SCOTLAND
Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom. It is situated to the north of England. Its symbol is a thistle and its patron saint is St. Andrew. Scotland is divided into three natural regions: the Southern Uplands, the Central Lowlands and the Highlands and islands. There are only four cities with populations over 150,000; Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.
The largest city is Glasgow (population 630,000), it's the heart of industry, a centre of business and trade. South-west of Glasgow lies the town of Ayr, notable for the homeland of Robert Burns.
The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh (430,000). It is an ancient city and if you walk around it you can touch on history at every step. The two most interesting parts of the city are the Old Town and the New Town.
The Old Town, the face of Scotland's Middle Ages, lies between the Castle and Holyrood Palace. A line of streets, which runs from the Castle to Holyroodhouse, is called the Royal Mile. The most picturesque part of the Royal Mile is the Cannongate, which gives a good idea of what the Old Town was like. Holyroodhouse is a big royal palace which is the official Scottish residence of the Queen, the palace has its origins in a twelfth-century abbey. It became a royal palace in the sixteenth century.
The eighteenth-century New Town, designed by James Craig, is the face of the Enlightenment, of the philosopher David Hume, the economist Adam Smith and the writer Walter Scott - the city which became known as "the Athens of the North". Princes Street is the most beautiful street of the New Town. It has a lot of gardens on the one side and it is also Edinburgh's popular shopping centre. Princes Street is connected with the name of Walter Scott. A monument 200 feet high rises between green trees. They call it a poem of stone. Inside it there is a marble statue of the writer, and of his favourite dog.
As an intellectual centre the city also has one of the oldest universities in Europe - the University of Edinburgh, which was founded in 1582. It is one of the most famous universities in Great Britain.
The two east coast ports of Aberdeen (190,000) and Dundee (160,000) are locked in economic competition to service the North Sea oil industry. Each is also a regional capital, and their separate characters reflect Scotland's rich mix of dialects and idioms. Aberdeen and Dundee are only 70 miles (110 km) apart, but their citizens speak a different kind of English.
Western Scotland ends with the remote chain of islands - the Western Isles.
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