ABSTRACT
Great Britain is one of the more densely inhabited countries, but most of the land is rural rather than urban. It has been estimated that in 1971 just over 8% of the land was used for all urban purposes, including towns, villages, isolated dwellings, farmhouses and transport facilities [1]. The distribution of the various types of use is very uneven. The heavy concentrations of urban development, the urban heartlands, are in the south-east around London, and northwestwards in a band through the west midlands to the north-west and around Glasgow. The least intensively used land, mostly uplands used for rough grazing and forestry are in the west and north, especially in Wales and Scotland. The regions are differentiated as much physically as economically.
