North West England

North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,417,397 in 2021. It is the third-most-populated region in the United Kingdom, after the South East and Greater London. The largest settlements are Manchester and Liverpool. It is one of the three regions, alongside North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber, that make up Northern England.

Subdivisions

The official region consists of the following subdivisions:
The region has the following sub-divisions:
After abolition of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside County Councils in 1986, power was transferred to the metropolitan boroughs, making them equivalent to unitary authorities. In April 2011, Greater Manchester gained a top-tier administrative body in the form of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which means the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs are once again second-tier authorities.

Geography

North West England is bounded to the east by the Pennines and to the west by the Irish Sea. The region extends from the Scottish Borders in the north to the West Midlands region in the south. To its southwest is North Wales. Amongst the better known of the North West's physiographical features are the Lake District and the Cheshire Plain. The highest point in North West England is Scafell Pike, Cumbria, at a height of.
Windermere is the largest natural lake in England, while Broad Crag Tarn on Broad Crag is England's highest lake. Wast Water is England's deepest lake, being 74 metres deep.
A mix of rural and urban landscape, two large conurbations, centred on Liverpool and Manchester, occupy much of the south of the region. The north of the region, comprising Cumbria and northern Lancashire, is largely rural, as is the far south which encompasses parts of the Cheshire Plain and Peak District.
The region includes parts of three National parks and three areas of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Weather

Weather in this part of England is typically classified as maritime, moist and temperate, with a moderate annual temperature range. Average annual precipitation in the UK typically ranges from approximately 800 mm to 1,400 mm. Temperatures are generally close to the national average. Cumbria usually experiences the most severe weather, with high precipitation in the mountainous regions of the Lake District and Pennines. In winter, the most severe weather occurs in the more exposed and elevated areas of the North West, once again mainly the Lake District and Pennine areas.

Demographics

Population, density, and settlements

Source: Office for National Statistics Mid Year Population Estimates in 2008

Region/County	Population	Population Density	Largest town/city	Largest urban area
Greater Manchester	2,629,400	2,016/km²	Manchester	Greater Manchester Urban Area
Lancashire	1,449,600	468/km²	Blackpool	Preston/Chorley/Leyland Urban Area
Merseyside	1,353,600	2,118/km²	Liverpool	Liverpool Urban Area
Cheshire	1,003,600	424/km²	Warrington	Warrington
Cumbria	496,200	73/km²	Carlisle	Carlisle

North West England's population accounts for just over 13% of England's overall population. 37.86% of the North West's population resides in Greater Manchester, 21.39% in Lancashire, 20.30% in Merseyside, 14.76% in Cheshire and 7.41% live in the largest county by area, Cumbria.

Ethnicity

According to 2009 Office for National Statistics estimates, 91.6% of people in the region describe themselves as 'White': 88.4% White British, 1.0% White Irish and 2.2% White Other. During the Industrial Revolution hundreds of thousands of Welsh people migrated to the North West of England to work in the coal mines. Parts with notably high populations with Welsh ancestry as a result of this include Liverpool, Chester, Skelmersdale, Widnes, Halewood, Wallasey, Ashton-in-Makerfield and Birkenhead.
The Mixed Race population makes up 1.3% of the region's population. There are 323,800 South Asians, making up 4.7% of the population, and 1.1% Black. 0.6% of the population are Chinese and 0.5% of people belong to another ethnic group.
North West England is a very diverse region, with Manchester and Liverpool amongst the most diverse cities in Europe. 19.4% of Blackburn with Darwen's population are Muslim, the third-highest among all local authorities in the United Kingdom and the highest outside London. Areas such as Moss Side in Greater Manchester are home to a 30%+ Black British population. In contrast, the town of St. Helens in Merseyside, unusually for a city area, has a very low percentage of ethnic minorities with 98% identifying as White British. The City of Liverpool, over 800 years old, is one of the few places in Britain where ethnic minority populations can be traced back over dozens of generations: being the closest major city in England to Ireland, it is home to a significant ethnic Irish population, with the city being home to one of the first ever Afro-Caribbean communities in the UK, as well as the oldest Chinatown in Europe.

