page_title: South West England
section_title: Economy and industry
hierarchical_section_title: South West England / Economy and industry
context_page_description: South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, and consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Wiltshire, as well as the Isles of Scilly. Five million people live in South West England.
  The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex. The largest city is Bristol. Other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Torbay, and the South East Dorset conurbation which includes Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch. There are eight cities: Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth and Truro. It includes two entire national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor; and four World Heritage Sites: Stonehenge, the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, the Jurassic Coast and the City of Bath. The northern part of Gloucestershire, near Chipping Campden, is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the tip of Cornwall. The region has by far the longest coastline of any English region.
  The region is at the first level of NUTS for Eurostat purposes.
context_section_description: The most economically productive areas within the region are Bristol, the M4 corridor and south east Dorset, which are the areas with the best links to London. Bristol alone accounts for a quarter of the region's economy, with the surrounding areas of Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire accounting for a further quarter.
  Bristol's economy has been built on maritime trade, including the import of tobacco and the slave trade. Since the early 20th century, however, aeronautics have taken over as the basis of Bristol's economy, with companies including Airbus UK, Rolls-Royce (military division) and BAE Systems (former Bristol Aeroplane Company then BAC) manufacturing in Filton. Defence Equipment and Support is at MoD Abbey Wood. More recently defence, telecommunications, information technology and electronics have been important industries in Bristol, Swindon and elsewhere. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, the Soil Association, Clerical Medical, and Bristol Water are in Bristol; Indesit makes tumble dryers in Yate; HP and Infineon Technologies UK are at Stoke Gifford. Knorr-Bremse UK make air brakes in Emersons Green. The South West Observatory's Economy Module provides a detailed analysis of the region's economy.
  The region's Gross value added (GVA) breaks down as 69.9% service industry, 28.1% production industry and 2.0% agriculture.  This is a slightly higher proportion in production, and lower proportion in services, than the UK average.  Agriculture, though in decline, is important in many parts of the region.  Dairy farming is especially important in Dorset and Devon, and the region has 1.76 million cattle, second to only one other UK region, and 3,520 square miles (9,117 km²) of grassland, more than any other region.  Only 5.6% of the region's agriculture is arable.
  Tourism is important in the region, and in 2003 the tourist sector contributed £4,928 million to the region's economy.
  In 2001 the GVA of the hotel industry was £2,200 million, and the region had 13,800 hotels with 250,000 bed spaces.
  There are large differences in prosperity between the eastern parts of the region and the west.  While Bristol is the second most affluent large city in England after London, parts of Cornwall have among the lowest average incomes in Northern Europe.
  The region's Manufacturing Advisory Service is on the A38 north of Gloucester at Twigworth, and the UKTI office is at the Leigh Court Business Centre in Abbots Leigh, North Somerset.
caption: Since the decline of mining, Cornwall's economy has been reliant on agriculture and tourism
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