Guest Blog by Ian Thirkettle
Following on from the last blog about multiple “right” answers…….
At a recent quiz night, we had the question; How many counties are there in England?
So, we sat there and drew a vague map of England and started putting in circles for each county. We got to thirty quite easy and then slowly crept up. I think we ended on thirty-three, after some discussion on how many Yorkshires or Sussexes there were.
We were quite surprised when the answer was twenty-seven. How can it be twenty-seven, when we had a list of thirty-three counties!
After the quiz I did a search to find out where twenty-seven came from.
Twenty-seven was there on various wikis as were other numbers like forty eight but lists were hard to find. My curiosity was well and truly piqued. So, after a lot of digging, I think I have the answer. It’s all to do Ceremonial counties, Administrative counties and Unitary authority areas. Its all to do with the Local Government Act 1972.
Counties can be defined as;
Looking at the map above you can see the different coloured areas. These counties are
2 Buckinghamshire 19 Lincolnshire
3 Cambridgeshire 20 Norfolk
6 Cumbria 21 North Yorkshire
7 Derbyshire 22 Northamptonshire
8 Devon 24 Nottinghamshire
9 Dorset 25 Oxfordshire
11 East Sussex 27 Somerset
12 Essex 28 Staffordshire
13 Gloucestershire 29 Suffolk
14 Hampshire 30 Surrey
15 Hertfordshire 31 Warwickshire
16 Kent 32 West Sussex
17 Lancashire 34 Worcestershire
18 Leicestershire
All the other traditional counties are variations of unitary areas.
So this is where the idea of twenty-seven counties comes from…..but this does not feel like the right answer……
When you say counties I think everyone thinks of geographical counties, or ceremonial counties. These are specified in the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as “counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies in Great Britain”. These are shown on maps as;
1 Bedfordshire 25 Lancashire
2 Berkshire 26 Leicestershire
3 Bristol 27 Lincolnshire
4 Buckinghamshire 28 Merseyside
5 Cambridgeshire 29 Norfolk
6 Cheshire 30 North Yorkshire
7 City of London 31 Northamptonshire
8 Cornwall 32 Northumberland
9 Cumbria 33 Nottinghamshire
10 Derbyshire 34 Oxfordshire
11 Devon 35 Rutland
12 Dorset 36 Shropshire
13 Durham 37 Somerset
14 East Riding of Yorkshire 38 South Yorkshire
15 East Sussex 39 Staffordshire
16 Essex 40 Suffolk
17 Gloucestershire 41 Surrey
18 Greater London 42 Tyne and Wear
19 Greater Manchester 43 Warwickshire
20 Hampshire 44 West Midlands
21 Herefordshire 45 West Sussex
22 Hertfordshire 46 West Yorkshire
23 Isle of Wight 47 Wiltshire
24 Kent 48 Worcestershire
This is the forty-eight counties that are mentioned in some articles.
In summary
I think the question was badly worded.
They should have indicated if it was administrative or geographical number of counties they wanted as an answer.
But even then, giving the right answer is still a quagmire…….
For the geographical counties I don’t think Greater London, Greater Manchester, City of London, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear or Isle of Wight should be included. I would also lump the Yorkshires together and the Sussexes.
What do you think?