Counties of England in the context of "History of Anglo-Saxon England"

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of 9.1 million people in 2024. Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 15.1 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament. London grew rapidly in the 19th century, becoming the world's largest city at the time. Since the 19th century the name "London" has referred to the metropolis around the City of London, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised the administrative area of Greater London, governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority.

As one of the world's major global cities, London exerts a strong influence on world art, entertainment, fashion, commerce, finance, education, healthcare, media, science, technology, tourism, transport and communications. London is Europe's largest city economy and one of the world's major financial centres. London hosts Europe's largest concentration of higher education institutions, comprising over 50 universities and colleges and enrolling more than 500,000 students as at 2023. It is home to several of the world's leading academic institutions: Imperial College London, internationally recognised for its excellence in natural and applied sciences, and University College London (UCL), a comprehensive research-intensive university, consistently rank among the top ten globally. Other notable institutions include King's College London (KCL), highly regarded in law, humanities and health sciences; the London School of Economics (LSE), globally prominent in social sciences and economics; and specialised institutions such as the Royal College of Art (RCA), Royal Academy of Music (RAM), the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and London Business School (LBS). It is the most-visited city in Europe and has the world's busiest city airport system. The London Underground is the world's oldest rapid transit system.

New Hampshire (/ˈhæmpʃər/ HAMP-shər) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Of the 50 U.S. states, New Hampshire is the seventh-smallest by land area and the tenth-least populous, with a population of 1,377,529 residents as of the 2020 census. Concord is the state capital and Manchester is the most populous city. New Hampshire's motto, "Live Free or Die", reflects its role in the American Revolutionary War; its nickname, "The Granite State", refers to its extensive granite formations and quarries. It is well known for holding the first primary in the U.S. presidential election cycle, and its resulting influence on American electoral politics.

New Hampshire was inhabited for thousands of years by Algonquian-speaking peoples such as the Abenaki. Europeans arrived in the 17th century, with the English establishing some of the earliest non-indigenous settlements. The Province of New Hampshire was established in 1629, named after the English county of Hampshire. Following tensions between the British colonies and the crown in the 1760s, New Hampshire saw one of the earliest acts of rebellion, with the seizing of Fort William and Mary from the British in 1774. In 1776, it became the first of the British North American colonies to establish an independent government and state constitution. It signed the United States Declaration of Independence and contributed troops, ships, and supplies in the war against Britain. In 1788, it was the 9th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, bringing it into effect. Through the mid-19th century, New Hampshire was an active center of abolitionism, and fielded close to 32,000 Union soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. Afterwards the state saw rapid industrialization and population growth, becoming a center of textile manufacturing, shoemaking, and papermaking; the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester was the largest cotton textile plant in the world. French Canadians formed the most significant influx of immigrants, and a quarter of New Hampshire residents have French American ancestry.

The table displays the 31 smallest of the cities in the United Kingdom across three measures. Most of these appear in all three of the following categories:

• Area (body): This default sort ranks the physically smallest 23 local government areas (parish/community, district, county) and if missing, a built-up locality that has city status
• Area (locale): 24 cities with the smallest same-name built-up area (many cities have much countryside and multiple settlements within their boundaries)
• Census population: 24 cities around 100,000 residents and fewer since the 2001 census

Lichfield, Hereford and Salisbury, in addition to being some of the smallest cities in England, are among the most populous civil parishes.

The constitutional status of Cornwall has been a matter of debate and dispute. Cornwall (Cornish: Kernow) is currently an administrative county of England, with movements advocating for Cornwall to be regarded separately from being a county of England and either as a country of the United Kingdom or an independent country in its own right.

In ethnic and cultural terms, until around 1700, Cornwall and its inhabitants were regarded as a separate people by their English neighbours. One aspect of the distinct identity of Cornwall is the Cornish language, which survived into the early modern period (down to 5,000 speakers in the 18th century) but was then revived in the 20th Century.

The Pas-de-Calais (French: [pɑ d(ə) kalɛ] , 'strait of Calais'; Picard: Pas-Calés; Dutch: Nauw van Calais) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments of France, with 890, and is the 8th most populous. It had a population of 1,465,278 in 2019. The Calais Passage connects to the Port of Calais on the English Channel. The Pas-de-Calais borders the departments of Nord and Somme and is connected to the English county of Kent via the Channel Tunnel.

The subdivisions of England constitute a hierarchy of administrative divisions and non-administrative ceremonial areas.

Overall, England is divided into nine regions and 48 ceremonial counties, although these have only a limited role in public policy. For the purposes of local government, the country is divided into counties, districts and parishes. In some areas, counties and districts form a two-tier administrative structure, while in others they are combined under a unitary authority. Parishes cover only part of England.

The term home counties describes a number of English counties close to London. There is no precise definition, but the counties bordering London are most likely to be described as members, namely: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent and Surrey.

Other counties farther from London – Bedfordshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, East Sussex and West Sussex – are sometimes also regarded as home counties, due to their proximity to London and connection to its regional economy.

The Forest of Dean (Forest of Dean English: Vorest o’ Dean) is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.

The area is characterised by more than 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) of mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largest crown forest in England, after the New Forest, 105 kilometres (65 mi) to the southeast. Although the name is used loosely to refer to the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a much smaller area since the Middle Ages. In 1327, it was defined to cover only the royal demesne and parts of parishes within the hundred of St Briavels, and after 1668 comprised the royal demesne only. The Forest proper is within the civil parishes of West Dean, Lydbrook, Cinderford, Ruspidge, and Drybrook, together with a strip of land in the parish of English Bicknor.

The Kingdom of the East Saxons (Old English: Ēastseaxna rīce; Latin: Regnum Orientalium Saxonum), referred to as the Kingdom of Essex /ˈɛsɪks/, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was founded in the 6th century and covered the territory later occupied by the counties of Essex, Middlesex, much of Hertfordshire and (for a short while) west Kent. The last king of Essex was Sigered of Essex, who in 825 ceded the kingdom to Ecgberht, King of Wessex.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).