SirZanZa the video author has invented his own definition of "South West", so normal statistics do not apply. The same "invention" occurs with the London figure, which includes part of what the ONS count as South East, and I suspect a bit of "East of England" as well. Nothing like inventing non-standard definitions to make a point sound correct (which is exactly what the video author has done).
@@SirZanZayes but you compare that to counties in other regions often being above 1000 while Cornwall Devon and wiltshire are all between 400-500
You left out one crucial factor of today's spread, regarding job opportunities. There has been very little investment and support for the North and West, especially for Scotland by the UK parliament over the course of centuries, especially by The Conservative Party. Thatcher in particular shut down most of what industry did previously exist.
Wrong Scotland gets massive support by the UK government. It is highest per head in the UK.
@@Mulberry2000 Such as the Network North Project which will now spend $250 Million repairing London Roads? At least half the Levelling Up Funds for the North have been spent in the South. But I wasn't just talking about the current lack of investment, it dates back to Thatcher and when she shut down all the mines and the British automotive industry.
Callahan and labour shut shut down more mines than Thatcher. The industry was dying anyway. The mines if they were profitable could have continued but all they were doing was bankrupting the country. I bet the current generation don't want to work down the mines or in heavy industry anyway too much like hard work.
@@Goatcha_M you mean the car industry that was a laughing stock because how bad they were . People in the UK were quick to ditch their British brands for their fancy international brands . Or are you going to give up your Samsung phone or TV or your iPhone or iPad and buy something British made
@@Mulberry2000I always thought Northern Ireland had the highest per capita spend, but maybe I'm out of date or getting mixed up
You have some of the best geography videos on the web
You're the best teacher 😊❤️
Even the apparently lower population areas of SW, E and North are fairly populated excepting the moors/national parks where development is limited. It would be constructive to point out that England/UK's economic policy is heavily skewed from a balanced economy of sectors towards a financialization-service orientated economy eg selling off manufacturing, minimal investment in agriculture (it's generally kept on life-support and adopting the mega-farm model of the US vs the family small farm model of a true rural area) as well as selling off the Fisheries to the EU for another example. Hence density of population around urban areas, construction and development and thus incredibly high population density in that highlighted region. For short-term growth it's worked but for long-term sustainability it's a very poor strategic choice.
I live in Southwest London I think there are reasons choose to settle in Soutj East coast At the end of thr day the country is still tethered to the continent (in an on again off again way) so it makes sense for ppl to base where they can interact with tje continent closesr Also there is the westher which is a fair milder than in up north and more daylight during winter Not to mention the plains that are more suitable to agriculture These sorts of things compound over centuries
Nice video! You forgot to mention the Channel Islands.
5:34 when “shire” is at the end of a county name it’s not pronounce like “tire” but instead like “shear”
So glad your covering topics within Britain 🇬🇧❤️
Shame it’s factually rubbish
@@MsTravelady erm alright
Those areas are still fairly dense compared to most of the land in the US. You just see rural areas with farms, small towns, villages and national parks. There are also several reasonably large cities in the areas you are talking about
Good vid, however you missed North east England. The metro areas of Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham and middlesbourgh roughly equating to 3 million. Plus it exsists within isolation, see the night time satalite map of the area
That's why Scotland's population is always at a steadfast 5 million. Imagine trying to flatten a land full of hills and mountains, Lochs and rocks.
Nearer 5.5M these days - but the logistical problems remain. They make it a difficult country for which to provide services and infrastructure - long distances, inconvenient coastlines and a relatively small tax base.
@@kumasenlac5504Tax really doesn't factor into this equation. What matters is land use and the thing is Scotland has an awful lot of unused land. Development of the infrastructure to support actual growth in Scotland's population is expensive however and beyond the scope of the Scottish government's finances (blame the fucked up way Scotland is funded). Furthermore, Westminster has no interest in enabling Scotland's growth. They view it as funding their competitor and historical rival.
@@debbiegilmour6171 To suggest that current-day England considers Scotland as a rival is beyond preposterous.
@@kumasenlac5504 That's because England keeps it that way. What they do not want is a powerful rival on their doorstep and what they will get with Scottish independence is a powerful rival on their doorstep. What they had prior to the AoU, incidentally, was a powerful rival on their doorstep.
@@debbiegilmour6171 ...which bankrupted itself chasing moonbeams in the swamps of Panama.
A few inaccuracies in this. In terms of industrialisation, South Wales and the Central Belt of Scotland are real powerhouses, the British Empire relied on Welsh coal and Scottish ships. The Welsh Valleys lost population but are still significant. And Bristol was missed out as a major urban centre, it is by far the biggest city in the South West and is bigger than Cardiff.
Bristol is slightly bigger than Cardiff but Cardiff has a bigger metro area. Bristol is also a much older city than Cardiff.
The problem with London being so powerful and a port is if they can ship in a product from Europe for cheaper it will . Also London sets the house prices , either to attract rich Londoners or inflating their house price so they can move to London . What we need is a housing crash outside London ,so people can get on the market and also put their spare cash into their own businesses.
