Lancashire

Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The largest settlement is the city of Preston.
The county has an area of and had a population of in. Preston and Blackburn are located near the centre, Burnley in the east, the seaside resort of Blackpool on the Irish Sea coast in the west, and the city of Lancaster in the north. For local government purposes the county comprises a non-metropolitan county, with twelve districts, and two unitary authority areas: Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool. Lancashire County Council and the two unitary councils collaborate through the Lancashire Combined County Authority. The county historically included the Furness and Cartmel peninsulas of Cumbria, northern Greater Manchester and Merseyside, and Warrington, but excluded the eastern part of the Forest of Bowland.
The west of Lancashire contains flat coastal plains: the West Lancashire coastal plain to the south and the Fylde in the centre. The north-western coast is hilly and contains part of Arnside and Silverdale, a national landscape. The east of the county is upland, with the West Pennine Moors in the south-east and the Forest of Bowland in the north-east; Bowland has also been designated a national landscape. The major rivers of the county are, from north to south, the Lune, the Wyre, and the Ribble, which all flow west into the Irish Sea. The highest point in Lancashire is either Gragareth or Green Hill, both approximately high and located in the far north-east of the county.
Lancashire was founded in the 12th century; in the Domesday Book of 1086 much of what would become the county is treated as part of Yorkshire and Cheshire. Until the Early Modern period the county was a comparatively poor backwater, although in 1351 it became a palatine, with a semi-independent judicial system. This changed during the Industrial Revolution, when the county rapidly industrialised; until 1974 it included both Liverpool, a major port, and Manchester, which with its surrounding towns dominated the manufacture of textiles. The Lancashire coalfield was also exploited, with many collieries opening. By 1971 Lancashire had a population of 5,118,405, which made it the most heavily populated county in the United Kingdom after Greater London.

History

Before the county

During Roman times the area was part of the Brigantes tribal area in the military zone of Roman Britain. The towns of Manchester, Lancaster, Ribchester, Burrow, Elslack and Castleshaw grew around Roman forts. In the centuries after the Roman withdrawal in 410 AD the northern parts of the county probably formed part of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor entity to the Brigantes tribe. During the mid-8th century, the area was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria from the north of the River Ribble and the Kingdom of Mercia from the south, which both became parts of England in the 10th century.
In the Domesday Book, land between the Ribble and Mersey were known as Inter Ripam et Mersam and included in the returns for Cheshire. Although some historians consider this to mean south Lancashire was then part of Cheshire, it is by no means certain. It is also claimed that the territory to the north formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Early history

The county was established in 1182, and came to be bordered by Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire. It was divided into the hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale, Salford and West Derby. Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, the detached part north of the sands of Morecambe Bay including Furness and Cartmel, and Lonsdale South.

Victorian era to late 20th century

Since the Victorian era, Lancashire has had multiple reforms of local government. In 1889, the administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the greater part of the county. Multiple county boroughs were outside the county council control: Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn, Bolton, Bootle, Burnley, Bury, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, St. Helens, and Wigan. The area served by the Lord-Lieutenant covered the entirety of the administrative county and the county boroughs. It expanded whenever boroughs annexed areas in neighbouring counties such as Wythenshawe in Manchester south of the River Mersey and from Cheshire, and southern Warrington. It did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the ancient border between Lancashire and Yorkshire passes through the middle of the town.
During the 20th century, the county became increasingly urban with Warrington, Blackpool and Southport becoming county boroughs, with many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were particularly complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs – Lees Urban District formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Lancaster, the historic county town, became a city in 1937.
The administrative county was also the most populous of its type outside London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. By the census of 1971, the population of Lancashire and its county boroughs had reached 5,129,416, making it the most populous geographic county in the UK.

Post-1974

On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the local government structure of Lancashire was reorganised. The south-east of the county became part of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester and the south-west became part of the metropolitan county of Merseyside; Widnes and Warrington in the south were transferred to Cheshire. In the north, the non-metropolitan county of Cumbria incorporated the Furness exclave.
The remainder of Lancashire was reconstituted as a non-metropolitan county with thirteen districts. It included some areas formerly in the West Riding of Yorkshire, namely the urban districts of Barnoldswick and Earby, Bowland Rural District, and the parishes of Bracewell and Brogden and Salterforth from Skipton Rural District.
In 1994, the parish of Simonswood was transferred from the borough of Knowsley in Merseyside to the district of West Lancashire. In 1998, Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen became unitary authorities, removing them from the non-metropolitan county but not from the ceremonial county.

