County Durham

County Durham
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Geography
Status:	Both ceremonial and administrative, though the latter is smaller.
Region:	North East England
Area: - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 19th 2,676 km² Ranked 23rd 2,226 km²
Admin HQ:	Durham
ISO 3166-2:	GB-DUR
ONS code:	20
NUTS 3:	UKC14
Demographics
Population: - Total (2003 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 23rd 868,813 319 / km² Ranked 27th 494,159
Ethnicity:	98.6% White
Politics
Durham County Council http://www.durham.gov.uk/
Executive:	Labour
Members of Parliament
Hilary Armstrong, Roberta Blackman-Woods, Tony Blair, Frank Cook, John Cummings, Helen Goodman, Kevan Jones, Alan Milburn, Dari Taylor, Iain Wright
Districts
City of Durham Easington Sedgefield Teesdale Wear Valley Derwentside Chester-le-Street Hartlepool (unitary) Darlington (unitary) Stockton-on-Tees (unitary)^* * Only the part of the borough to the north of the River Tees is within the ceremonial County Durham.

County Durham is a county in north-east England. Its county town is Durham. It is a county of contrasts: the remote and sparsely populated dales and moors of the Pennines characterise the interior; while nearer the coast the county is highly urbanised, and was once dominated by the coal mining industry.

Contents

1 The name

2 Geographical extent

2.1 Traditional county
2.2 Ceremonial county
2.3 Administrative county

2.3.1 Options for change

3 Settlements

4 Places of interest

5 External links

The name

The form of the county name is unique in England. Many counties are named after their principal town, but the expected form here would be Durhamshire. The reason it is called County Durham instead is that the Prince-Bishops of Durham historically exercised power in regions outside the county as well, so the inner part was named County Durham as opposed to the rest of the estate of Durham. Note that the form County X is standard for Irish counties, with no such significance.

Geographical extent

County Durham is roughly bounded by the watershed of the Pennines in the west, the River Tees in the south, the North Sea in the east and the Rivers Tyne and Derwent in the north. The name County Durham, however, is used to refer to three distinct entities: the traditional, ceremonial, and administrative counties.

Traditional county

The county traditionally extends to the south bank of the River Tyne and includes Sunderland, South Shields, and Gateshead. It borders the counties of Cumberland, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. The east of the county between the Ryhope district of Sunderland and Seaton Carew in Hartlepool is the coastline of the North Sea. Several exclaves have existed in the county's history, including Bedlingtonshire, Norhamshire, Islandshire (incorporated into Northumberland in 1844), and Crayke, now in North Yorkshire. Startforth Rural District is traditionally part of the North Riding of Yorkshire. The modern unitary authorities of Hartlepool, Darlington, and Stockton-on-Tees are part of the traditional County Durham.

Ceremonial county

Durham County Council was established along with all the other English county councils in 1888. Major local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 created the metropolitan boroughs of Sunderland, South Tyneside and Gateshead out of County Durham into the newly established county of Tyne and Wear. At the same time, the new county of Cleveland took out Stockton-on-Tees and Hartlepool. County Durham did however gain the rural district of Startforth south of the River Tees near to Barnard Castle. Since then, Cleveland has been abolished, but Stockton-on-Tees and Hartlepool have not been returned to Durham, except for the purposes of Lord-Lieutanancy. County Durham borders on the ceremonial counties of North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.

Administrative county

The present Durham County Council administers the area of the ceremonial county, with the exception of Hartlepool, Darlington, and Stockton-on-Tees, which are unitary authorities.

The county is divided into seven local government districts, they are:

The City of Durham
Easington, including the new town of Peterlee.
Sedgefield, including Spennymoor.
Teesdale, including Barnard Castle and the villages of Teesdale, including the former Startforth Rural District.
Wear Valley, including Crook, Bishop Auckland and Willington, and the villages along Weardale.
Derwentside, including Consett and Stanley.
Chester-le-Street, including Sacriston.

On 1 April 1997, the town of Darlington with its population of 100,000 became a unitary authority and thus separate from County Durham. It continues to share a police and fire service with the county.

Options for change

In May 2004 options for regional government were published which, if adopted, would have resulted in the removal of four of the districts from Durham County Council's jurisdiction to form two unitary authorities, and the abolition of the three remaining borough councils to make County Durham a unitary authority in its own right. This did not eventually occur.

On 4 November 2004 a referendum was held on proposals to introduce an elected regional assembly for the North East of England. At the same time as this, the electorate was asked to choose between two options for the organisation of local government below the regional tier. The assembly proposal was rejected overwhelmingly, making the question of unitary authorities in County Durham moot. For further information on the assembly referendum, see Northern England referendums, 2004.

For County Durham the options were:

a single authority for the existing County Council area
three authorities for the existing County Council area

Option 1	Option 2
Hartlepool Stockton-on-Tees Darlington Durham County Council	Hartlepool Stockton-on-Tees Darlington South Durham (Sedgefield, Teesdale and Wear Valley) North Durham (Chester-le-Street and Derwentside) East Durham (Durham and Easington)

Settlements

For a complete list of settlements see list of places in County Durham.

This is an list of the main towns in County Durham. The area covered is the entire ceremonial county, hence the inclusion of towns which are no longer administered by Durham County Council.

Places of interest

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Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland Missing image
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Historic house
Barnard Castle Missing image
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English Heritage

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Historic house
Beamish museum in Stanley Missing image
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Accessible open space

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Museum (charges for entry)

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Heritage railway
Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle Missing image
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Museum (charges for entry)

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Historic house
Durham Cathedral and Castle, a World Heritage Site
Escomb Saxon Church, near Bishop Auckland
Finchale Priory, near Durham city Missing image
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English Heritage
High Force and Low Force waterfalls on the River Tees Missing image
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Accessible open space
Raby Castle, near Staindrop
Tanfield Railway in Tanfield Missing image
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Heritage railway