I always find it interesting how north east Wales is always forgotten. For hundreds of years it had slate mines, coal mines, brick works and steel works.
Northern Ireland was carved out in the shape it is in order to ensure a permanent Protestant majority. There were so many Protestants there as they were planted there mainly from Scotland in the 1600s in an attempt to take over. As of the most recent census 2022 there are now more Catholics than Protestants in Northern Ireland. Not that it is even a religious conflict now but it’s usually a good market for estimating nationalists v unionists.
7:45... completely wrong, Glasgow was dubbed "Second city of the empire", it was an industrial power house and built many of the Royal Navy's warships
Also worth looking at a Sunshine Hours Map and Rain Maps for the UK
Good video. I have a correction. Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England aren't different kingdoms, they are constituent countries of the UK, which is a country in the normal sense of the word.
You can add the Highland Clearances to the depopulation of Scotland, where wealthy landowners replaced tenant farmers with sheep (and grouse shooting etc.) This led to a lot of Scottish people migrating to North America and England.
As you mentioned Isle of Man, I'm surprised you didn't mention the Channel Islands
That was a great video but I was expecting you to go into the rocky/mountainous geography of Scotland. Surely that has something to do with the disparity in population?
Glasgow was the major industrial city in Scotland and one of the major shipbuilding and port cities
Saying that Wales wasn't as industrialised as the Midlands is completely incorrect. The coal fields of South Wales were vast and of primary significance. Iron production, centred in Merthyr Tydfil (again South Wales), was a global leader, not just important within the UK. North Wales had its slate mining, and textiles too. Baffling that such a well-produced video could be so incorrect. The only justification might be that not all of Wales was industrialised to the same degree. For example, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Powys remained largely rural, and expreienced the population drain mentioned. But to apply this to the whole of Wales is simply wrong.
Interesting - Economics Explained did a video that talked about London a lot in the past few days.
Great video, in England if you didn't check your change we sometimes used to get Isle of Man coins, then when you tried to spend them again nobody would except them!
The Anglo-Saxons also settled in lowland Scotland. Wales was not a distinct country (but several kingdoms) -
Wales was a distinct unified country many of times in its history, the first being in 1055 by King Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.
There are quite a lot of holes and misunderstandings here. These empty 'spaces' are not empty at all, e.g. there are 3 million people in Wales! It's certainly not a kingdom either. Wales also had a huge impact on the industrial revolution, millions of tons of coal were dug from the South Wales Valleys, the iron industry began in Merthyr Tydfil and the steel industry followed, slate was produced right accross North Wales and up to World War 1 Cardiff (capital of Wales) was the biggest coal exporting port in the world!
You forgot the extensive Denbighshire coal field, the iron and steel industry in Wrexham and Shotton. Lead and copper mining in the Clwydian hills, copper mining at Parys mountain, and Llandudno, and gold mining in northwest Wales. There was also a textile industry in mid Wales. There was also a big brick making industry in Northeast Wales at Buckley and Ruabon. Tourism developed as a major industry with the arrival of the railways as well. In 1850 50% of the worlds iron production came from Wales. Incredible really.
@Socsi1981, Wales is largely empty. If you get away from the coastal areas, where the majority of the population is concentrated, then there isn't much there. About 80% of it has minimal population. It's you that seems to have misunderstood the definition of "empty"
So basically an extractive economy where the resources were sequestered by the ‘centre’.
@@bryanroberts2229 Its a relative concept though. Wales is about 70 times more densely populated than Mongolia. I suppose the Eryri massif in Winter would be fairly empty. But not as empty as the Highland Massif in Scotland. Compared to southern England, Wales is relatively empty. You are right to point the fact that 80% of the Welsh population lives close to the coast. However in the past areas such as the Mynydd Hiraethog ( Denbigh Moors) had a bigger population, due to higher labour inputs required in agriculture.
@@richardmathews6236 That's right. That wealth didn't help to develop the economy of Wales in the long run.
Interesting pronunciation of Hebrides! And you missed some big conurbations like Newcastle and Bristol. But good video non the less!,
What about Cumbria and north east England? ( Newcastle,for instance, isn’t mentioned)
As one of those Brythonnic tribes pushed out by the invaders I get annoyed that Kernow has become merely a Duchy and devolved council with special status under national government.
It's a myth that the Brythonic tribes fled west from the Germanic invaders, 95% stayed put & up until 1947 the majority DNA of the English was Brythonic. It's just that the invaders were dominant and changed the culture and language, hence today even the Brythonic Cornish speak English.
There is no in the ground evidence of an anglo saxon invasion. Dna studies of skeletons buried with anglo saxon goods come up with indigenous popilations. Ive read a very persuasive report suggesting that trade was the prime reason for anglo saxon / british interaction.
The Celts of the British Isles may well not have been physically "pushed out" (to a full extent) by the Germanic colonizers but they were certainly diluted.
