ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIESHere you are going to learn about three important countries where people speak English. Can you name them before we start?

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Irelandin short: GB or the UK…is a state in northern Europe. It is part of the European Union and includes several

countries: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. Its capital city is London., although Cardiff is the capital of Wales, Edinburgh the capital of Scotland and Belfast the capital of Northern Ireland. The UK has a population of approximately 62,000,000 people . It is a parliamentary monarchy, which means that its head of state is a monarch, at present Queen Elizabeth II, “the Queen”, and it has also got a parliament and a government, whose Prime Minister has been David Cameron since May, 2010. Of course, the British people speak English as their official common language. But there is also Scots and four Celtic languages in use in the UK: Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Cornish.

You certainly know that this is the British flag: the Union Jack. It consists of the red cross of Saint George over the blue and white cross of Saint Andrew.

There are also some very famous universities in England: Oxford and Cambridge. They are very old and very prestigious. Oxford University was founded in 1096, it is the second-oldest university in the world. Cambridge is about 120 years younger.

Great Court of King’s College at Cambridge

Magdalen College at Oxford

The USAalso called “the United States of America”

This is the third largest country in the world. It lies on the northern part of the American continent between Canada in the north and Mexico in the south. There are around 350,000,000 Americans living in the States. Its flag is called “Stars and Stripes, because it has got 50 stars, as many as federal states the USA has and 13 red and white stripes, as many as there were British colonies that no longer wanted to be part of Great Britain and created the United States in 1776. Today, the USA is a federal republic with a President, Barack Obama since January 2009.The USA are a young country. North America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, and in 1776 those thirteen former British colonies started their own new country by gaining independence from the English king George.

In the photo above you can see the “Statue of Liberty”, which has welcomed so many immigrants, who arrived in New York after a long journey by ship from Europe. For two centuries Europeans who could not or did not want to stay in their home countries emigrated to the USA and started a new life there.

The President lives in the Whit e House in the capital city, Washington D.C. Other important cities are New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia on the East coast and San Francisco and Los Angeles on the West coast.

New York City, Times Square

Boston, skyline

Chicago River, ChicagoLiberty Bell, Philadelphia

Los Angeles, Hollywood Blvd.

San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge

CanadaCanada is also in North America, north of the USA. It is the world’s second largest country but it only has a small population, about 35,000,000, i.e. even less than Spain, but it is 20 times as big.

Canada is a federal state that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual nation with both English and French as official languages

Canada became an independent state in 1867, when both the French Canada and the British Canada united and constituted one country. Since then it has ten provinces and three territories. Ottawa in the southeast of the country is Canada’s capital city. There are other important cities like Québec and Halifax in the east or Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver on the west coast.

Ottawa, Capitol Hill

Winnipeg in winter

Calgary skyline

Vancouver, Yaletown

CreditsPhotos were taken from websites with free image material like

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www.freedigitalphotos.net and

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