Counties of England
From Freepedia
England has been divided into counties for hundreds of years. The divisions originated as administrative areas, but have been adopted for geographic purposes.
A series of local government reforms from the 19th century onwards has left the exact definition of the term 'county' slightly ambiguous.
Contents |
Historic/Traditional counties
- Main article: Traditional counties of England
Image:EnglandTraditionalBlank.png The accepted system of the 39 traditional counties arose from the 12th to the 16th centuries, though many of the specific areas are much older. They became established as a geographic reference frame over time. There is some dispute as to whether an Act passed in 1844 to simplify the counties by reducing the many exclaves should be accepted or not.
Administrative counties
- Main article: Administrative counties of England
Elected county councils were set up in England in 1888, taking over many of the administrative functions of the Quarter Sessions courts, as well as being given other powers over the years. For political purposes, these covered newly established areas known as 'administrative counties', which included such entities as the County of London, covering parts of historic Kent, Middlesex and Surrey, and the historic counties were not formally abolished. The administrative counties did not cover the independent county boroughs; and many historic counties were covered by two (Suffolk, Sussex, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire) or three (Yorkshire, Lincolnshire) administrative counties.
| Structure of subnational entities in England 1899-1965 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| County level: | Administrative county | County borough | County of London | |
| District level: | Rural district or Urban district or Municipal borough | n/a | Metropolitan borough | |
| Parish level: | Civil parish | Civil parish | Civil parish | |
1965 saw a minor change as the original County of London became instead the 'administrative area' of Greater London, in the process absorbing most of the remaining part of Middlesex; Huntingdonshire merged with the Soke of Peterborough to form Huntingdon and Peterborough, and the original Cambridgeshire administrative county merged with the Isle of Ely (historically the north of Cambridgeshire, around Ely) to form Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely.
| Structure of subnational entities in England 1965-1974 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| County level: | Administrative county | County borough | Greater London | |
| District level: | Rural district or Urban district or Municipal borough | n/a | London Borough | |
| Parish level: | Civil parish | Civil parish | n/a | |
Changes in 1974 and the 1990s
- Main article: Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England
Image:BlankMap-EnglandAdministrativeCounties1974.png Image:BlankMap-EnglandAdministrativeCounties.png In 1974 the Local Government Act came into force. This abolished the existing local government structure. The county council areas were not called 'administrative counties' but simply 'counties' in the new legislation. Many new counties were created, such as Avon, Cleveland, Cumbria, Humberside along with the new metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire. The counties of Cumberland, Herefordshire, Rutland, Westmorland and Worcestershire vanished from the administrative map, as did the county boroughs.
Local government reforms in the 1990s grouped the counties into regions, created many small unitary authorities possessing county level status and restored Herefordshire, Rutland and Worcestershire as administrative entities.
There are now exactly 81 county level entities, excluding Greater London. Of these, 34 are 'shire counties' with county councils and district councils, and 40 are unitary authorities. Six are metropolitan counties. The remaining one is Berkshire, whose county council has been abolished and its districts have become unitary authorities.
| Current structure of subnational entities in England (2005) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region level: | Region | Region | Region | Region | |
| County level: | Metropolitan county | Shire county | Unitary authority | Greater London | |
| District level: | Metropolitan district | Non-metropolitan district | n/a | London borough | |
| Parish level: | Civil parish | Civil parish | Civil parish | n/a | |
Ceremonial counties
- Main article: Ceremonial counties of England
Image:BlankMap-EnglandCeremonialCounties.png The ceremonial counties are the areas covered by a Lord-Lieutenant. Historically these largely coincided with the traditional counties, but with the addition of the City of London and the City and County of Bristol. They broadly followed the administrative changes, although for example East Suffolk and West Suffolk were a single ceremonial county, Suffolk.
These counties were adopted as the usual geographic reference frame. In 1974 when the administrative counties were reformed, the ceremonial counties were made to match these exactly.
After the local government reforms in the 1990s, certain areas that became unitary authorities were returned to their original ceremonial county. These counties are probably the ones most commonly in geographic use, although many people still use the 1974 ones.
Postal counties
- Main article: Postal counties of the United Kingdom
The former postal counties as used by the Post Office are no longer required on addresses. They included most of the 1974 changes, but did not acknowledge Greater Manchester or Greater London as postal counties.
