Metropolitan County
The metropolitan counties are a type of county-level administrative division of England. There are six metropolitan counties, which each cover large urban areas, typically with populations of 1.2 to 2.8 million. They were created in 1974 and are each divided into several metropolitan districts.
The metropolitan county councils were abolished in 1986 with most of their functions being devolved to the individual boroughs, making them de facto unitary authorities. The remaining functions were taken over by joint boards.
The metropolitan counties have population densities of between 800 (South Yorkshire) and 2800 (West Midlands) people/km². Individual metropolitan districts range from 4,000 people/km² in Liverpool to only 500 people/km² in Doncaster. Today, residents of metropolitan counties account for around 22% of the population of England, or 18% of the United Kingdom.
Read more about Metropolitan County: Counties and Districts
Famous quotes containing the words metropolitan and/or county:
“In metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I could draw Bloom County with my nose and pay my cleaning lady to write it, and I’d bet I wouldn’t lose 10% of my papers over the next twenty years. Such is the nature of comic-strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste.”
—Berkeley Breathed (b. 1957)