Student Life in the United Kingdom

At a glance, here you see what UK is famous for:

• England has a long history and therefore many sights like castles and historic houses
• The royal family like Queen Elizabeth, which is the incumbent since 1952
• Some of the best universities like Oxford or Cambridge
• Football clubs like Manchester United F.C. or Manchester City
• The world’s greatest popstars like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Queen or Phil Collins

 

The area of UK

The United Kingdom includes areas like England, Scotland and Wales and a small part of Northern Ireland. Its capital is London and it might be quite interesting to mention that a small city within London exists – called “the City of London”. It is actually just a tiny spot in the capital and is mostly known for its heavy financial industry. Besides it is not completely independent from the rest of London because it is close-knit with the surrounding area.

Within the 20^th century many countries had been part of the British Empire. Nowadays those countries are independent but stay part of the “Commonwealth of Nations”. Because the countries have been independent for quite a while now, UK is just the 80^th largest country on earth with approximately 243.610 km2.

As a student you can live in one of the major cities while pursuing your studies. The biggest cities besides London are Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds-Bradford, Southampton-Portsmouth, Newcastle-Sunderland, Nottingham-Derby and plenty of others.

 

Weather in UK

A survey in UK found out that 58% of the people like to talk about the forecast. Indeed, British weather is changing rapidly and most of the time it rains anyway, especially from October until January. During the warmer months in summer, which last from May until September, you can expect temperatures from 7°C up to 25°C. Even though this seems a lot, rain is omnipresent even during these months. Thus, people always want to know when there’s a sunny day to hang out, eat an ice-cream and enjoy the sunbeams with friends.

 

UK’s population

In 2011 the total population of the UK was more than 63,182 million and has therefore right after Germany and France Europe’s third largest population. The average age is 39.9, which is quite high and will increase until 2035 up to 42.2. Besides population growth is expected of up to 8%, but still varying enormously from 4% to 8% in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

Regarding ethnicities it can be stated that 92% of the population is white. Among those roughly 85% are British, 5.3% come mainly from other European countries. The remainder 8% are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Africa. However, because the UK is chosen as a country to live in by many immigrants, people from around the globe live in Great Britain nowadays.

The UK's de facto official language is English. It is estimated that 95% of the UK's population are monolingual English speakers. 5.5% of the population are estimated to speak languages brought to the UK as a result of relatively recent immigration. South Asian languages, including Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi, Hindi and Gujarati, are the largest group and are spoken by 2.7% of the UK population. According to the 2011 census, Polish has become the second largest language spoken in England with 546,000 speakers.

 

Sports in UK

The United Kingdom is the country of origin to a range of major international sports including football, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, table tennis, badminton or squash. Especially football is one of the most watched sports where teams like Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool or Chelsea evolved to the top clubs in Europe. Liverpool for instance won the Champions League five times.

Cricket is famous as well. There are eighteen professional county clubs, seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. All eighteen counties are named after, and were originally representative of, historic counties.

 

Nightlife in UK

Imagine you walk through London’s city and you see plenty of drunken guys and girls weaving, lying on the floor and yelling. Yes, that’s UK’s well-known nightlife. Plenty of tourists from abroad are able to describe this kind of scenery. In London a vibrant club scene puts the city as the capital of cool. Superclubs like Ministry of Sound, Fabric and Heaven are among the biggest and best known places to party. For those who prefer a more intimate experience the DJ bars are where it’s at. 

 

Holidays

If you have the chance to stay in the United Kingdom for some time you might be able to enjoy one of the public holidays, which are also called Bank holidays. It largely depends on whether you stay in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Each of the regions has a different amount of national holidays. Irrespective of where you stay there are up to 10 bank holidays. 

 

Places to visit

Whether you stay in UK for a longer time or you just plan a short trip, don’t forget to visit some of the famous places. Especially London is worthwhile visiting due to the sites all within a reachable area. Here, we provide you with a top 10 of the London’s sites:

• The British Museum
• Tate Modern
• Natural History Museum
• The Big Ben
• London Eye
• Madame Tussaud’s
• The Shard

 

You could also think about a road trip to neighbouring countries like Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France or Norway. Tickets are affordable and you will be up in the air for max a few hours. In case you have a driver’s license you can rent a car and drive with it on Europe’s roads for some time. The road network is good and reliable, so there is no need to worry about that.