Thames Valley

The Thames Valley region is a loose term for the English counties or parts of those counties roughly following the course of the River Thames as it flows from Oxfordshire in the west to London in the east. It is generally taken to include parts of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey and sometimes two boroughs of southwest London. It rarely includes either the source of the Thames at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, or any part of Wiltshire, and does not include the informal entities Central London or the Thames Gateway which surrounds the Thames Estuary.

The Thames Valley region can be compared with the longer and narrower M4 corridor, i.e. the area within a few miles of the M4 motorway, which runs East-West extending from Hammersmith, London through Berkshire (interrupted by two small salients of Buckinghamshire) and then Wiltshire, South Gloucestershire and over the River Severn via the Second Severn Crossing, a Toll Bridge to South Wales.

Economy

The Thames Valley is one of the wealthiest parts of the European Union, aided by a skilled workforce and its accessibility to London. Historic trades have been replaced by wealth-generating knowledge-based industries: in particular, information and communications technology and life sciences.

Thames Valley Police

Thames Valley Police, formerly known as Thames Valley Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing the Thames Valley area covered by the ceremonial counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. It is one of the largest territorial police forces in England covering 2,200 square miles (5,700 km²) and a population of 2,180,200 people.

Thames Valley Police has been working very closely with neighbouring force Hampshire Constabulary which has seen the merger of its Firearms, IT, Roads Policing & Dog Sections in late 2012, to save money.

History

Policing in Thames Valley dates back to 1773 when Newbury Borough Police were operating as a small police force; their officers' duties included usual policing activity as well as repairing gates and bridges. The force was one of around twenty borough forces that amalgamated with their county police force. These were Buckinghamshire Constabulary, Oxfordshire Constabulary, Berkshire Constabulary, Reading Borough Police and Oxford City Police founded in 1857, 1857, 1856, 1836 and 1929 respectively. Under the Police Act 1964 these five forces were amalgamated on 1 April 1968 to form Thames Valley Constabulary.

River Thames

The River Thames (ⁱ/tɛmz/ TEMZ) is a river that flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn. While it is best known for flowing through London, the river also flows alongside other towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor.

The river gives its name to three informal areas: the Thames Valley, a region of England around the river between Oxford and West London; the Thames Gateway; and the greatly overlapping Thames Estuary around the tidal Thames to the east of London and including the waterway itself. Thames Valley Police is a formal body that takes its name from the river, covering three counties.

In an alternative name, derived from its long tidal reach up to Teddington Lock in south west London, the lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway. The section of the river running through Oxford is traditionally called the Isis.

The administrative powers of the Thames Conservancy have been taken on with modifications by the Environment Agency and, in respect of the Tideway part of the river, such powers are split between the agency and the Port of London Authority.

Khao Yai National Park

Khao Yai National Park (Thai: เขาใหญ่, pronounced [kʰǎw jàj]) is a national park in Thailand.

Description

Khao Yai National Park is in the western part of the Sankamphaeng Mountain Range, at the southwestern boundary of the Khorat Plateau. The highest mountain in the area of the park is 1,351 m high Khao Rom.

This park lies largely in Nakhon Ratchasima Province (Khorat), but also includes parts of Saraburi, Prachinburi, and Nakhon Nayok Provinces.

The park is the third largest in Thailand. It covers an area of 300 square kilometers, including tropical seasonal forests and grasslands. Its altitude mostly ranges from 400–1,000 m above sea level. There are 3,000 species of plants, 320 species of birds like red junglefowl and coral-billed ground cuckoo, and 66 species of mammals, including Asian black bear, Asian elephant, gaur, gibbon, Indian sambar deer, pig-tailed macaque, Indian muntjac, dhole, and wild pig. Although evidence of tiger presence has not been recorded recently, monitoring by Freeland Foundation in collaboration with Department of National Park rangers has discovered tigers (the Indochinese tiger subspecies) in other parts of eastern Thailand where they were previously thought to have been completely extirpated. Its waterfalls include the 80 metre Heo Narok, and Heo Suwat made famous from the film The Beach. Namtok Sarika is popular with the Thais.

Valley

A valley is a low area between hills, often with a river running through it.

In geology, a valley or dale is a depression that is longer than it is wide. The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys. Most valleys belong to one of these two main types or a mixture of them, (at least) with respect to the cross section of the slopes or hillsides.

Valley terminology

A valley in its broadest geographic sense is also known as a dale. A valley through which a river runs may also be referred to as a vale. A small, secluded, and often wooded valley is known as a dell or in Scotland as a glen. A wide, flat valley through which a river runs is known in Scotland as a strath. A mountain cove is a small valley, closed at one or both ends, in the central or southern Appalachian Mountains which sometimes results from the erosion of a geologic window. A small valley surrounded by mountains or ridges is sometimes known as a hollow. A deep, narrow valley is known as a cwm (also spelled combe or coombe). Similar geological structures, such as canyons, ravines, gorges, gullies, and kloofs, are not usually referred to as valleys. See also: "chine". A valley formed by erosion is called an erosional valley; a valley formed by geologic events such as drop faults or the rise of highlands is called a structural valley.