Moyle District Council

From Freepedia

**Moyle District**
Image:NorthernIrelandMoyle.png
Geography
Area - Total - % Water	Ranked 14th 480 km² ? %
Admin HQ	Ballycastle
ISO 3166-2	GB-MYL
ONS code	95E
Demographics
Population - Total (April 29, 2001) - Density	Ranked 26th 15,933 33 / km²
Community	Protestant: 38.3% Catholic: 60.3%
Politics
Moyle District Council Image:Moylearms.PNG http://www.moyle-council.org
MPs	Ian Paisley

Moyle District Council is a Local Council in County Antrim in the north-east corner of Northern Ireland. It covers a largely rural area of approximately 190 square miles (including 42 miles of coastline) and has a population of 15,000. Moyle has the smallest population of any principal local authority in the United Kingdom. Council headquarters is in Ballycastle. Other towns in the area include Bushmills (home to the world's oldest licensed distillery which has produced the famous Irish whiskey "Bushmills" since 1608), Ballintoy, Armoy, Cushendall, Cushendun and Waterfoot. The area is very popular with tourists and includes the three best known features of Northern Ireland: the Giant's Causeway (a World Heritage Site), the Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island (lying 7 miles off Ballycastle).

The Council is composed of 15 Councillors who are elected every four years by a system of Proportional Representation. The Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson are elected on a yearly basis at the Council's Annual General Meeting in June.

Together with the neighbouring Local Council areas of Ballymena and Ballymoney, it forms the North Antrim constituency for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.

Since all the local councils of Northern Ireland as now considered counties Moyle has the distinction of being the smallest county in the UK.