Geography
The area covered by the various definitions of West Country is mostly rural, with only a few sizeable towns and cities, such as Bristol, Bournemouth, Exeter, Plymouth, Torbay, Cheltenham, Swindon, and Gloucester. Tourism and agriculture, especially dairy farming, play a significant role in the economy. The landscape is principally granite moorland in the west, and chalk and limestone downland and clay vales in the east. Historically, tin mining and the fishery were sources of income and employment in the west of the area, but less so today, although the latter still contributes to the economy. The region is traditionally famous for its production of cider, clotted cream, and pasties, but now at least equally well known for the Glastonbury Festival and other attractions.
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Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)