Geography

Geology, landscape, and ecology

The three main rivers of Lancashire are, from north to south, the Lune, the Wyre, and the Ribble, which all flow west into the Irish Sea. The Lune rises in Cumbria, before entering Lancashire and flowing through Lancaster. The Wyre rises in Bowland and flows west then south, turning west again across the Fylde and then north as it broadens into its estuary west of Fleetwood. The Ribble rises in North Yorkshire, and flows south-west through Lancashire past Clitheroe and Preston before broadening into the Ribble Estuary. Many of Lancashire's other rivers are tributaries of the Ribble, including the Calder, Darwen, Douglas, and Hodder. The Irwell, which flows through Manchester, has its source in Lancashire.
To the west of the county are the Fylde coastal plain and West Lancashire coastal plain, which lie north and south of the Ribble Estuary respectively. Apart from the coastal resorts these areas are largely rural and devoted to vegetable crops. Further north is Morecambe Bay. In the northwest corner of the county, straddling the border with Cumbria, is the Arnside and Silverdale National Landscape, characterised by its limestone pavements and home to the Leighton Moss nature reserve.
In the east of the county are upland areas leading to the Pennines. North of the Ribble are Beacon Fell Country Park and the Forest of Bowland, another National Landscape. Much of the lowland in this area is devoted to dairy farming and cheesemaking, whereas the higher ground is more suitable for sheep, and the highest ground is uncultivated moorland. The valleys of the River Ribble and its tributary the Calder form a large gap to the west of the Pennines, overlooked by Pendle Hill. South of the Ribble are the West Pennine Moors and the Forest of Rossendale, where former cotton mill towns are in deep valleys. The Lancashire Coalfield, largely in modern-day Greater Manchester, extended into Merseyside and to Ormskirk, Chorley, Burnley and Colne in Lancashire.
The highest point of the ceremonial county is Gragareth, near Whernside, which reaches a height of 627 m. Green Hill near Gragareth has also been cited as the "county" top. The highest point in the historic county is Coniston Old Man in the Lake District, at 803 m.

Human geography

The north of the ceremonial county is less densely populated than the south, especially inland. The Fylde coast is continuously built-up from Lytham St Annes to Fleetwood, including Blackpool, and further north Lancaster, Morecambe, and Heysham form a conurbation. The rest of the region is characterised by small towns and villages in the flat farmland surrounding the lower reaches of the Ribble, Wyre, and Lune and the sparsely populated uplands of the Forest of Bowland.
The centre and south-east of Lancashire are relatively urbanised, especially around the major settlements of Preston, Blackburn, and Burnley and near the border with Greater Manchester. The Central Lancashire urban area includes the city of Preston and the towns of Penwortham, Leyland and Chorley. A short distance east, Blackburn and Darwen are the first of several adjacent areas urban areas which continue east toward West Yorkshire and south into the valleys leading to Greater Manchester, the others being Accrington and Rossendale and Burnley. West Lancashire in the south-west is rural with the exception of Skelmersdale, which forms part of Wigan urban area.
The North West Green Belt covers a large part of the south and centre of the county to prevents the settlements there from converging both with each other and with the nearby Merseyside and Greater Manchester conurbations. It includes all of the non-urban areas in the boroughs of West Lancashire and South Ribble and the majority of Chorley; elsewhere it is less extensive, but covers the areas between the major settlements. There is a further area of green belt in the north of the county between Lancaster, Morecambe, and Carnforth.
The cities of Manchester, Salford, Liverpool and the following settlements within the historic county boundaries are currently in the ceremonial counties of West Yorkshire, Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cumbria:

To ceremonial	From historic Lancashire
Greater Manchester
Merseyside
Cumbria
Cheshire
West Yorkshire	Todmorden
From historic	To ceremonial Lancashire
West Riding of Yorkshire

Boundary changes before 1974 include:

Todmorden, split between Lancashire and Yorkshire then entirely to West Riding of Yorkshire in 1889
Mossley, split between Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire then entirely to Lancashire in 1889
Stalybridge, entirely to Cheshire in 1889
Areas such as Wythenshawe and Latchford, former county boroughs of Manchester and Warrington both extended south of the Mersey into historic Cheshire
areas such as Reddish and the Heatons, former county borough of Stockport extended north into historic Lancashire.