With a name like ‘Great’ Britain, you may imagine that we Brits have an awfully high opinion of ourselves. Admittedly, we may imagine ourselves to be in the centre of every world map and assume the world sees us as a model of good diplomacy, of pragmatism, and of self-restraint, the truth may well be distorted here by an unhealthy dose of exceptionalism.

It would be delusional to attempt to verify the verity of the superlative idea that we British are ‘The Best’, nevertheless, there are genuine superlatives in Britain. In this series of posts, we at Red Bus English would like to share with you some of Britain’s Superlatives. First, we will look at the natural world of Britain, then our man-made world, and finally British people. The biggest, the tallest, the oldest, the best-selling or the first. All exceptionally British in their own right!

What is Britain’s highest mountain?

Britain’s mountains are diminutive next to the Alps or the Himalayas, but they are sublimely beautiful and amongst the only truly wild places left on our islands. The highest mountain in Britain is Ben Nevis – Beinn Nibheis – (4412 feet, 1345 metres) near Fort William, Scotland.  The highest mountain in Wales is Snowdon – Y Widdfa – (3560 feet, 1085 metres) in the Snowdonia National Park and the highest in England is Scafell Pike (3210 feet, 978 metres) in the Lake District, Cumbria

What is Britain’s longest river?

Water and Britain cannot be separated. We are surrounded by it, we are often drenched by it and our history and character has been defined by it. The longest river in Britain is the River Severn, which meanders for 220 miles (354 km) from the slopes of Plynlimon in Ceredigion, Wales, to the Bristol Channel in England.  The longest river in England is the River Thames, which is 215 miles (346 km) from its normally quoted source at Kemble in Gloucester, to the Thames Estuary and the North Sea.  The longest river in Scotland is the Tay, which is 117 miles (188 km) long.  It rises in the western Highlands and takes a circuitous route to the North Sea via the Firth of Tay, south of Dundee.

 What is Britain’s largest lake?

Whenever friends from overseas ask me where to go when they visit my country, the first places I recommend (before London!) are our lakes. I love them. Britain’s largest lake is Loch Lomond, in Scotland.  It covers an area of 27.45 square miles (71 square km) and is almost 23 miles (36 km) long.  The largest lake in England is Windermere, in the English Lake District, which has an area of 5.7 square miles (14.8 square km) and is about 11 miles long (17.7 km).  The largest lake in Wales is Bala Lake – Llyn Tegid – in Gwynedd. It is 3.7 miles long (6 km) and a surface area of 1.87 square miles (4.8 km).