UK Geography and Nature

Geography And Nature

105 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

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Random questions from this topic, one at a time. You see the answer and the explanation straight after each one.

All 105 questions

  1. Complete the sentence about London with the correct year: London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of 9.14 million people in ______.
  2. Complete the sentence about London with the correct year: Since ______ it has largely comprised the administrative area of Greater London, governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Autho…
  3. Complete the sentence about Manchester with the correct year: Following considerable redevelopment, Manchester was the host city for the ______ Commonwealth Games.
  4. Complete the sentence about Leeds with the correct year: City status was awarded in ______, and a populous urban centre formed in the following century which absorbed surrounding villages and overtook…
  5. Complete the sentence about Leeds with the correct year: The city is part of the fourth-largest built-up area by population in the United Kingdom, West Yorkshire Built-up Area, with a ______ census po…
  6. Complete the sentence about Edinburgh with the correct year: The University of Edinburgh was founded in ______ and is now one of four universities in the city.
  7. Complete the sentence about Edinburgh with the correct year: The Old Town and the New Town are together listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and the site has been managed by Edinburgh World Heri…
  8. Complete the sentence about Cardiff with the correct year: In ______, it ranked sixth in the world in a National Geographic magazine list of alternative tourist destinations.
  9. Complete the sentence about Belfast with the correct year: While chartered as an English settlement in ______, the town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians.
  10. Complete the sentence about Belfast with the correct year: Since ______, Belfast has been a UNESCO designated City of Music.
  11. Complete the sentence about Newcastle upon Tyne with the correct year: The settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in ______ by William the Conqueror's eldes…
  12. Complete the sentence about Newcastle upon Tyne with the correct year: The city was historically part of the county of Northumberland, but governed as a county corporate after ______.
  13. Complete the sentence about Newcastle upon Tyne with the correct year: In ______, Newcastle became part of the newly created metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear.
  14. Complete the sentence about Newcastle upon Tyne with the correct year: After battles with the Danes and following the ______ rebellion against the Normans, Monkchester was all but destroyed by Odo of…
  15. Complete the sentence about Leicester with the correct year: Most famously King Richard III spent his last days in the town before his death at the Battle of Bosworth and was buried there in August __…
  16. Complete the sentence about Southampton with the correct year: In ______, the town of Southampton acquired city status, becoming the City of Southampton.
  17. Complete the sentence about Brighton with the correct year: Brighton continued to grow as a major centre of tourism following the arrival of the railways in ______, becoming a popular destination for…
  18. Complete the sentence about Oxford with the correct year: Scholastica Day Riot of ______, a feuding that lasted days and left around 93 students and townspeople dead.
  19. Complete the sentence about Cambridge with the correct year: The city is well known as the home of the University of Cambridge, which was founded in ______ and consistently ranks among the best univer…
  20. Complete the sentence about Bath, Somerset with the correct year: The city became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in ______, and was later listed as one of the "Great Spa Towns of Europe".
  21. Complete the sentence about Stratford-upon-Avon with the correct year: The monastery was likely destroyed by Viking invaders in ______.
  22. Complete the sentence about Stratford-upon-Avon with the correct year: A charter was granted to Stratford by King Richard I in ______ which allowed a weekly market to be held in the town, giving it it…
  23. Complete the sentence about Aberdeen with the correct year: Since the discovery of North Sea oil in ______, Aberdeen has been known as the offshore oil capital of Europe.
  24. Complete the sentence about Dundee with the correct year: Dundee was named as a "City of the Future" by Cognizant in ______, the only UK city to be featured.
  25. Complete the sentence about Swansea with the correct year: The Welsh name Abertawe was first recorded with written records dating from ______, under the spelling Aper Tyui.
  26. Complete the sentence about Tower of London with the correct year: The White Tower, which gives the castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in ______ and was initially a resented symbol of…
  27. Complete the sentence about Big Ben with the correct year: The tower was designed by Augustus Pugin and Sir Charles Barry in the Perpendicular Gothic style and was completed in ______.
  28. Complete the sentence about Palace of Westminster with the correct year: In ______ a second, larger fire destroyed the majority of the palace, but the eleventh century Westminster Hall was saved and i…
  29. Complete the sentence about Palace of Westminster with the correct year: Construction started in ______ and lasted for 30 years, suffering delays, cost overruns, and the deaths of Barry and his assist…
  30. Complete the sentence about Buckingham Palace with the correct year: Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in June ______.
  31. Complete the sentence about Westminster Abbey with the correct year: Since ______, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British monarchs and a burial site for 18 English, Scot…
  32. Complete the sentence about Westminster Abbey with the correct year: Construction of the present church began in ______ on the orders of Henry III.
  33. Complete the sentence about Westminster Abbey with the correct year: The monastery was dissolved in ______, and the church was made a royal peculiar, a Church of England church, accountable directly t…
