I was thinking about what to write in todays Sunday Blog, when something my guest on yesterdays "A Book and a Chat" (Shelley Seale) said made me think, in fact I did mention it in yesterdays blog.
The number of homeless children in India is Twenty Five Million, but how could that relate to say the number of people in various states within the USA.
In doing this I started thinking about England and how large a country Americans imagine it to be.
The name "England" is derived from the Old English word Englaland, which means "land of the Angles". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in England during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Angeln peninsula, flanked on either side by the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The oldest proto-human bones uncovered in the area date from 700,000 years ago/
Size wise, if we are just talking about England in comparison to US states, it would be the 32 largest in between Louisiana and Mississippi at 50,346 sq miles. England is such a small island, that the most you can be from the sea at any time is approximately 70 miles. There is a tree in Morton Derbyshire is marked as the center of England, the actual point is just outside Coton in the Elms in Derbyshire.
So England is small, narrow, yet the immigration levels have pushed population density in England to a higher level than any other major country in Europe. Within the European Union, only the island of Malta has a higher population density.
Population of England from the 2008 census was 61,000,000 people, so how does that figure compare to the American states?
California has by far the largest population of any American state with 36,756,666, Texas has 24,326,974. New York 19,490,297 and Florida 18,328,340 after which we're down to states under 13,000,000.
Of course like many states in American, England has more than it's fair share of illegal immigrants many coming from Europe and the eastern block, this made a lot more easy since the opening of the Channel Tunnel.
So next time something comes up about such and such going on in England, or how Britain stood against the might of Germany on it's own for two years before America joined in WWII just remember what a small dot of land England is.
Or as Shakespeare put it in Richard II
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Author of Young Adult Romance/Fiction book
Across the Pond
http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com/
http://across-t-pond.com
What an interesting post. Thanks for sharing this information Barry. I honestly had no idea how big or small England is. I only know that I would like to visit at some point in my life.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work!
Cheryl