List of the Counties of the United Kingdom

The following are lists of the counties of the United Kingdom, and of cognate areas. As there are different areas which people think of as "counties", all sorts are included, starting with the real counties.

Counties
Local government areas
Ceremonial counties - England, Northern Ireland and Wales
Lieutenancy areas - Scotland
Former local goverment "counties" and regions (after 1974)

Counties

There are 92 counties in the United Kingdom. To distinguish them from local government areas they are variously known as historic counties or ancient or geographical counties. These counties are geographical areas, no longer burdened with any administrative function since 1889, though until 1974 local government areas were still closely based on them.

With each county is a list of towns in the county, and links to Wikipedia articles on those towns, despite severe reservations about the accuracy of that source and its utter disregard for real counties.

See also the Map of the British Counties.

Local Government Areas: "counties", council areas, principal areas and similar

The top-tier local government areas in the United Kingdom have different names and functions. In Northern Ireland, local government reforms in 1973 created two tier local government at regional and district level; the whole of Northern Ireland forming the region. In England and Wales, the Local Government Act 1972 created counties for the purposes of the Act outside Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Those in Wales were abolished in 1996.

In England a number of districts were separated from their counties in the 1990's. Each such "unitary area" (except those from Berkshire) is a county itself for the purposes of the 1972 Act, with one co-extensive district, and its council is either the council of the county or that of the district.

Scotland and Wales have only single-tier "council areas" and "principal areas", of which in Wales only some are called "counties" and others "county boroughs". In England a "principal area" means any of a non-metropolitan county, a district or a London borough.

The Greater London area (which was never called a "county") was created in 1965. The Greater London Authority was created in 2000.

Ceremonial counties – England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Lieutenancy areas - Scotland

Former "counties" & regions (after 1974)

Many local government areas which became familiar names have been abolished since their establishment in the 1970's, particularly in the local government reforms of the 1990's. Some were abolished directly by Parliament in 1996, in the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 ("LGSA") and the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 ("LGWA"), and some at various dates by a Structural Change Order under the Local Government Act 1992.

Acknowledgements

The layout of these lists, though not the linked content, are based on lists I found on Wikipedia as "List of Counties of the United Kingdom", for which I must thank the Wikipedia Foundation. It was rather a good set of lists, even if I disagreed with the emphasis on mere local government areas. Unfortunately at some point someone vandalized the article in question, or rather "edited" it by replacing everything with his own material. Alas, in an open wiki forum personal viewpoints cause personality clashes and "edit wars" spreading out across many articles and become ineradicable; it is the wikicraft equivalent of MRSA.

(For anyone who wants the "sand box" wiki code for the deleted sections, click here.)