@@brythonicman3267 the Brythonnic Cornish speak English because speaking Cornish like Speaking Welsh was illegal until about 1953. If you were caught speaking native language it was a imprisonable offence only recently has there been a small revival but after a prolonged absence it hasn't become as widespread as Cymraig/Welsh or Breizh (Breton)
@ The culture was diluted due to the dominant culture they brought, but the vast majority of English DNA is still Brythonic. In fact DNA tests carried out by Stephen Oppenheimer proved that the average ethnic English were 75% Brythonic and descended from the Basques who migrated from the Basque Shelter at the end of the last Glacial Maximum when what is now England was still connected to mainland Europe. These migrant Basque tribes had lived in what is now Britain over a period of 3,000 to 7,000 years before any other tribes ventured here. There are numerous books and studies on the subject widely available. Following that period, tribes such as the Parisi and Hallstatt and as with the Anglo-Saxons and any other dominant invaders they brought with them their language which was the foundation of modern day "Celtic" languages in Britain, albeit spoken a lot different then than today. I typed Celtic in adverted commas as in reality there is no such thing as a Celtic race per say. The Greeks initially used the name Keltoi which means foreigner/barbarian, as the wandering tribes of Europe were a mixture of many people two of which I mentioned earlier. Interestingly this means that most of the English DNA (up until 1947 before many refugees and colony immigrants settled here) is not even Indo-European which as you may know originated from East Central Asia. Edit: A synopsis of Stephen Oppenheimers research can be read online, just type in "Myths of British Ancestry.
An excellent and well-researched video. The British Isles have an incredible history, and I was raised near Glasgow in Scotland. It is incidentally pronounced ‘Glaz-go’. Living now in Canada, but it’s nice to be reminded of the mother country! ❤
You haven't mentioned the Channel Isles. They also have a separate status similiar to the Isle of Man
I have a friend in Guernsey and it's an interesting island too
I was born in London, but I am so happy not to be living there now. Yorkshire is better in every way mainly because there are less people.
Birmingham is very considerably larger than Manchester ( Manchester is 553,230 population of Birmingham is 1,149,000 ). Although the county area of " Greater Manchester " is larger than Birmingham if you do the same thing and count the local county of which Birmingham is the center ( West Midlands ) then Birmingham is larger at 2,928,000 population against Greater Manchester's 2,882,000 population. But Manchester is a much smaller city.
I think it's termed the "Metro Area". I come from Hereford, and when talking about Dudley, Wolverhampton, Oldbury, Tipton etc etc, we just talk about all of as being Birmingham ("Brum"), when in fact it isn't really. I had an old friend from Wednesbury who took exception to being called a Brummie, cos he was a "Yam yam", from the black country. I drive up to and around that area every week, very roughly the M5 is like the dividing line between Brum and the black country. A similar thing with Manchester. Bolton, Oldham, etc etc we think it all as Manchester.
Scot here, wanted to tell you that the Hebrides is pronounced like “Hehb-reh-days/dees and glasgow is like Glaz-go, hope this helps!
Curiouser and curiouser.
I love your videos but they each include a number of baffling errors and mispronunciations - it makes me wonder if there are additional errors I just don't recognize. Might want to more tightly edit your scripts, and double check your pronunciation. It'll make your videos more informative, more professional, and more durable.
Politely put.
The UK is not made up of "four separate kingdoms"... It's one kingdom and four separate constituent countries
love these vids
Am looking at peel castle from the isle of man part as i watch this video
Suspect that the unpopulated regions want to stay that way, at least in modern times. Property is not affordable, taxes are very high and non-residents pay extra taxes. On top of that, onerous regulation makes it extremely difficult to purchase anything but existing homes. A lot of these "unpopulated" regions might be quickly populated if there were not non-geographic barriers to population.
Yes and no. A lot of small towns within say 30 miles of the cities are capitalising on the cost of living by building new houses and turning into commuter towns. A key example would be Dunfermline, which is now a city largely in part of how many people have moved to their recently built expansion homes
I'm not sure how I feel about Bristol not being included in the south west region, its the capital of the west country after all 😂
For some reason, even though it's north east of the vast majority of the south west.
@@YujiUedaFanBristol is predominantly West Country but can also be classed as South West
@@martinshepherd626 So? Bristol at least has a motorway unlike 95% of Devon and 100% of Cornwall.
The U.K. has for many decades had governments that are only interested in spending on infrastructure in and around London. The recently completed Elizabeth Line on the London Underground cost almost £20 billion for an already well-served population. The proposed HS2 rail line to link the North of England with London was recently cancelled due to cost. Although the southern section from London to Birmingham will be completed.The rest of the country still relies on Victorian built railways that are unreliable and crumbling. Without a proper NATIONAL infrastructure population spread will not occur. Nowadays it is government policies and economics that restrict population spread.
Love living in Wales, I can be in the centre of its capital in under 20 minutes, or in the same time, out in the hills and mountains where I often walk all day and not meet a single soul.