Deep deposits of sand, gravel, and glacial mud left by the retreating glaciers further altered the landscape.Erosion by rain, river, and tides and subsidence in parts of eastern England subsequently shaped the hills and the coastline.Of it, English novelist There is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization.…It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature.
When the last ice sheet melted, the sea level rose, submerging the land bridge that had connected Great Britain with the European mainland.
No place in England is more than 75 miles (120 km) from the sea, and even the farthest points in the country are no more than a day’s journey by road or rail from London.
Formed of the union of small Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the early medieval period, England has long comprised several distinct regions, each different in dialect, economy, religion, and disposition; indeed, even today many English people identify themselves by the regions or shires from which they come—e.g., Yorkshire, the West Country, the Midlands—and retain strong ties to those regions even if they live elsewhere.
Today the metropolitan area of London encompasses much of southeastern England and continues to serve as the financial centre of Europe and to be a centre of innovation—particularly in popular culture.
One of the fundamental English characteristics is diversity within a small compass.