  34. Complete the sentence about Westminster Abbey with the correct year: The abbey, the Palace of Westminster and St Margaret's Church became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in ______ because of their histor…
  35. Complete the sentence about St Paul's Cathedral with the correct year: The high-domed present structure, which was completed in ______, is a Grade I listed building that was designed in the English Ba…
  36. Complete the sentence about St Paul's Cathedral with the correct year: In ______, a large fifth-century building on Tower Hill was excavated and has been claimed as a Roman basilica, possibly a cathed…
  37. Complete the sentence about Tower Bridge with the correct year: The bridge was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales, and Alexandra, Princess of Wales, on 30 June ______.
  38. Complete the sentence about Tower Bridge with the correct year: A Special Bridge or Subway Committee chaired by Sir Albert Joseph Altman was formed in December ______ to find a solution.
  39. Complete the sentence about Tower Bridge with the correct year: On 7 December ______, the Committee presented a report recommending a bridge or subway to the east of London Bridge should be constructe…
  40. Complete the sentence about London Eye with the correct year: The couple founded their own practice, Marks Barfield Architects, in ______ following the birth of their first child, seeking a better wor…
  41. Complete the sentence about London Eye with the correct year: In the summer of ______, Evening Standard editor Stewart Steven and correspondent Mira Bar-Hillel launched a "Back The Wheel" campaign whi…
  42. Complete the sentence about London Eye with the correct year: Planning permission for the Millennium Wheel was granted in ______.
  43. Complete the sentence about British Museum with the correct year: Established in ______, the British Museum was the world's first public national museum.
  44. Complete the sentence about British Museum with the correct year: On 7 June ______, King George II gave his royal assent to the act of Parliament which established the British Museum.
  45. Complete the sentence about Stonehenge with the correct year: The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in ______.
  46. Complete the sentence about Stonehenge with the correct year: In ______, William Stukeley notes: "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire...
  47. Complete the sentence about Edinburgh Castle with the correct year: Few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of ______, when the medieval defences were largely destroyed by artillery bomba…
  48. Complete the sentence about Loch Ness with the correct year: Odo Blundell, writing in ______, suggested that Eilean Muireach may have been a hunting lodge, with Eilean nan Con the home for the hunting…
  49. Complete the sentence about Loch Ness with the correct year: William Mackay in his ______ book Urquhart and Glenmoriston: Olden times in a highland parish recounts two Scottish legends that have been…
  50. Complete the sentence about Snowdonia with the correct year: Before the designation of the national park in ______, "Snowdonia" was generally used to refer to a smaller upland area of northern Gwynedd…
  51. Complete the sentence about Snowdonia with the correct year: Visiting Cwm Idwal in ______, Charles Darwin realised that the landscape was the product of glaciation.
  52. Complete the sentence about Scafell Pike with the correct year: The name Scawfell Pikes was adopted "by common consent" according to Jonathan Otley, shortly before the publication of the 4th edition o…
  53. Complete the sentence about Scafell Pike with the correct year: The newly developed name reported by Otley first appeared on a published Ordnance Survey map in ______.
  54. Complete the sentence about Lake District with the correct year: The area was designated a national park on 9 May ______, a month after the Peak District, the first UK national park.
  55. Complete the sentence about Peak District with the correct year: Most of the area is within the Peak District National Park, a protected landscape designated in ______.
  56. Complete the sentence about Dartmoor with the correct year: The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since ______.
  57. Complete the sentence about Exmoor with the correct year: In ______ an environmentally sensitive area was established within Exmoor.
  58. Complete the sentence about Exmoor with the correct year: The scenery of rocky headlands, ravines, waterfalls and towering cliffs gained the Exmoor coast recognition as a heritage coast in ______.
  59. Complete the sentence about Jurassic Coast with the correct year: Inscribed on the World Heritage List in ______, the Jurassic Coast was the first wholly natural World Heritage Site to be designated i…
  60. Complete the sentence about White Cliffs of Dover with the correct year: In ______ a sustainable National Trust visitor centre was built in the area.
  61. Complete the sentence about White Cliffs of Dover with the correct year: In ______, a large chunk of the cliff edge, as large as a football pitch, fell into the Channel.
  62. Complete the sentence about Cheddar Gorge with the correct year: In the Chew Stoke flood of ______, the flow of water washed large boulders down the gorge, damaging the café, the entrance to Gough's C…
  63. Complete the sentence about Scottish Highlands with the correct year: The result was, in ______, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society.
  64. Complete the sentence about Cairngorms with the correct year: What is often described as Britain's worst mountaineering tragedy, the Cairngorm Plateau Disaster, left five children and one adult dead i…
  65. Complete the sentence about Cairngorms with the correct year: In ______, the Cairngorms and surrounding mountains of north-east Scotland had 55 surviving patches, an exceptional number.
  66. Complete the sentence about Cairngorms with the correct year: The reindeer now roam the high Cairngorms, after being reintroduced in ______ by a Swedish herdsman.
  67. Complete the sentence about Isle of Skye with the correct year: The island was considered to be under Norwegian suzerainty until the ______ Treaty of Perth, which transferred control over to Scotland.
