uk counties list

Question

Hi there

I'm a new user and I seem to have gaps within my "found counties in the UK" map? Is there a list of counties available?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you are a paying member you can have a look on this page:

http://project-gc.com/Tools/MapCounties?profile_name=daz_app&country=United+Kingdom&region=0&submit=Filter

 

Answer 2

I think the problem with UK 'counties' is that there are many definitions - often contradictory. For example, where is the boundary between Cheshire and Lancashire? You could argue there isn't one, and that Greater Manchester is between them, but historically there is. Likewise Middlesex. Technically, it doesn't exist anymore, but many people say they're from there, and there's even a 'Middlesex Country Cricket Club'!

There's 'historic', 'administrative' and 'ceremonial' counties, but no one definitive list. Therefore, whichever list is used will be wrong for someone.

Answer 3

I think the regions are divided up into counties as follows:

East Midlands: Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Rutland

Eastern England: Bedford, Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Luton, Norfolk, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea, Suffolk, Thurrock

London: Greater London

North Wales: Clwyd, Gwynedd

Northeast England: County Durham, Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Northumberland, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Tyne and Wear

Northern Scotland: Central, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Orkney Islands, Shetland, Tayside, Western Isles

Northwest England: Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Halton, Lancashire, Merseyside, Warrington

South East England: Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, Kent, Medway, Surrey, West Sussex

South Wales: Dyfed, Gwent, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan

South West England: Bath & North East Somerset, City of Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Isles of Scilly, North Somerset, Plymouth, Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Torbay

Southern England: Berkshire, Bournemouth, Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Poole, Portsmouth, Southampton, Swindon, Wiltshire

Southern Scotland: Dumfries and Galloway, Lothian, Scottish Borders, Strathclyde

West Midlands: Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford and Wrekin, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire

Yorkshire: East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, York

Corrections welcome!

Answer 4

I have contacted P-GC a couple of times over the past two years about their English County definitions. I'm not knowledgeable on Scotland but the definitions used by P-GC for England are political/unitary areas and NOT the "Counties" we know and love - I for one would like to see P-GC using 'proper' counties. Groundspeak owned "MyGeocahingProfile" stats site uses the 46 English county definition, not perfect but much much closer than P-GC's definition. Crazy that when, for example, you cache in Leicestershire you do not get a tick for the whole of Leicestershire, but have to travel into Leicester City centre for a find to complete the "county" map. Same with many many other "counties".

 

I hope Magnus and the excellent P-GC team can address this long standing issue - please get rid of the political/unitary definition asap. Thanks

Comments

I agree, I've got Derbyshire but not Derby, Nottingham but not Nottinghamshire!

In Scotland it's the opposite, the 'counties' are based on the old regions (1973-96) so it's quite easy to get all 9.  Currently there are 32 local authorities so doing all of those would be a little harder!

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Why use pre-1974 English counties, when all caches were placed after that date? That makes no sense at all!

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What on earth has that to do with the question of how UK "Counties" are defined?