Year 4 · The United Kingdom and one other region

Counties, cities and land use in the UK

Name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom, geographical regions and their identifying human and physical characteristics, and land-use patterns; and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time

25 minutes4 checks6 exit questionsNational curriculum objective

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Key learning points

• The four countries
• Counties and regions
• Physical characteristics
• Land use, and how it changed

This lesson at a glance

25 minutes
20 parts to scroll through
4 quick checks
No marked quiz yet
Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

locatecountiescitiesunitedkingdom

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 20 · Intro5%

Introduction

Part 1 of 20

Counties, cities and land use in the UK illustration

Archive-led lesson

Historical enquiry

Counties, cities and land use in the UK

The United Kingdom is four countries, dozens of counties and hundreds of cities and towns — and it has not always looked as it does now.

In a nutshell

What you already know

Part 2 of 20

Before we start

What you already know

You can use an atlas key and find the UK on a map of Europe.

Recap: y4-geography-1

Key words

Part 3 of 20

Key words

Words you'll need today

county: An area of a country used for local government.
land use: What the ground is used for: housing, farming, industry, parks.
urban: Built-up: towns and cities.
rural: Countryside: farms, villages, open land.

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 20

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Four countries, many counties

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 20

Learn

The four countries

The UK is England (capital London), Scotland (Edinburgh), Wales (Cardiff) and Northern Ireland (Belfast). Great Britain is the big island holding England, Scotland and Wales. The UK is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland — the two names are not the same thing.

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 20

Learn

Counties and regions

England is divided into counties such as Yorkshire, Devon, Kent, Lancashire and Norfolk, and grouped into regions like the South West, the Midlands and the North East. Scotland has council areas, Wales has principal areas, Northern Ireland has districts.

Quick check

Part 7 of 20

Quick check

The capital of Wales is...

Quick check

Part 8 of 20

Quick check

Great Britain is...

Reset break

Part 9 of 20

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 20

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — How land is used

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 20

Learn

Physical characteristics

The high ground is mostly north and west: the Scottish Highlands, the Pennines, Snowdonia, the Lake District. The flatter, drier east and south is best for growing crops. Our longest rivers are the Severn and the Thames.

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 20

Learn

Land use, and how it changed

Two hundred years ago most people lived and worked rurally. Coal, factories and railways pulled millions into cities like Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham. Later, many of those factories closed, and the land became housing, retail parks or offices. Compare two maps of any city and you can see it happen.

Quick check

Part 13 of 20

Quick check

Which is a UK county?

Quick check

Part 14 of 20

Quick check

Why did cities grow quickly 200 years ago?

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 20

Evidence 1 of 1

primary

A land use table for two English counties

Office for National Statistics, Recent official figures

County A: farmland 71%, built on 9%, woodland 14%, water 2%. County B: farmland 34%, built on 47%, woodland 11%, water 3%.

Land use figures are collected so government can plan housing, farming and transport.

Think like a historian

Which of the two counties is more likely to contain a large city, and which figure in the table tells you?

Source: Official statistics table, published for public use.

View the archive record ↗

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 20

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

Using 'England' to mean the whole UK.
Thinking Great Britain and the UK are the same. The UK includes Northern Ireland.
Thinking land use never changes. Most cities have been rebuilt several times over.

Challenge round

Part 17 of 20

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

Challenge round

Part 18 of 20

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

England is divided into ____ such as Yorkshire, Devon, Kent, Lancashire and Norfolk, and grouped into regions like the South West, the Midlands and the North East.

Coal, factories and railways pulled millions into ____ like Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham.

Mastery quiz

Part 19 of 20

No quiz for this one

This lesson has no marked quiz attached yet.

Lesson round-up

Part 20 of 20

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

Best run

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Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

A land use table for two English counties

primary

Office for National Statistics, Recent official figures

County A: farmland 71%, built on 9%, woodland 14%, water 2%. County B: farmland 34%, built on 47%, woodland 11%, water 3%.

Land use figures are collected so government can plan housing, farming and transport.

Source: Official statistics table, published for public use.

View the original record ↗

Case study notes
Writing
Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.
Half a page
Explain answer
Writing
Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.
8–10 sentences
Map or sketch
Diagram
Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.
1 map with a key
Data work
Working out
Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.
1 graph + 1 sentence

Write your answer, notes or working here

Saved as you type.

Photos of paper work, diagrams or working outHow many minutes did the written work take?

Part 1 of 20 · Introduction

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Back to your Year 4 units, or a few minutes of quick practice.

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