England Counties for Lori

[Vivienne O'Regan]

No: HPFGUIDX 2406

On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 22:26:03 +0100 "Simon Branford"
<simon.branford at hertford.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

>Yes. West Midlands is a county.
>Hereford and Worcester is I believe two counties but has been one 
>in its past (i.e. in the map I am using).
>Yorkshire is in fact 3 counties - North, South and West Yorkshire.
>Those were the only mistakes that I spotted.


As Pam Scruton has said the boundaries of English counties are moved
about seemingly on whim. Sussex is also designated as East & West.

West Midlands is where the city of Birmingham is located.

At some point in the past Coventry, was designated as being in West
Midlands making a rather odd sensation when you exit and enter
Warwickshire on entering and exiting Coventry.

However, this sort of government map redrawing is never particularly
welcomed by people living in such areas and colloquial names for 
regions, such as the 'Black Country' tend to stick. Plus, of course 
the motorway signs 'The Midlands', 'The North', 'The South', 'The 
South West'.

And lets not forget post codes much more confusing than America zip
codes. For example, Coventry, West Midlands and its surrounding
Warwickshire towns have 'CV' prefixed postcodes. However, other
Warwickshire & Staffordshire towns have a 'B' for Birmingham prefix 
code.


Vivienne