ABSTRACT
Traditionally, geographers divided Britain into two. To the north and west lay a highland zone, built up of rocks of Palaeozoic age and older. In broad terms the region possessed a certain unity. It was rugged, rainy, had heavy soils, and contained the coalfield-industrial areas. To the south and east lay the lowland zone, composed of rocks of Mesozoic age and younger. In broad terms, this region had relatively unaccentuated relief, light rainfall and freely worked land, it contained a number of major expanding cities on its periphery, and at its pivot was the major metropolitan centre of London. The conventional division between the two zones was accepted as a line which joined the mouth of the River Tees in the North-East and the mouth of the River Exe in the South-West.
