Select the County you require from the Regional Arms below and the other Local Authorities within the chosen region will be displayed. In either case you will be able to search downwards through the areas to the towns, communities and villages below. Follow this link if you wish to find a city or this link to find a town, or other community.
There are a few 'counties' that you will not find here, such as Omagh. These areas are now 'Unitary Authorities', forming the upper level of two-tier local government in the United Kingdom. You will now find the places listed with the other Unitary Authorities. This list comprises only those locations that have retained local government status.
These counties are either extinct or no longer have local authority administrative powers having being absorbed into other authorities.
Click the County Arms or County name for further details, maps, pictures and links about each county.
A County was an important territorial political division. Many of the names of the Counties are suffixed by the word "shire" recording for posterity that they were once controlled on behalf of the sovereign by a 'Shire Reeve' or Sheriff, the most famous of all being the "Sheriff of Nottingham" in the Tales of Robin Hood. Many of the counties can trace their origin back around 1000 years to the time of the Conquest and the Doomsday Book of King William I. As a result of the Doomsday survey William granted much of the land to the control of his followers in his name and although the name 'County' could be connected to the fact that some of them were Counts most were actually Earls.
After the granting of the lands the Counts and Earls proceeded to build castles roughly in the centre of their new lands and it is around these castles that the county towns grew up. Markets, Law Courts; originally within the castle as some still are, and other administrative services became established.
All counties represented the administrative sub divisions of the nation until the end of the Victorian period and many have continued to survive as Local Authority administrative areas to the present day. Counties themselves are further sub-divided into Boroughs and Districts some of which are Metropolitan Boroughs and Metropolitan Districts.
