County Durham
Geography
Status:	Ceremonial county, Administrative county (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 (2002 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 24th 810,191 303 / km² Ranked 27th 492,313
Ethnicity:	98.6% White
Politics
Durham County Council http://www.durham.gov.uk/
Executive:	Labour
Members of Parliament
Hilary Armstrong, Tony Blair, Frank Cook, John Cummings, Derek Foster, Kevan Jones, Peter Mandelson, Alan Milburn, Gerry Steinberg, Dari Taylor
Districts
Durham Easington Sedgefield Teesdale Wear Valley Derwentside Chester-le-Street Hartlepool (Unitary) Darlington (Unitary) Stockton-on-Tees (Unitary) (the part north of the Tees)

County Durham is a county in north-east England, with an area of 2,258 km² and an estimated population (November 2002) of 486,000.

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

The county traditionally extends to the south bank of the River Tyne and included 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. The county town is Durham. It had several exclaves, including Bedlingtonshire, Norhamshire, Islandshire (incorporated into Northumberland in the 1844), and Crayke, now in North Yorkshire.

Geographically, 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 River Tyne/River Derwent in the north. It borders on the ceremonial counties of North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.

Administration

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 and Hartlepool have not been returned to Durham, except for the purposes of Lord-Lieutanancy.

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

• Derwentside with principle towns of Consett and Stanley.
• Chester-le-Street, which also includes Sacriston.
• The City of Durham
• Easington, which includes the new town of Peterlee.
• Sedgefield, which also includes Spennymoor.
• Wear Valley, with major towns of Crook, Bishop Auckland and Willington, plus the villages along Weardale, the upper valley of the River Wear.
• Teesdale, with the major town of Barnard Castle and the villages of Teesdale, the upper valley of the River Tees.

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.

In May 2004 options for regional government were published which may see the end of the districts as currently set up or of the county council.

Towns and villages

This is an incomplete list: towns and villages listed below are those for which an article exists. The area covered is the entire ceremonial county, hence the inclusion of towns which are no longer administered by Durham County Council.

• Anfield Plain
• Barnard Castle
• Billingham
• Bishop Auckland
• Brabble
• Burnhope
• Catchgate
• Chester-le-Street
• Consett
• Craghead
• Darlington
• Durham
• Easington
• Gainford
• Hartlepool
• Lanchester
• Newton Aycliffe
• No Place
• Peterlee
• Seaham
• Sedgefield
• Shotley Bridge
• Spennymoor
• Stanley
• Stockton-on-Tees
• Tanfield
• Willington

Places of interest

• Beamish museum in Stanley
• Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle
• Durham Cathedral and Castle, a World Heritage Site
• High Force and Low Force waterfalls on the River Tees
• Tanfield Railway in Tanfield

Options for change

On 25 May 2004 the Boundary Committee for England published its final recommendations for systems of unitary authorities to be implemented if proposals for elected regional assemblies are approved by referendums in the three northern Regions of England. They put forward two options for each county council area, which the electorate will be asked to choose between at the same time as the assembly referendums.

For County Durham the options are

• 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 North Durham East Durham

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