Place of birth

The table below is not how many people belong to each ethnic group. The proportion of people residing in North West England born outside the UK was 11.7% in 2021, compared with 8.2% in 2011 and 5.1% in 2001. Below are the fifteen largest overseas-born groups in the region according to the 2021 census, alongside the two previous censuses:
File:Jodrell Bank.jpg|thumb|right|The Jodrell Bank Lovell 76-m radio telescope in Lower Withington, built in August 1957, is the world's third largest steerable telescope, and was the largest until 1971. It was designed by Sheffield's Sir Charles Husband and built of steel from Scunthorpe

Place of birth

2021

2011

2001

Pakistan

Religion

One in five of the population in the North West is Catholic, a result of large-scale Irish emigration in the nineteenth century as well as the high number of English recusants in Lancashire.

Social deprivation

Of the nine regions of England, the North West has the fourth-highest GVA per capita—the highest outside southern England. Despite this the region has above average multiple deprivation with wealth heavily concentrated on very affluent areas like rural Cheshire, rural Lancashire, and south Cumbria. As measured by the Indices of deprivation 2007, the region has many more Lower Layer Super Output Areas in the 20% most deprived districts than the 20% least deprived council districts. Only North East England shows more indicators of deprivation than the North West, but the number of affluent areas in the North West is very similar to Yorkshire and the Humber.
The most deprived local authority areas in the region are, in descending order—Liverpool, Manchester, Knowsley, Blackpool, Salford, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Rochdale, Barrow-in-Furness, Halton, Hyndburn, Oldham, Pendle, St Helens, Preston, Bolton, Tameside, Wirral, Wigan, Copeland, Sefton, and Rossendale.
In 2007 when Cheshire still had district councils, the least deprived council districts in the region by council district, in descending order, were—Congleton, Ribble Valley, Macclesfield, and South Lakeland. These areas have Conservative MPs, except South Lakeland has a Lib Dem and Labour MPs. At county level, before it was split into two, Cheshire was the least deprived, followed by Trafford, and by Warrington and Stockport.
In March 2011, the overall unemployment claimant count was 4.2% for the region. Inside the region the highest was Liverpool with 6.8%, followed by Knowsley on 6.3%, Halton with 5.5% and Rochdale with 5.1%. The lowest claimant count is in Eden and Ribble Valley each with 1.3%, followed by South Lakeland with 1.4%.

Elections

In the 2019 general election, the Conservatives gained ten seats, from the Labour Party, with no other seats changing hands. Labour held 42 of their 52 seats, albeit many with slimmed down majorities. They remain the dominant party in the region by seat count, with the Conservatives total now standing at 27. The Conservatives made two gains in Cheshire, three gains in Lancashire, five gains in Greater Manchester, notably including Andy Burnham's former seat of Leigh.
In the 2017 general election, the area was dominated by the Labour Party. Fifty-five per cent of the region's electorate voted Labour, 36.3% Conservative, 5.4% Liberal Democrat, 1.9% UKIP and 1.1% Greens; however, by number of parliamentary seats, Labour have 54, the Conservatives have 20, and the Liberal Democrats have 1. The Lib Dems' North West seat is in south Cumbria; Labour dominates Greater Manchester, and the Conservatives' vote is concentrated in affluent suburban areas such as Cheadle, Hazel Grove and Altrincham and Sale West. Labour seats also predominate in Merseyside. In Cheshire the 2015 result was reversed, with Labour winning seven seats and the Conservatives four, whilst Lancashire is competitive between Labour and Conservative ; the Labour seats in Lancashire are concentrated in the south of the county along the M65. For the region, the Labour gained 3 seats; there was a 5.2% swing from Conservative to Labour.
In the 2015 general election, Liverpool Walton was the safest seat in the UK, with a 72% majority, and in 2017 this was repeated with a 77% majority for Dan Carden, when an astonishing 85.7% of the electorate voted for him. In the by-election of 2012, Manchester Central has the record for the lowest turnout in the UK—18%. Gwyneth Dunwoody, for Crewe and Nantwich, was the longest serving female MP until her death in 2008.
In the final European Elections in the UK in 2019, 31.23% voted for the Brexit Party, with Labour polling 21.91%, the Liberal Democrats 17.15% and the Green Party 12.48%. The Conservatives came fifth in the region with 7.55% of votes cast.