  68. Complete the sentence about Isle of Skye with the correct year: About a third of the residents were Gaelic speakers in ______, and although their numbers are in decline, this aspect of island culture…
  69. Complete the sentence about Isle of Skye with the correct year: Links to various nearby islands by ferry are available, and since ______, to the mainland by the Skye Bridge.
  70. Complete the sentence about Shetland with the correct year: In ______, the Scottish Parliament issued an act of annexation asserting Scottish control over Shetland.
  71. Complete the sentence about Shetland with the correct year: After Scotland and England united in ______ to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, trade between Shetland and continental Northern Europe dec…
  72. Complete the sentence about Shetland with the correct year: The Shetland pig, or grice, has been extinct since about ______.
  73. Complete the sentence about Hebrides with the correct year: The earliest full written list of Hebridean island names was compiled by Donald Monro in ______.
  74. Complete the sentence about Isle of Wight with the correct year: The island hosts annual music festivals, including the Isle of Wight Festival, which in ______ was the largest rock music event ever he…
  75. Complete the sentence about Isle of Man with the correct year: In ______, Magnus VI of Norway sold his suzerainty over Man to Alexander III of Scotland in the Treaty of Perth.
  76. Complete the sentence about Isle of Man with the correct year: After a period of alternating rule by the Kings of Scotland and England, the island came under the feudal lordship of the English Crown i…
  77. Complete the sentence about Channel Islands with the correct year: The term "Channel Islands" began to be used around ______, possibly first by the Royal Navy as a collective name for the islands.
  78. Complete the sentence about River Mersey with the correct year: Part of the Mersey Railway, a rail tunnel between Birkenhead and Liverpool, opened in ______.
  79. Complete the sentence about River Mersey with the correct year: A second road bridge, the Mersey Gateway, opened in October ______, carrying a six-lane road connecting Runcorn's Central Expressway wit…
  80. Complete the sentence about River Mersey with the correct year: In ______ it was the subject of the top-ten hit single "Ferry Cross the Mersey" by Gerry and the Pacemakers.
  81. Complete the sentence about River Tay with the correct year: In March ______ the Scottish Government reversed the decision to remove beavers from the Tay, pending the outcome of studies into the suita…
  82. Complete the sentence about River Tyne with the correct year: The tidal river has been managed by the Port of Tyne Authority since ______.
  83. Complete the sentence about British Isles with the correct year: Under the UK Interpretation Act ______, the Channel Islands are clarified as forming part of the British Islands, not to be confused wi…
  84. Complete the sentence about Irish Sea with the correct year: The Tudors crossed the Irish Sea to invade in ______ in caravels and carracks.
  85. Complete the sentence about English Channel with the correct year: Following the Acts of Union ______, this was replaced in official maps and documents with British Channel or British Sea for much of…
  86. Complete the sentence about Humber with the correct year: On 23 August ______, the British airship R38 crashed into the estuary near Hull, killing 44 of the 49 crew on board.
  87. Complete the sentence about Norfolk Broads with the correct year: The Broads, and some surrounding land, were constituted as a special area with a level of protection similar to a national park by the…
  88. Complete the sentence about Norfolk Broads with the correct year: The Broads Authority, a special statutory authority responsible for managing the area, became operational in ______.
  89. Complete the sentence about Norfolk Broads with the correct year: The Broads Authority Act ______ introduced greater safety controls on the broads and rivers.
  90. Complete the sentence about Climate of the United Kingdom with the correct year: The lowest temperature ever recorded in England occurred on 10 January ______ in Newport, Shropshire.
  91. Complete the sentence about Climate of the United Kingdom with the correct year: The south-western coast is the sunniest part of Wales, averaging over ______ hours of sunshine annually, with Tenby, Pe…
  92. Complete the sentence about European badger with the correct year: Ursus meles was the scientific name used by Carl Linnaeus in ______, who described the badger in his work Systema Naturae.
  93. Complete the sentence about Oak with the correct year: The genus Quercus was circumscribed by Carl Linnaeus in the first edition of his ______ Species Plantarum.
  94. Complete the sentence about Thistle with the correct year: The thistle was used on silver coins first issued by King James III in ______ as a Scottish symbol and national emblem.
  95. Complete the sentence about Thistle with the correct year: In ______, the bawbee, a sixpence in the pound Scots, was issued for the first time under King James V; it showed a crowned thistle.
  96. Which place completes this sentence about Leeds? City status was awarded in 1893, and a populous urban centre formed in the following century which absorbed surrounding villages and overtook the popul…
  97. Which place completes this sentence about Liverpool? The city is home to the UK's second highest number of art galleries, national museums, listed buildings, and parks and open spaces, behind only ___…
  98. Which place completes this sentence about Bristol? From the 13th to the 18th centuries, Bristol was among the top three English cities, after ______, in tax receipts.
  99. Which place completes this sentence about Nottingham? Aside from ______, it is the only city in the Midlands to be ranked as a sufficiency-level world city by the Globalization and World Cities Resear…
  100. Which place completes this sentence about Brighton? Brighton continued to grow as a major centre of tourism following the arrival of the railways in 1841, becoming a popular destination for day-trippe…

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